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Biden injects new momentum into filibuster fight
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Progressives are feeling emboldened after President Biden backed "fundamentally" changing the filibuster, adding a jolt of momentum into the entrenched Senate stalemate.
Biden's comments, made during a CNN town hall, come after weeks of activists and liberal lawmakers feeling frustrated that Biden wasn't leaning into the fight against the Senate rule, which is a major roadblock for many of his administration's priorities.
The remarks don't automatically change the math problem — Democrats don't have 50 votes for changes to filibuster right now — but they are the latest sign of growing pressure on Senate Democrats to reform the rule.
“We think this is a huge step forward and obviously a game changer,” Eli Zupnick, a spokesman for Fix Our Senate, told The Hill. “It would be a big disappointment if he made those comments at a town hall and didn’t follow up on them. I think the expectation and hope is that he follows up with significant pressure, public and private.”
Ezra Levin, a co-executive director of Indivisible, said Biden’s comments “builds up pressure for there to be some sort of come-to-Jesus moment after reconciliation.”
“He all but said, 'I will be pushing key holdouts,'” Levin added.
Biden has long appeared wary of nuking the rules of the Senate, where he served for decades. That’s frustrated progressives, who worry that without nixing, or at least significantly changing, the filibuster, which necessitates 60 votes for most legislation, much of the party's agenda is dead on arrival in the chamber.
Republicans, for example, blocked a revised election reform bill this week and are poised to block a voting rights bill named after the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) when it comes to the floor as soon as next week. Bipartisan talks on issues including police reform, immigration reform and expanded background checks have also unraveled as Democrats have struggled to come up with a deal that could get at least the 10 GOP votes needed to break a filibuster.
Biden had previously embraced the idea of a talking filibuster, where senators objecting to the bill must speak continuously from the Senate floor. But he went significantly further during his town hall in Baltimore.
“I propose we bring that back now, immediately,” Biden said about the talking filibuster before adding: “But I also think we're going to have to move to the point where we fundamentally alter the filibuster.”
Biden pointed to the recent fight over the debt ceiling, where Republicans threatened for weeks that they wouldn't help advance a debt hike before backtracking and providing 11 GOP votes for a short-term increase.
“If that gets pulled again, I think you are going to see an awful lot of Democrats being ready to say, not me. I'm not doing that again. We're going to end the filibuster. But it still is difficult to end the filibuster beyond that,” he said.
He added that he was “open to fundamentally altering” the legislative filibuster, including on voting rights and “maybe more.”
Biden’s remarks won immediate praise from progressives and activists.
“Glad to hear [Biden] call to bring back the talking filibuster. If Republicans want to block enormously popular policies like protections for our freedom to vote, they should have to hold the floor and do it in public,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), a longtime advocate for Senate rules reforms.
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