Kamala Harris’ Filibuster Plan ‘Most Insane’ Proposal Yet, Ben Shapiro Says

Conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro on Wednesday called Vice President Kamala Harris’ proposal to “kill the filibuster” her “most insane plan” yet.
“Kamala Harris wanting to kill the filibuster with regard to Roe basically means she wants to kill the filibuster in regard to everything,” Shapiro said on his podcast, The Ben Shapiro Show. “The general standard, which is for a big change in American public life, you have to at least overcome a filibuster.”
If she’s elected in November, the Democratic presidential nominee said she would work with Congress to pass a bill to restore abortion rights nationwide. She also said she supports killing the Senate filibuster to codify abortion rights.
“I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe and get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom,” Harris told NPR reporter Kate Archer Kent during an interview that aired Tuesday morning.
With the current filibuster, legislation needs 60 votes from senators to pass. Harris, however, told NPR she’s optimistic that Democrats will flip the House and hold the Senate to allow her to proactively go forward with bills to protect reproductive health rights.
Shapiro called the filibuster important because it ensures there is “widespread agreement” among the Senate. He called it the “last resort of bipartisanship.”
“The filibuster usually has been applied to a wide variety of circumstances,” Shapiro said. “Democrats have played around with it.”
Filibusters have sometimes been referred to as “taking a bill to death,” as the obstruction can interfere with the decision making. The rules allow a senator to speak for as long as they wish on any topic, unless “three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn” bring the debate to a close. Even if the filibuster is unsuccessful, it still takes floor time.
This is not a constitutional rule, however, as Shapiro pointed out. The use started in the 1830s and, in more recent years, filibusters have been avoided by moving other business.
“You have to show that the American people at large have elected people who broadly speaking agree with one another,” he said. “That has been a provision that has kept the United States in a state of semi-salinity with regard to its politics for a long time.”
Others who do not support Harris agree with Shapiro. West Virginia independent Senator Joe Manchin said on Tuesday that he won’t back Harris’ candidacy after she said she’s in favor of changing rules to pass abortion protection laws.
“Shame on her,” Manchin told CNN. “She knows the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy. It’s the only thing that keeps us talking and working together.”
Independent Senator Krysten Sinema of Arizona also defended the filibuster, posting to social media that this is a “shortsighted idea.”
“To state the supremely obvious, eliminating the filibuster to codify Roe v Wade also enables a future Congress to ban all abortion nationwide,” Sinema posted on X, formerly Twitter. “What an absolutely terrible, shortsighted idea.”
Jon Cooper, the former majority leader of the Suffolk County Legislature in New York who has worked to campaign against former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, responded that Sinema was being “disingenuous.”
“You’re well aware that nothing can stop a future GOP-controlled Senate from eliminating the filibuster to ban all abortions nationwide, if that’s what they want to do,” he posted.
Trump spoke out against the 60-vote requirement while he was in office. In a series of tweets in 2017, he called for an end to the filibuster in relation to Obamacare.
“Republicans in the Senate will NEVER win if they don’t go to a 51 vote majority NOW,” Trump posted at the time. “They look like fools and are just wasting time.”