Kamala Harris Pushes to Gut Filibuster – ‘Holy Grail of Democracy’ – for Her #1 Agenda: Unlimited Abortion

Kamala Harris said Tuesday during an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio she is calling to scrap the legislative filibuster in order to codify unrestricted abortion rights in America.

“I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe,” the Democrat presidential nominee said. “To actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom, and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do.”

Two former Democrats-turned-Independents – Sens. Joe Manchin (WVA) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) – have condemned Harris’ statement that she apparently made to bolster her primary campaign agenda of eliminating restrictions on abortion.

Manchin, who has been a strong advocate for the 60-vote threshold that allows senators to debate a bill, generally with no time limits, or block a vote on a bill, called the filibuster the “Holy Grail of democracy.”

Gutting the filibuster would lower the threshold from 60 votes to a simple majority of 51 to advance pro-abortion legislation.

Manchin, who will retire at the end of the year, told CNN he would not be endorsing Harris for president as a result of her statement:

Shame on her. Shame on her. She knows the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy. It’s the only thing that keeps us talking and working together. If she gets rid of that, then this would be the House on steroids.

“I think that basically can destroy our country, and my country is more important to me than any one person or any one person’s ideology. … I think it’s the most horrible thing,” the senator fumed.

Sinema called Harris’ plan an “absolutely terrible, shortsighted idea.”

The Arizona senator posted to X that, “[t]o state the supremely obvious, eliminating the filibuster to codify Roe v. Wade also enables a future Congress to ban all abortion nationwide.”

Harris’ fellow Senate Democrats have been urging an end to the filibuster for months to ram through their chamber many items on their agenda.

Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), also told CNN Tuesday that he backs Harris’ pledge to eliminate the filibuster.

“I think it makes sense to change the rule,” he said, adding that its demise would allow Democrats to achieve much of their agenda.

“I believe for a long time that the 60-vote rule has been an impediment to progress on a whole host of fronts, including voting rights, which we tried to pass in 2022,” Casey said. “And in the process of trying to pass the bill, we tried to change the rule. So we can pass voting rights. I think the same is true for women’s rights, workers’ rights, so common sense gun measures to reduce gun violence. So on a whole host of fronts.”

Consistent with Sinema’s warning about ending the filibuster, Family Research Council Senior Fellow Joseph Backholm, noted that the Democrats’ push to change Senate rules for their own political gain has backfired on them in the past.

“There’s a great deal of evidence that abortion is the highest of all values for the Left,” Backholm told the Washington Stand. “They’ve already changed the rules for confirming judges in a way that allowed the current Supreme Court to be nominated and for Roe to be overturned. Certainly, some of them remember that, and if they were in a position to actually make the decision today, it’s possible cooler heads would prevail because of the potential long-term consequences.”

In the midst of this election season, however, Backholm said Democrats “aren’t worried about the long-term consequences of what they do or even suggest, they’re just worried about whether the things they say will help them win in November. And they are convinced being all in for abortion is good politics, so they will be all in for abortion.”

MaryBeth Waddell, director of Federal Affairs for Family and Religious Liberty at Family Research Council, also warned of the consequences of scrapping the filibuster.

“Should the filibuster be gutted on life policy, it will most likely begin the unraveling of the filibuster as a whole,” she told the Washington Stand, adding:

The filibuster is a critically important tool to ensure the Senate remains the greatest deliberative body in the world. It ensures that the law will be stable and not reactionary. Without it, every change in power will create a seesaw of laws especially regarding policy on life, family, human sexuality, and other such social policy. This would be detrimental to society and the very fabric of our constitutional republic. Our Founders were very concerned about the harms of majority or mob rule, and that would be the result of carving up the filibuster.