Tell Your Senators: Pass Voting Rights First!
Call BOTH of your Senators.
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Call Script
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF.
The Freedom to Vote Act, introduced by Senator Manchin’s team in September and filibustered by McConnell’s team in October, protects voters nationwide against hundreds of laws introduced in 2021 in Republican-led states to further restrict voting rights and overturn results they don’t like. To save the country from the despotism of racist Republicans, we need you to do whatever it takes to pass voting and election protections first, before either infrastructure bill. We need you to publicly call upon Majority Leader Schumer and President Biden to lead forcefully on abolishing the filibuster.
Background
We mention a Deadline for Democracy of December 10, 2021, the last day of work on the Senate calendar for this year, because we are concerned about the redistricting process, which has already begun in some states, such as Texas. Nonpartisan Redistricting, a provision from the For the People Act, has also made it into the Freedom to Vote Act.
The Senate filibuster is not part of the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution assumes that the Senate will pass or reject legislative bills by a simple majority vote. But the Constitution also allows the House and Senate to adopt their own internal process rules. The filibuster is governed by Senate Rule 22, which has been changed and amended by the senators many times in the past (and could be repealed at any time by the senators).
Filibustering legislation has become too easy in recent years. No longer does a senator have to hold the floor for hours of debate. Under current rules, a single senator can file a notice of their intention to filibuster a bill, and a cloture vote is called, to see if there are sixty votes to end the proposed filibuster. That’s what happened when the Freedom to Vote Act was introduced in the Senate last week.
Like senators Manchin and Sinema, President Biden has been reluctant to totally eliminate the filibuster, so they have been considering options to make it harder to use as a tool to obstruct legislation.
We think the filibuster should be abolished entirely because McConnell’s Republicans will take advantage of any changes that are made to it, but there are some of the changes being discussed that could make it more democratic than it is today.
Instead of putting the burden on those proposing legislation, President Biden and others are discussing how the filibuster can be made to require more of those trying to obstruct legislation. The shorthand description for making such changes is “bringing back the talking filibuster.”
Right now, if just one senator says they intend to filibuster legislation, it takes sixty senators, in a cloture vote, to overcome that and move legislation to the floor for a vote. Such cloture votes, based merely on the stated intention to filibuster, foreclose any debate. One change being discussed is to require at least two-fifths of the full Senate, or forty senators, to sustain a filibuster and keep debating, instead of requiring sixty senators to vote to end a filibuster before it even begins. Those wanting to obstruct legislation would have to be prepared for several votes, potentially over several days and nights, and if only once they couldn’t muster forty — the equivalent of cloture to sustain their talking filibuster— debate would end, making way for a vote on final passage of the bill in question.
Another method of filibuster reform being discussed is a return to the “present and voting” standard, requiring the minority to keep most of its members around the Senate when in session. According to Norm Ornstein, emeritus professor at the American Enterprise Institute, “If, for example, the issue in question were voting rights, a Senate deliberating on the floor, 24 hours a day for several days, would put a sharp spotlight on the issue, forcing Republicans to publicly justify opposition to legislation aimed at protecting the voting rights of minorities.” Requiring senators to be present would also require Republicans up for reelection in 2022 to remain in Washington instead of being on the campaign trail. Because if only eighty senators showed up, only forty-eight votes would be needed to get to cloture.
These changes would require that members of the minority party objecting to legislation be on the floor, actually debating instead of just phoning in their intention to filibuster, and fostering debate is the reason Senators Manchin and Sinema have given for wanting to preserve the filibuster. These changes would be useful in requiring Republicans who want to obstruct legislation (such as raising the debt ceiling) to have to defend their position on the record for all to see.
References
70+ Organizations Launch 'Deadline For Democracy,' Massive July Recess Cross-Movement Mobilization, Indivisible, 6/14/21
US Senate: Tentative 2021 Legislative Schedule
Republicans Are Planning to Hijack the Next Election. Dems Are Squandering Their Chance to Stop Them. – Mother Jones, Ari Berman, 10/20/21
Perspective | Democrats can’t kill the filibuster. But they can gut it. Norm Ornstein, Washington Post, 3/21/21
Actions - S.2747 - 117th Congress (2021-2022): Freedom to Vote Act , 9/14/21
The Freedom to Vote Act Unpacked, Democracy Docket, 10/18/21
Biden Says He'll Push Manchin, Sinema on Filibuster, Voting Rights, 9/12/21, Rolling Stone