Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), who previously withheld support for gutting the notorious filibuster, signaled a significant shift on his stance in the face of persistent GOP obstruction, particularly with voting rights legislation.
In an op-ed published in the News Journal on Thursday, Carper highlighted the urgency of passing Democrats’ Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act as state Republicans across the country slap more and more restrictions on access to the ballot.
“Unfortunately, my Republican colleagues have repeatedly used the filibuster to obstruct the path forward,” Carper wrote.
The senator said that he wants to “hold out hope” that he and his Democratic colleagues can reach a compromise with Republicans on voting rights, but ultimately “I cannot look the other way if total obstruction continues.”
“I do not come to this decision lightly, but it has become clear to me that if the filibuster is standing in the way of protecting our democracy then the filibuster isn’t working for our democracy,” the Delaware Democrat wrote.
Up until now, Carper had expressed some tepid interest in reforming the filibuster, but he hadn’t gone as far as boosting an all-out nixing of the rule for voting rights.
Carper’s op-ed came out the day after GOP senators predictably wielded the filibuster to block the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which aims to restore provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that were struck down by the Supreme Court, particularly the “preclearance” measure.
Republicans also used the filibuster to block the sweeping Freedom To Vote Act two weeks ago.
Voting reform has been put at the center of Democrats’ debate over maintaining the filibuster. President Joe Biden, who was previously reluctant to call for changes to the arcane Senate rule, declared several weeks ago that he was open to altering it for voting rights legislation and “maybe more.”
However, Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) remain staunchly opposed to nuking or even reforming the filibuster.
Hear! Hear!
The matter of Voting Rights v. Maintaining Our Democracy is a no-brainer! It’s a mere “DUH” moment!
I’m so grateful to these senators for very, very, very slowly and deliberately coming to the gradual realization that maybe at some point in the future the fire that is raging all around them and even threatens eventually (in some possible scenarios) to threaten their exclusive privileges – that maybe, I say, this very fire may need some sort of remedial action not entirely in keeping with Senate traditions.
100 years from now, as we work toward the leader and derive insight from state-house approved boneheaded readings of the four gospels in approved translations, we will all be inspired to think back on the slow, deliberate, obtuse leadership provided by today’s octogenarian senate leadership.
Hopefully, his change in attitude spreads faster than the Delta virus in a Southern Baptist congregation.
The only problem with this is that one of the two “Dems” who so far refuse to go along with this appears to have sympathies with if not actually belong to this crowd:
Manchin might not be a Trumpie, but in his heart I strongly suspect that he believes in the straight while Christian conservative male power structure, rich version on top, and that a big part of his reason for opposing this and everything else is out of a sense of defending that whole obscene and execrable power structure that he’s a part of and has served him so well all his life. Deep down, he’s more bigoted patriarchal male than anything else. He’s only a Dem because he never had the nerve to flip.
More broadly, what are we going to do about these roid ragers, not just men like this, but the overall subculture that they’re a part of, that in certain ways still lives in the 19th century, focused on white and male dominance, an economy based on heavy industry, extraction and farming, conservative Christianity, a rejection of the modern welfare state and social democracy (except when they need it of course but that’s “different”) and really modernity itself in terms of its ideas, values, norms, lifestyles, outlooks, etc., and basically anything and everyone outside of themselves and their narrow, boring, unchallenging and in my view rather silly little sheltered cookie cutter lives?
These people exist in huge numbers and they’re everywhere, not just the south, midwest and rural areas. And Trump is their messiah, their great white hope, their Jesus on a cross of gold-plated pig iron. They vote in large numbers, they’re terrified and angry and out for blood, and they’re not going away. We’re taking away their birthrights, and they just won’t stand for it.