Elizabeth Warren wants to get rid of the legislative obstruction of the Senate

Senator Elizabeth Warren announced her support for the lifting of the systematic obstruction of the Senate Friday as part of a conference on civil rights in New York.

Warren is only the second presidential candidate of 2020 to call for the end of systematic obstruction – a dramatic institutional change on which Democrats have long been unobtrusive. She argued that the rule – which requires 60 votes to pass legislation – has been misused by the Conservatives to suppress racial progress throughout the history of the United States.

"Last year, the Senate passed a bill that would make lynching a federal crime," Warren told the crowd at the National Action Network convention. "Last year – 2018. Do you know when the first draft law to lynch a federal crime was introduced? 1918. A hundred years ago .The law was almost passed in the year. He was passed into the House in 1922. But he was killed by a buccaneer in the Senate, and then he was killed again, and again, and again, more than 200 times, a whole century of obstruction. because a small group of racists prevented the entire nation from doing what was right. "

Washington Governor Jay Inslee, another 2020 candidate, has also spoken out in favor of ending the filibuster in order to get climate change policy adopted, a central theme of his fledgling campaign. But the majority of Democracy 2020 candidates have been reluctant to support the reform, while declaring themselves open to reform.

In addition, President Donald Trump has repeatedly called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to get rid of the filibuster, but the Senate leader has firmly rejected this idea.

Read more: Pete Buttigieg, presidential candidate of 2020, explains why he once said that "all lives matter"

"I served only one term in the Senate, but saw what was happening," she said. "We all saw what they did to President Obama, I saw Republicans abusing rules when they were no longer in power, then flip-flopping and doing them." disappear when they were in power. "

Without the obstruction of the Senate, the House and Senate would be governed by the simple majority rule, which would allow the majority party in Congress to more easily enact a law. In 2017, Republicans took advantage of the "nuclear option" to demand only 51 votes to confirm the Supreme Court justices, after the Democrats got rid of the 60-vote requirement to confirm the candidates as judges and senior officials in 2013.

"Let me be as clear as I can about it, when the Democrats have the power, we should be bold, we're done with two rules – one for the Republicans and one for the United States. Democrats, "said Warren. "And that means that when the Democrats have the White House again, if Mitch McConnell tries to do what he did to President Obama and puts the little partisanship in the forefront before solving the colossal problems in this world. country, then we should eliminate the buccaneer. "

Warren has placed racial justice at the center of his campaign by proposing comprehensive policies to address racial disparities in housing, education, health and voting. On Friday, she focused most of her speech on her universal child care program, which would allow working-class families to have access to free child care, while families high-income earners would pay no more than 7% of their income.

"The legacy of decades of discrimination against black women," she said. "It is no wonder that child care or lack of adequate child care holds a generation of black Americans after others."