Progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) announced Wednesday that there are currently enough votes in the Senate to suspend the filibuster to codify Roe v. Wade and abortion rights if Democrats win control of the House and keep the Senate and White House.
“We will suspend the filibuster. We have the votes for that on Roe v. Wade,” Warren said on ABC’s “The View.”
She said if Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress in 2025, “the first vote Democrats will take in the Senate, the first substantive vote, will be to make Roe v. Wade law of the land again in America.”
It's not too late but they're not getting credit until they actually fucking do it and they deserve credit for just saying they want to do it without doing it.
(Edit: And to be clear the credit they're going to get would be credit for doing the bare minimum, long after they promised to do it, long after they had multiple opportunities to do it.)
They've only had a filibuster-proof majority once since 1980. They used it to pass the ACA (which should have included codifying Roe v Wade, among other things). It's not too late if we can elect enough willing Congress members.
This is a story about suspending the filibuster. Which they should have done in Obama's term instead of letting Lieberman dictate terms for the insurance industry.
Just for fun, I looked at the last 50 years to see WHEN they could have codified Roe. There were only 4 periods with dem trifectas:
-1977-81 senate majority 6
-1993-95 senate majorty 4
-2009-11 senate majority 9 (10 for a month)
-2021-23 senate majority 1
The senate majority is the number of senators you could loose who didn't want to get rid of the filibuster on this topic OR who were pro life (like Harry Reid, the senate majority leader from 2005 to 2017, though in the senate from 1987-2017)
The problem is the Dems have TWO conservative senators who refused to codify Roe. Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema both refused to suspend the filibuster.
So we did NOT have a filibuster-proof majority 2021-2023.
So ONLY 4 times when there was absolutely nothing standing in their way except themselves?
That they don't do what they promised on the rare occasions where they DO get the magic majorities they ask to get first isn't exactly a good argument in their favor..
I was at the beginning of my voting age when Obama came around with his "Yes we can" campaign. Turns out, no we couldn't. The corruption is too entrenched for any lasting progress to withstand the types of legalized bribery we have now. Biden is more of the same. Everyone knows it and is pissed off on both sides! The right has been hijacked by grifters and fascists. The left is desperately trying to squeeze out a few more good years. Yet the underlying problem of corruption remains steadfast. It would be nice to unify both sides and cut down those that are selling our country out.
I think Machinema opposed it then. Though if she says she's got 50 now, it requires at least one of them. They should have done this all in Obama's first term though.
You mean in the couple months that the democrats controlled all three branches of government in the past 20 years? During that time we got the ACA. Vote blue across the board in November to have a chance at getting all three branches blue again to actually accomplish something.
The USSC would just say that it’s unconstitutional at this point, even if they codify it into law.
Hell, they’d probably declare it unconstitutional even if it was a literal constitutional amendment, simply because it wasn’t one of the original amendments laid out in the bill of rights, thus also laying out the legal precedent for challenging literally any of the constitutional amendments that weren’t in the bill of rights.
As always, they are actually bound by the rules of our government. Checks and balances. They can't just do something, they need the numbers. They are stating their intent on what they'll do if voters give them the numbers.
Because it's entirely in voters hands now. There is no bipartisanship to be had. We need absolute majorities, even super majorities if we actually want to truly fix things like our blatantly corrupt SCOTUS.
This exactly.
Abortion is to Democrats what guns are to Republicans. It's the football issue they can constantly hold over the base as a reason why it's desperately important to elect them. But they would never ever actually solve the issue for good, because then they lose their football.
Democrats didn't codify abortion when they had the chance. Republicans made no effort on guns when they had the chance. It wasn't an accident.
They're always needs to be an 'elect us or else' issue because neither party does enough useful stuff to win hearts and minds on their own. Especially when their nominees are totally uncompelling.
The Democrats are hoarding footballs at this point. They have plenty of other issues that they can pivot to. Raising the minimum wage, Medicare for all, RCV, UBI, etc.
OTOH Republicans only have a couple footballs left before they have to resort to red herrings.
I'm once again going to steal these comments from one I had saved a month ago, penned by @[email protected] :
Since 1981 Democrats have had control of the Presidency and Congress a whopping 4 years. One 2 year period under Clinton and one under Obama. That’s without factoring in the ability to fillibuster in the Senate. In over 40 years they’ve only had control 10% of the time.
and
That period of filibuster-proof control during Obama’s term is why we have the ACA. It was ~70 days and they passed the largest healthcare overhaul in generations.
Ive said this fairly recently, it's disgusting that our only major "achievement" in the last 40 years is a fucking REPUBLICAN markets based "solution."
"We" didn't even get to have what we wanted, we just have a watered down Romneycare program... Even when Republicans aren't in control they're in control...
A really good point. People upset that democrats don't do anything when we have power, it's because republicans are bad faith actors hell bent on fighting any and all progress, but especially when that progress could be attributed to democrats. Their contribution to governance can be surmised as cutting off their own nose to spite their face.
For a couple reasons. Some cynically wanted to continue to use abortion as a political football. Codifying Roe in any meaningful way in their minds would have meant they had to find a new wedge issue to drive turnout and donations. We saw this on the other side when SCOTUS actually overturned it and the right didn't know what to do with themselves for a while.
Then maybe in part because of the former, there were a bunch of people that naively didn't believe they'd actually entirely destroy Roe. They genuinely thought the worst that could possibly happen was some minor restrictions at the margins. So those people were not motivated enough to actually do something about it.
Then maybe in part because of the former, there were a bunch of people that naively didn’t believe they’d actually entirely destroy Roe.
As someone in their fifties, I've thought the matter was settled and the bleating of random protesters was just the status quo of abortion in the US for decades, FWIW.
And lets not forget this aspect of the conservative scotus.
Democrats are always dangling a carrot 🥕 which is always just out of reach. I’ve been listening to Chuck Schumer say “soon” on marijuana legalization for 4 years.
Democrats are always dangling a carrot 🥕 which is always just out of reach. I’ve been listening to Chuck Schumer say “soon” on marijuana legalization for 4 years.
This guy has the correct take on our “2 pArtY sYsTeM” in my opinion
If you can do it for RvW (which they absolutely should) then go ahead and fix the other stuff that supposedly requires a law like how to exclude fascist candidates from being elected president and legalizing weed and single payer health care and prohibiting book bans (1st amendment) and reproductive rights and everything else that has had the excuse of not being able to overcome a filibuster.
To be fair, that was exactly Warren's strategy when she was running. She's been anti-filibuster and do-stuff for a long time. Warren at least wouldn't be like "well, we solved the Roe thing, but that was a special case, now let's just stop doing good things".
Warren would have been fucking awesome. I'm so disappointed it didn't work out, but I'm also not surprised. She is the real deal. We can't actually get a president who is truly committed to bank reform and breaking up monopolies.
Can we just get rid of the fucking Lazy Filibuster, already? After all we know these geriatrics don't have the capacity to stand for hours and hours on the floor. To merely threaten cloture to filibuster is just dumb.
TBH I feel like there needs to be a general look at ways to prevent 'spamming' for want of a better word in government. Like the filibuster, and also that thing where after Obamacare was passed and the Republicans tried to repeal it over 70 times in the first few years. I get that situations change and you might need to change a law, but at a certain point you're just being belligerent and wasting everyone's time IMO.
Also it should be illegal to tack on irrelevant laws to popular bills to try and get them passed, but that's a whole other thing.
The Senate doesn't require the approval of the House of Representatives when making rule changes that only affect the Senate. Removing the filibuster is something the Senate can do unilaterally with a simple majority.
If they wanna pass new abortion protections, however, they will of course need both chambers.
It's probably specific wording used to mollify Democrats who aren't comfortable just getting rid of it for good. They'll do all the stuff to get rid of it, but make the new rule "for this vote only". Hopefully by the time that happens they'll have come to their senses and just get rid of it.
The filibuster, if you're not familiar with it, isn't a law. It's a rule in the Senate's procedures. Whoever has a majority could just change the rule, as was done for non-Supreme judges by Democrats and then done for Supreme Court judges by Republicans.
Your answer is both condescending and unhelpful, so I'll explain in case any one is interested.
The filibuster isn't a part of the constitution or any laws governing the way the senate works. It's, instead, included in a group of rules that each Senate votes on at the beginning of each two-year term. Any rules surrounding the filibuster can change, including if and when they're allowed to be used, the number of votes to end one, and if one even needs to deliberate in order to maintain a filibuster. For example, in 2017, Senate Republicans suspended the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations. And there is currently no need to speak in order to keep a filibuster going, it just requires the lack of votes to end the "filibuster"
In this case, suspending the filibuster would mean including some rule that carves out the vote on Roe v Wade codification, or that the filibuster can be suspended for pending legislation on a simple majority vote.
I too trust that this Supreme Court will not strike down this new codified Roe instantly on some pretext. The Supreme Court is entirely above board and not political in any way.
He won't, but Harris would. They should run Harris or Newsom or Buttigieg. I'll vote for Joe Biden over Donald Trump but I'd rather it be any of the rest.
if Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress in 2025
They aren't about to win a fucking trifecta. It will be a miracle if they keep the senate tied, let alone win the white house and take back the house.
Of course it is easy to say now all this shit if THAT is the condition for actually doing it: total control of government.
(And then SCOTUS can still throw it out as unconstitutional because that was the entire point of overturning roe v wade: it made the decision constitutional case law, which overrides legislated statutes.)
With Biden no, but both the House and Senate are in play, and if you win one you probably win the others because the same sentiment that brought out votes to claim the Senate boosted House races and vice versa. Trifectas in a new administration are common. Reagan, Clinton, Obama, Trump, and Biden all had trifectas. The only ones who didn't start with them were the Bushes.