Democratic Senate candidates unite around reforming the filibuster

With the debate over the legislative filibuster raging in Washington, both Democratic Senate challengers and incumbents facing tough reelection efforts are supporting changing the rule.

Since launching his campaign for the Senate in Pennsylvania last February, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman has made the elimination of the filibuster a key piece of his progressive platform. He has repeatedly said he’ll vote to change the rule in order to pass legislation on voting rights, the minimum wage, expanding the power of unions, gun safety and health care.

“Send me to DC, and I [100 percent] will,” Fetterman tweeted Wednesday afternoon, responding to a statement from the NAACP calling for Democrats to pass voting rights protections without Republican votes if need be.

Rep. Conor Lamb, also running for the Democratic nomination in the swing state, has portrayed himself as a moderate alternative to Fetterman, but he agrees with his rival on one key plank: the removal of the filibuster, which he first called for last May.

“I will vote to end the filibuster,” Lamb said again in a statement earlier this month. “Republicans are abusing it to block voting rights & endanger our democracy. To block health care & child care & union protections.”

Two other Democratic candidates from the Philadelphia area — Val Arkoosh, chair of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, and state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta — have also come out against it.

“Say it with me: End the filibuster. Codify Roe v. Wade,” Arkoosh tweeted last fall, calling for abortion access to be enshrined in federal law.

“The filibuster has been used repeatedly to block civil rights legislation. It should be ended. I’m not open to changing my mind,” Kenyatta tweeted in January 2021.

It’s a similar situation in Wisconsin, where the four leading candidates for the Democratic Senate nomination have all come out in favor of removing the filibuster. "It's time to deliver a clear message that America won't allow those who would undermine our democracy to continue leading it,” said Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who has had double-digit leads in the limited polling in the race, in a December statement calling for reform.

The legislative filibuster — which requires 60 votes to advance legislation in the Senate — has become a matter of intense concern among Democrats as Republican opposition to nearly every Democratic priority has stymied most of the party’s agenda, though Democrats hold slim majorities in both chambers of Congress. After months of being pushed by activists, last week President Biden called for the Senate to find a workaround that would allow voting rights legislation to pass with a simple majority. Almost immediately, centrist Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., said they would not support the change. On Wednesday night, they were the only two Democrats to vote against the alteration after Republicans unanimously opposed the voting legislation.

Critics of the Senate filibuster note that it is not mentioned in the Constitution, only gradually emerging as a practice and changing over time. Historically, it has often been used to stifle legislation advancing civil rights, but it has also been used to kill a wide variety of bills in recent years, including the Manchin-Toomey plan to require universal background checks on gun sales in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. That measure failed to advance in April 2013, despite 54 senators voting in favor.

Recently, both parties have changed the number of necessary votes for nominations from the White House, which previously sat at 60. In 2013, Senate Democrats reduced the votes necessary to confirm judges and executive branch appointees — except Supreme Court justices — to a simple majority. In 2017, Republicans removed that exception, allowing nominees to the nation’s highest court to be confirmed with 51 votes.

Of course, Democratic Senate candidates from Pennsylvania and Wisconsin won’t necessarily be representing those states in the next Congress. Both have seen razor-thin margins in the last two presidential elections, and both Senate seats being contested are currently held by Republicans (Sen. Pat Toomey is retiring in Pennsylvania, while Sen. Ron Johnson recently announced his intention to run for a third term in Wisconsin).

Democrats from purple states have traditionally tended to worry about being perceived as too liberal or partisan, but many 2022 candidates are making the gamble that their filibuster position will appeal to politically engaged primary voters while not harming them as a major issue with swing voters in the general election. The call for reform is also being heard from top Democratic contenders in the Florida, North Carolina and Ohio Senate races, which with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are the five seats currently held by Republicans that the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates as the most likely to flip parties.

After initially waffling on the topic, the leading candidate in the North Carolina race — former state Supreme Court Justice Cheri Beasley — stated there was something “deeply wrong” with the tool and that she’d been “very clear” about the need for reform. Beasley is competing for the seat currently held by Sen. Richard Burr, who is retiring, in a state Donald Trump won by just over 1 percent in 2020.

Rep. Val Demings, who is challenging Republican Sen. Marco Rubio in Florida, said in July, "I certainly believe we should get rid of it. The time is now. I think the time is right.”

"Floridians send me, Rubio and others to office to get some things done, not to use an antiquated political procedure to block pertinent legislation,” Demings told NPR.

Rep. Tim Ryan, running for the Ohio Senate seat being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Rob Portman, has also has called for the end of the filibuster, tweeting in October, “The filibuster is standing in the way of stronger protections for workers, higher wages, voting rights, climate action, and more. What the hell are we waiting for?”

Outside groups that typically back Democrats have also become more vocal about changing the Senate rules. EMILY's List, an organization that supports women candidates who are in favor of reproductive rights, released a statement criticizing Sinema for her pro-filibuster position. It’s a dramatic reversal, after the group was her biggest supporter, donating more than $400,000 in her successful 2018 Senate bid.

“Understanding that access to the ballot box and confidence in election results are critical to our work and our country, we have joined with many others to impress upon Senator Sinema the importance of the pending voting rights legislation in the Senate,” Laphonza Butler, the group’s president, said in a statement. “So far those concerns have not been addressed.”

“Right now, Senator Sinema’s decision to reject the voices of allies, partners and constituents who believe the importance of voting rights outweighs that of an arcane process means she will find herself standing alone in the next election,” added Butler.

EMILY's List has endorsed Arkoosh in the Pennsylvania race and State Treasurer Sarah Godlewski in the Wisconsin primary.

NARAL, another organization that advocates for reproductive rights, issued a series of even stronger-worded tweets Tuesday, writing, “Today, we’re changing our endorsement criteria to reflect our commitment to the freedom to vote. Going forward, we won’t endorse any U.S. senator who doesn’t support changing the Senate rules to pass voting rights legislation. Our democracy is on the line.”

Sinema isn’t up for reelection until 2024, limiting immediate concerns about dealing with a primary challenger from her left. The other Arizona Democrat in the Senate, Mark Kelly, is on the ballot this fall and is altering his position on a limited change to the filibuster. After his initial hesitancy, the Arizona Republic reported Wednesday that Kelly “will back a ‘talking filibuster’ rule only for the proposed voting rights legislation that he co-sponsors.” That change would change the threshold for those specific bills moving forward to a simple majority once debate has ended. Sens. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada — both Democrats expected to be in tight reelection races this year — have called for similar changes.