“I’ve been very clear: I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe,” the vice president said in a radio interview, renewing a call she and President Biden have made in the past.
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Vice President Kamala Harris has tacked to the center and moved cautiously on several top issues, but has been more outspoken on abortion rights, seeing it as a winning subject for Democrats.
Vice President Kamala Harris said in a radio interview that aired on Tuesday that she supported eliminating the Senate filibuster to pass abortion rights legislation, reiterating a position that she and President Biden have taken in the past.
“I’ve been very clear: I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe,” Ms. Harris told Wisconsin Public Radio in the interview, which was recorded on Monday. “Fifty-one votes would be what we need 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.”
Mr. Biden, a longtime supporter of Senate traditions who served in the chamber for more than 35 years, first said in 2022 that he would back ending the filibuster — which effectively requires 60 votes to move legislation forward in the Senate — to restore Roe v. Wade. Many liberals had pressured him to take that stance, noting that their legislation would be stymied if the filibuster stayed in place.
Ms. Harris adopted the same position soon after. But Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Democrats at the time who have since become independents, would not support such a move.
Ms. Harris is tacking to the center against former President Donald J. Trump after running as a progressive in the 2020 Democratic primary race. She has backtracked on several of her positions from four years ago and been reluctant to express firm views on other difficult policy questions. Democrats see abortion as a winning issue, however, and Ms. Harris has been consistent and outspoken in her view that Congress should pass legislation to codify abortion rights.
Voters have expressed more trust in Ms. Harris on abortion than in Mr. Trump. She has blamed him for state abortion bans passed after the justices he appointed to the Supreme Court helped overturn Roe. Last week, she traveled to Georgia to speak about abortion rights after the deaths of two women that were reportedly a result of delayed treatment after receiving medication abortions. The state has a six-week abortion ban.
Even without the filibuster, legislation legalizing some form of federal abortion rights would face a steep climb in Congress. There is little agreement over what, exactly, “codifying Roe” would mean in terms of precisely what stage in pregnancy abortion would be permitted.
To pass top priorities like protecting abortion and voting rights, Democrats would need to hold the Senate and then muster enough votes to overcome a filibuster from Republicans. But they face a difficult challenge in maintaining control of the Senate, with tough races in Montana, Ohio and several presidential battleground states.
“We need the votes in Congress,” Ms. Harris said in her interview with Wisconsin Public Radio, adding that “it is well within our reach to hold on to the majority in the Senate and take back the House.”
Lisa Lerer and Reid J. Epstein contributed reporting.
Nicholas Nehamas is a Times political reporter covering the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris. More about Nicholas Nehamas
See more on: Kamala Harris, U.S. Senate, 2024 Elections: News, Polls and Analysis, U.S. Politics, Democratic Party
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Source: nytimes.com
