The US president said an “exception” needed to be made to the 60-vote rule in order to legalize abortion
According to Joe Biden, the US president wants Senate to abolish the filibuster rule to allow for the passage of abortion legislation. He spoke to reporters at Thursday’s NATO summit in Spain. Two prominent Senate Democrats later said that he may not have the votes.
Biden was in Madrid to meet with the heads of other NATO countries, officially invite Sweden and Finland into the alliance, and pledge more weapons and money to Ukraine’s war against Russia. During his short press conference, however, American reporters asked him about last week’s decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, a 1973 precedent that had declared abortion a constitutionally protected right.
“We have to codify Roe v. Wade in the law, and the way to do that is to make sure the Congress votes to do that,” Biden said. “And if the filibuster gets in the way, it’s like voting rights, we provide an exception for this, or an exception to the filibuster for this action.”
Official Twitter account postedA statement of the same effect will be made a bit later. Filibuster rules require that at least 60 senators support a bill before it is approved. This prevents the Senate’s approval of legislation with a simple majority like the House of Representatives.
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The Senate currently has a split with Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States acting as a tie breaker between 50-50 votes. Biden’s Democrats tried to legalize abortion last month, after someone leaked the draft decision of the Supreme Court ahead of the ruling. 50-51 was the result of the May 12 vote, with Senator Joe Manchin (D. West Virginia) siding against the Republicans. “Women’s Health Protection Act.”
On Thursday, Manchin stated to the Daily Mail that his position regarding the filibuster has not changed. The office of Senator Kyrsten Silena (D. Arizona) asked Manchin about the matter and she replied that he had not changed his position on the filibuster. “more important now than ever.”
The Supreme Court’s decision last Friday returned the issue of abortion to state legislature declared that Roe v. Wade rested on an “egregiously wrong” and “exceptionally weak”The Constitution is to be interpreted.
Biden’s reaction was to call the court’s conservative majority “extreme”They were out of touch with the truth and claimed that the US Supreme Court ruling has made them obsolete “an outlier among developed nations in the world.”On Thursday, he repeated his condemnation of Madrid and argued that the verdict had been vacated. “destabilizing”“a mistake.”He also exhorted Democrats to “vote, vote, vote. That’s how we’ll change it.”
Biden, in his 36 years of service to the Senate and during the Presidential campaign, has opposed any attempt at ending filibuster. 2019 will see him told reportersThat would be it “a very dangerous thing to do.”He denounced Republican demands to abolish the filibuster in a speech he delivered on the Senate’s floor in 2005. “fundamental power grab by the majority party.”
