January, 12 2022, 11:40am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Diane Alexander is the Communications and Research Director: dalexander@democracy21.org
Senate Expected To Consider Voting Rights Legislation Soon
Updated D21 Report Shows The Evolution Of Senate Filibuster, How Filibuster Rules Changes Have Been Routine, & The Urgent Need To Modify The Rules To Allow Voting Rights To Pass
WASHINGTON
"For the Senate to preserve our democracy and protect the right to vote, and to be known again as the 'world's greatest deliberative body,' the Senate filibuster rules must be revised," Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer writes in the introduction to a new update to the Democracy 21 report: A Timeline Of The Senate Filibuster -- And Why The Filibuster Rules Must Be Revised To Save Democracy And Restore The Senate.
Attacks "on the right to vote and the integrity of our elections have put our democracy at grave risk," Wertheimer writes. "The need to revise the filibuster rules is of paramount importance."
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced the Senate will consider changes to Senate rules as early as this week.
The Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act are essential voting rights measures that were blocked by multiple Republican filibusters in 2021.
These measures would override the state voter suppression laws triggered by Trump's Big Lie, protect against partisan election administration officials rigging federal election results, and prevent future voter discrimination laws in selected states and local jurisdictions.
"The moment of truth is here," Wertheimer says. "At stake is whether our democracy as we know it will be preserved."
The Democracy 21 report details the history of the Senate filibuster:
- Its creation in 1806 - a "housekeeping" mistake by Vice President Aaron Burr;
- Its prolific use to block civil rights legislation - from anti-lynching and anti-poll tax measures in the 19th and 20th centuries to voting rights legislation today;
- Its weaponization for partisan purposes by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY);
- How the late Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), the acknowledged master of the Senate rules, opposed eliminating the filibuster entirely, but believed that the filibuster rules should be changed when "circumstances change" and played a key role in revising the Senate filibuster rules three times in the 1970s; and
- How the filibuster rules have been modified more than 160 times since 1969, including in December 2021 to allow an increase to the debt ceiling to pass by majority vote.
The Democracy 21 Timeline Of The Senate Filibuster is online here.
Democracy 21 is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to making democracy work for all Americans. Democracy 21, and its education arm, Democracy 21 Education Fund, work to eliminate the undue influence of big money in American politics, prevent government corruption, empower citizens in the political process and ensure the integrity and fairness of government decisions and elections. The organization promotes campaign finance reform and other related political reforms to accomplish these goals.
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United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Thursday that he is "deeply concerned" by Israel's "recent and extensive violations of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity," including a ground invasion and airstrikes carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in the war-torn Mideastern nation.
Guterres "is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria" and has stressed the "urgent need to de-escalate violence on all fronts throughout the country," said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
Israel claims its invasion and bombardment of Syria—which come as the United States and Turkey have also violated Syrian sovereignty with air and ground attacks—are meant to create a security buffer along the countries' shared border in the wake of last week's fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and amid the IDF's ongoing assault on Gaza, which has killed or wounded more than 162,000 Palestinians and is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case.
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Addressing the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and conversations it has sparked about the country's for-profit system, longtime Medicare for All advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday condemned the murder and stressed that getting to universal coverage will require a movement challenging corporate money in politics.
"Look, when we talk about the healthcare crisis, in my view, and I think the view of a majority of Americans, the current system is broken, it is dysfunctional, it is cruel, and it is wildly inefficient—far too expensive," said Sanders (I-Vt.), whose position is backed up by various polls.
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The 83-year-old Vermonter, who was just reelected to what he says is likely his last six-year term, is an Independent but caucuses with Democrats and sought their presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020. He has urged the Democratic Party to recognize why some working-class voters have abandoned it since Republicans won the White House and both chambers of Congress last month. A refusal to take on insurance and drug companies and overhaul the healthcare system, he argues, is one reason.
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In addition to highlighting Sanders' interview on social media, Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) pointed out to Business Insider on Wednesday that "you've got thousands of people that are sharing their stories of frustration" in the wake of Thompson's death.
Khanna—a co-sponsor of the Medicare for All Act, led in the House of Representatives by Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—made the case that you can recognize those stories without accepting the assassination.
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—a co-sponsor of Sanders' Medicare for All Act—similarly toldHuffPost in a Tuesday interview, "The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system."
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Reporters Without Borders' (RSF) 2024 roundup, which was published Thursday, found that at least 54 journalists were killed on the job or in connection with their work this year, and 18 of them were killed by Israeli armed forces (16 in Palestine, and two in Lebanon).
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