President Joe Biden said on Thursday that he would support making an exception to the filibuster rule in order to codify abortion rights through legislation passed by Congress.
“I believe we have to codify Roe v. Wade into law,” Biden said Thursday at a press conference at the end of the NATO summit in Madrid. “And the way to do that is to make sure Congress votes to do that. And if the filibuster gets in the way — it’s like voting rights — it should be we provide an exception for this. We require an exception for the filibuster for this action.”
Because of a Senate rule traditionally used to block civil rights legislation, most bills cannot pass without 60 votes in the Senate. This filibuster rule is a loosely defined term for action designed to prolong debate and delay or prevent a vote on a bill, resolution, amendment, or other debatable question.
The tactic is usually employed by the minority party in the Senate to keep legislation from being passed. The possibility of a filibuster was accidentally introduced as a side effect of an 1806 rule change which eliminated the ability to end debate in the Senate by a simple majority vote. This meant a piece of legislation could be debated for hours or even days.
The filibuster was used relatively rarely until the civil rights era. Senator Strom Thurmond as a member of the southern Democratic Party infamously filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for more than 24 hours.
Democratic President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Civil Rights Act of 1964 was held up for 60 working days using the filibuster.
In the 1970s, the Senate adopted a “two-track” system, which was intended in part as a progressive reform to prevent filibusters from completely blocking Senate business. Under these new rules, however, legislation could be blocked simply by submitting a written notice of intent to filibuster.
There have also been a number of laws written further defining the whole filibuster process. Changes to Rule XXII in 2013 and 2017 now require only a simple majority to invoke cloture on presidential nominations, although most legislation still requires 60 votes.
Now, this is where the “nuclear option” comes in. These rule changes were made by invoking the so-called “nuclear option”, a parliamentary procedure that allows the Senate to override one of its standing rules, including the 60-vote threshold to close debate, by a simple majority vote, usually with the Vice-president casting the tie-breaking vote.
What will Biden do about abortion rights?
President Biden has now clarified that he is willing to push for a change in the Senate rules regarding the filibuster, according to CNN News. Biden’s comments come days after Vice President Kamala Harris drew blowback for a CNN interview in which she declined to endorse the removal of the filibuster for abortion rights purposes.
Biden had told CNN’s Anderson Cooper at a town hall last year that he would be open to altering the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation “and maybe more.” His comments on Thursday mark the first time he’s expressed total willingness to eliminate the filibuster specifically for abortion rights.
At the end of the press conference in Madrid, Biden was asked whether he is the best messenger to carry abortion rights forward, especially for progressives, reports the New York Times.
“Yeah, “I’m the president of the United States of America,” he said. “That makes me the best messenger.”
“And I really think that it’s a serious, serious problem that the court has thrust upon the United States, not just in terms of the right to choose but in terms of the right to who you can marry, a whole range of issues related to privacy.”
