According to a report by NBC News, Democrat operatives are organizing a “war room” with the goal of undermining support for the filibuster.
Should they win this November, Democrats don’t want Republicans to be able to use the filibuster rule to stop a far-left agenda from progressing in the Senate — so the idea is to kill the rule first.
“Veteran party operatives, activist groups, and supportive senators are coordinating message and strategy to dial up the pressure to quickly end the 60-vote threshold early next year, fearing that preservation of the rule will enable Republicans to kill Joe Biden’s legislative agenda in its cradle,” the outlet reports.
“A war room”
This coalition, according to NBC, is being called “Fix Our Senate” and it is being run by Eli Zupnick, a former communications director for Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA).
“Our goal is to lift the filibuster higher on progressives’ agendas in advance of November and help them make it clear to a future President Biden and Senate leadership that they expect and demand speedy Senate rules reform in 2021 and will not accept more gridlock, delays and excuses,” Zupnick said. “We are going to be very focused on the need for speedy action.”
According to NBC, the group has an advisory board that “features a raft of well-connected Democratic veterans with access to senators, like former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid’s deputy chiefs of staff Bill Dauster and Adam Jentleson, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign manager Faiz Shakir, former Obama White House aide Dana Singiser and ex-CWA president and anti-filibuster crusader Larry Cohen.”
These people are currently using their connections to go around and campaign against the Senate filibuster.
McConnell warns against it
Talk by the Democrats about getting rid of the Senate filibuster has been going on for most of the summer, including from former president Barack Obama, who called it a “Jim Crow relic” in July. This is the first, however, we are hearing of a coalition.
On the other side of the aisle is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who has warned his colleagues not to go along with this idea.
“The important thing for our Democratic friends to remember is you may not be in total control in the future,” he told reporters. “And any time you start fiddling around with the rules of the Senate you always need to put yourself in the other fellow’s shoes and just imagine what might happen when the winds shift.”
Will it happen?
It is a fact that Democrats are clearly frustrated by the Republican leadership in the upper chamber of Congress. It is out of this frustration that some Democrats are seeking to get rid of the Senate filibuster.
To get rid of the Senate filibuster a simple majority of 51 votes is needed. But not all Democrats are on board, including Sens. Joe Manchin and Dianne Feinstein. However, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who would take the majority leader position should Democrats win more seats, has said that “nothing’s off the table.”
The post Report: Democratic operatives are coordinating campaign to end the filibuster first appeared on Conservative Institute.
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