Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the right-wing Democrat-turned-independent who is set to retire from the Senate upon the expiration of his term early next year, has announced that he will not endorse Democratic nominee for president Kamala Harris, citing her support for ending the filibuster in order to protect and expand reproductive rights.
The filibuster — a Senate rule that is mentioned exactly zero times within the U.S. Constitution — has been a roadblock for a number of bills over the past decade, including legislation to protect in vitro fertilization, re-establish federal abortion protections, expand voting rights and enact gun reforms, among other items. Even if a proposal is able to receive majority endorsement in the Senate, the filibuster requires a supermajority of 60 votes within the 100-member chamber of Congress for a bill to be passed.
In an interview on Tuesday with Wisconsin Public Radio, Harris said she would support ending the filibuster in order to pass legislation to codify abortion protections that were established in Roe v. Wade, a 1973 Supreme Court decision that the right-wing Court overturned in 2022.
“I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe … to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom, and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do,” Harris said in the interview.
Harris’s recent comments are consistent with what she’s said in the past. In 2022, for example, she backed ending the filibuster to protect reproductive rights, and in 2019 she said she would support ending the archaic and pointless Senate rule to pass the Green New Deal.
In response to Harris’s latest comments, however, Manchin incredulously attacked Harris for daring to suggest that the rule should be ended.
“Shame on her,” Manchin said, wrongly describing the filibuster as “the Holy Grail of democracy.”
“It’s the only thing that keeps us talking and working together. If she gets rid of that, then this would be the House on steroids,” Manchin added.
In actuality, the filibuster has often been used to block pro-democracy reforms, including the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which a majority of Americans support. The filibuster was also used multiple times during the Civil Rights Movement as a means to block basic freedoms for nonwhite Americans, and has been used to stifle political rights for women.
Regardless, Manchin said he wouldn’t endorse Harris in her election bid against Trump. “That ain’t going to happen,” he said, adding that, in his opinion, ending the filibuster could “destroy our country” and would be “the most horrible thing.”
When Manchin was reminded that Harris has been against the filibuster for at least the past five years, he shrugged it off, saying he was “hoping she would change this.”
Notably, most democracies around the world do not have a filibuster within the upper chamber of their national legislature, and while supermajorities are generally needed for constitutional changes, no other industrial democracies apply the filibuster to all legislation the way the U.S. Senate does. What’s more, only 13 U.S. states have the filibuster within their legislative rules, further disproving the West Virginia senator’s claims that “democracy” requires the mechanism.
Political observers were quick to criticize Manchin for his comments.
“Defending ‘the filibuster’ over women’s bodily autonomy is one heck of a way for Joe Manchin to leave the scene,” said Democratic political strategist Tom Bonier. “Though I imagine this lack of endorsement helps Harris much more than it hurts her.”
“Joe Manchin thinks the filibuster is the ‘Holy Grail of democracy?’ A rule that was used to thwart democracy by blocking voting rights for Black people is the Holy Grail of democracy? Please tell me that’s a joke,” political commentator Keith Boykin opined.
Charlotte Clymer, an LGBTQ activist and political observer, also weighed in on Manchin’s statements, saying:
My thoughts on the Senate filibuster are simple: it is an historically racist procedural move that was popularized to preserve white supremacy and has long sabotaged the most essential function of our government: serving the people. Kill it, burn it, and flush the ashes.
Polling shows that most Americans agree with Clymer’s views. A Navigator Research poll from March, for example, shows that nearly three-quarters of Americans believe ending the filibuster would help fix America in some way. Only 27 percent of respondents said it wouldn’t help the country.
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