TIME: After Senate Republicans Block Voting Rights Legislation, the Filibuster Is Back in the Crosshairs

TIME: After Senate Republicans Block Voting Rights Legislation, the Filibuster Is Back in the Crosshairs

The reason Neil Gorsuch is sitting on the Supreme Court right now is because Senate Republicans carved out Supreme Court nominations from the filibuster rule, says Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel for public policy and government affairs at Common Cause, an advocacy organization focused on promoting democracy. Democrats did the same for President Barack Obama’s nominees were appointed to the D.C. circuit, he says. “It’s not unprecedented at all. It’s now a choice to keep the filibuster in place rather than pass legislation that would project the freedom to vote,” Spaulding says.

President Joe Biden said on Thursday he would be open to doing away with the filibuster in pursuit of protecting Americans’ voting rights, bolstering voting rights’ advocates calls to abolish the controversial rule after Republicans blocked federal voting legislation from advancing for the third time this year.

Wednesday’s 49-51 Senate vote barred any debate from occurring on the Freedom to Vote Act, a bill that would have enacted automatic voter registration, guaranteed at least 15 consecutive days of early in-person voting and allowed for no-excuse mail voting in federal elections among other measures.

For many Democratic lawmakers and voting rights advocates, the vote reinforced their view that getting rid of or carving out an exception to the filibuster —the Senate rule that requires a supermajority of 60 votes to end debate on an issue —is the only path forward to pass federal legislation targeting voter suppression and gerrymandering. So far this year, 19 states have enacted 33 laws that will make it harder for millions of Americans to vote, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. …

Finding a way around the filibuster could be one way forward, if Democrats could get Sinema and Manchin onboard. It’s been done plenty of times before: since 1969, Congress has created at least 161 special procedures to prevent a filibuster on specific measures, according to research published in 2017 by Molly Reynolds, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution.

The reason Neil Gorsuch is sitting on the Supreme Court right now is because Senate Republicans carved out Supreme Court nominations from the filibuster rule, says Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel for public policy and government affairs at Common Cause, an advocacy organization focused on promoting democracy. Democrats did the same for President Barack Obama’s nominees were appointed to the D.C. circuit, he says.

“It’s not unprecedented at all. It’s now a choice to keep the filibuster in place rather than pass legislation that would project the freedom to vote,” Spaulding says.