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Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., Said on Sunday he regretted his party had opened the door to amending the filibuster, even though he appeared willing to amend it further to exempt the rights legislation of the legislative threshold of 60 votes.
When asked if President Biden should support the elimination of filibuster, Warner pointed out that the Democratic leadership in the Senate was the first in 2013 to adopt what has been dubbed the “nuclear option.”
“I wish we hadn’t even started this a decade ago. When the Democratic leaders actually changed the rules, I don’t think we would have the Supreme Court if we still had a 60-vote margin on filibuster, but we are where we are, “Warren told host Martha McCallum on” Fox News Sunday. ” “And the idea that somehow to protect minority rights in the Senate, we’re going to take away minority and youth rights across the country – that’s just not fair to me. . “
Warner was referring to steps taken by former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada in 2013 to push the so-called ‘nuclear option’, which lowered the threshold for votes in the Senate from 60 to just 51 votes to confirm most presidential appointments – with the exception of the Supreme Court. Reid made the move after Senate Republicans filibustered several candidates put forward by former President Barack Obama for the Court of Appeals, the Department of Defense and the National Labor Relations Board.
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Republicans, five years later, have taken the obstruction line even further.
After Democrats filibustered in 2017 to oppose former President Donald Trump’s first nomination to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Put in is implementing its own nuclear option, also lowering the threshold for Supreme Court candidates to a simple majority vote.
Two other Trump Supreme Court candidates, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, have become judges under the new rule.
“I don’t want the Senate to become like the House,” Warner said Sunday. “But I believe that when it comes to voting rights, when it comes to this fundamental right to exercise and participate in democracy, I am very worried about what is happening in some of these states where they penalize by done, saying that if you give someone water while waiting in line to vote, or in states like Texas where they say a local government can overcome the results of a local election. This is not democracy, and if we are to make a small exception to the obstruction of voting rights – this is the only area where I would allow this kind of reform. “
In June, Republicans blocked the For the People Act with a filibuster, saying the sweeping election law represents a federal violation of states’ power to conduct their own elections without fraud.
Progressives called on Biden to break down legislative obstruction to pass a major voting rights bill. But that would only “throw the whole Congress into chaos and nothing gets done,” Biden said at a recent CNN town hall.
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Fox News’s Edmund DeMarche contributed to this report.
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