U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) earlier this week publicly committed to holding a vote by January 17 for the consideration of changing the chamber’s filibuster rules.
The Senate’s current power structure is evenly split between the two parties, with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as a tiebreaker for Democrats. Altering the filibuster rules would allow the majority party to pass most legislation without having to meet the 60-vote threshold currently required for passage.
Schumer’s call for filibuster reform comes as Senate Democrats are looking to take up the party’s so-called “Freedom to Vote Act,” which many critics say would federalize the elections process.
One of those critics, U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), during his weekly press call on Wednesday sounded the alarm over Democrats’ attempt to change the Senate’s longstanding filibuster rules.
“Democrats need 60 votes, meaning 10 Republican votes in an evenly split Senate, to pass this massive federal takeover of our election system. And when they don’t get it, what are they planning to do? They’re going to try to change the rules of the game by waging war against the filibuster,” advised Tuberville. “We need the filibuster to protect the minority’s voice in the Senate no matter who’s in charge, and it wasn’t so long ago that the Democrats agreed to the importance of the filibuster when they weren’t in charge.”
Alabama’s junior senator noted that Schumer, while serving as Senate minority leader in 2017, advocated for the preservation of the filibuster.
“When Democrats were in the minority, they seemed to understand the importance of the voice of the minority and the deliberative nature of the Senate. But now, they are in the majority. All bets are off,” added Tuberville. “If we were to throw the rules of the Senate out the window every time power shifts, what kind of nation would we be in? The hypocrisy of the Democrats is astounding, and it is dangerous to the people we represent and to the very core of our Republic.”
Tuberville told Yellowhammer News that moderate U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) have both publicly and privately expressed their dissent to altering the filibuster.
Dylan Smith is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @DylanSmithAL
