Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) conceded that the elimination of the legislative filibuster will be a possibility if Democrats take back the majority in the Senate.
“We have a moral imperative to the people of America to get a whole lot done if we get the majority, which, God willing, we will, and keep it in the House, and Biden becomes president, and nothing is off the table,” Sen. Schumer said, via Roll Call. “We will do what it takes to get this done...some Republicans might work with us. But we’re going to have to get it done, whether they work with us or not.”
Before officially accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, Joe Biden also said that he would favor scrapping the filibuster if necessary.
The elimination of the legislative filibuster would give a Democratic majority in the upper chamber the power to expedite a Biden agenda by a simple majority, as NRSC Chairman Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) pointed out after Sen. Schumer did not take the option off the table:
If Democrats take control of United States Senate, they will eliminate the legislative filibuster and by simple majority:
— Todd Young (@ToddYoungIN) August 20, 2020
??Pass green new deal
??Add 2 new states to the union (DC and Puerto RIco)
??Pack the Supreme Court
??Repeal Republican tax cuts and levy new taxes pic.twitter.com/FPuc3XVhNX
Democrats eliminated a filibuster threshold in 2013, under the leadership of former Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), and the move backfired on the party when Republicans took back the majority. Reid’s move to lower the threshold to overcome a filibuster, invoking the “nuclear option,” allowed Republicans to confirm a record number of judges to the federal bench and two justices on the Supreme Court by a simple majority.
Sen. Schumer’s openness to eliminating the legislative filibuster is a partisan power grab, and makes his commitment to pushing a left-wing agenda through the upper chamber abundantly clear.