WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer warned on Monday that the Senate is prepared to debate changes in the filibuster if Republicans continue to block the advancement of voting rights legislation.
In a sternly worded letter to other senators, the New York Democrat set a deadline of Jan. 17 for the chamber to consider revising the filibuster rules, which require a 60-vote threshold for legislation to move ahead in the evenly divided Senate.
Jan. 17 is also Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“We must ask ourselves: if the right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, then how can we in good conscience allow for a situation in which the Republican Party can debate and pass voter suppression laws at the State level with only a simple majority vote, but not allow the United States Senate to do the same?” Schumer wrote in the letter.
It’s unlikely that enough Senate Republicans will join Democrats to pass the current versions of voting rights legislation.
Another sticking point for Schumer is that not all Democrats are on board either with reforming or pushing for a carve out of filibuster rules.
With the midterm elections approaching, congressional Democrats have without success pushed for enactment of broad voter rights protections. Since the 2020 presidential election, Republicans at the state level have introduced hundreds of bills that would impose strict voting requirements, in response to former President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud in the...
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