Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of NY has announced that a new vote in the U.S. Senate will be held on January 17 to alter filibuster rules.
In a Dear Colleague message, Schumer spoke about how the Capitol event last year on January 6 was an attack against democracy.
He also said that the attacks on democracy were not only on January 6 — instead they have kept going.
“As we all are seeing, the attacks on our democracy have not stopped. In fact, they have only continued and gotten worse,” Schumer wrote.
“Much like the violent rioters who stormed into the United States Capitol almost one year ago, GOP officials in states around the nation have seized on Trump’s Big Lie about widespread election fraud to push through anti-democratic laws and get control of usually non-partisan election administration functions,” he said.
Changing the filibuster rules on January 17 will push legislation on voting rights safeguards, the majority leader said.
Democrats were trying to push a voting rights and election package, but it was stalled in an evenly divided Senate. It was blocked by a GOP led filibuster, which has left the Dems in the Senate not able to gain the 60 votes they need to pass the legislation.
In Oct. as Democrats pushed for their Freedom to Vote Act, an election rights legislation, it was very soundly defeated by the GOP filibuster, as NPR reported at the time.
After the law was stopped in the fall, VP Kamala Harris said, “We are not not going to give up. We have never given up — those of us who fought for the ability of every American to show their voice through their vote. We will keep doing the work.”
But there was no sign of the GOP moving on this issue, NPR reported.
Schumer’s new push to alter the filibuster rules is a reply to conservatives stopping the legislation. Altering the rules could make it possible for the law to be pushed forward.
He said in his message: “We must change and adapt. The Senate must change, like it has many times in the past.”
He also cited January 6 again as the reason for the need for this new law that would allegedly guard elections.
“January 6th was actually a symptom of a larger illness — an effort to delegitimize elections, and the U.S. Senate must advance democratic reforms to repair our national republic or else the events of the day will be a new norm,” Schumer said.
Author: Steven Sinclaire
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