Free Republic

The US House of Representatives passed the Laken Riley Bill. The 216 Republicans present were joined by 48 Democrats in voting for the bill. All the opposing 159 votes were cast by Democrats. The legislation requires the Department of Homeland Security to detain illegal immigrants who have committed crimes other than illegally entering the country. Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn) argued for the bill, saying "the tragic and preventable murder of Laken Riley serves as a stark reminder of the consequences of failed leadership. The Laken Riley Act is a direct step toward ensuring that criminal illegal aliens are swiftly...

With Republicans projected to win the Senate majority in the 2024 election, "the filibuster will stand," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell noted on Wednesday. Even when one party controls a slim majority of Senate seats, the other party can still block legislation from advancing due to the significant threshold required for overcoming the filibuster. "In 1975 the Senate reduced the number of votes required for cloture from two-thirds of senators voting to three-fifths of all senators duly chosen and sworn, or 60 of the 100-member Senate," senate.gov notes.

Democratic heavyweights Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and Chuck Schumer are all indicating that they will try to weaken or kill the Senate filibuster if their party wins big on Election Day. Harris and Walz, who are at the top of the Democratic ticket for the 2024 election cycle, have each indicated they believe the filibuster needs to go, while Schumer suggested in August that he would move to eliminate it if Democrats can secure a Senate majority. The filibuster is a key Senate rule that requires 60 votes to pass most major legislation rather than a simple majority of 51,...

Harris’ campaign is promising that if she is elected and the numbers in Congress work, Democrats will eliminate the Senate filibuster.Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is promising that if Harris is elected president and the numbers in the House and Senate are favorable, they will eliminate the Senate filibuster for a singular altruistic purpose — to enshrine Roe v. Wade as the law of the land. They ignore polling that suggests there are other issues at the top of Americans’ daily concerns.The putative Harris administration would try again to eliminate the filibuster just one more time to pass the John...

Democrats might favor abolishing the filibuster now. But what happens when they lose power? Senate Democrats made a mistake when they eliminated the filibuster for lower court judges in 2013. They’re making the same mistake again — except this time with a far less certain payoff. Vice President Kamala Harris said Tuesday that she favors lowering the existing 60-vote threshold to a bare majority to enact legislation to protect abortion rights nationwide. “I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe and get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in...

Anyone who has been paying even a little bit of attention to this election knows that there were really only a few issues that seemed to matter this time around. Chief among these was the economy. After that, Republicans were clearly looking to campaign on immigration and Democrats on abortion. So here we are in the 11th hour of this election and the Harris camp/CNN just dropped a trial balloon yesterday about her possibly heading to the border this Friday. That suggests that the Republican push on immigration is working and Harris is looking to blunt that objection by showing...

Chuck Schumer is doing us a favor. Often, parties try to obscure or deny their radical plans prior to an election, but the Senate majority leader is being more candid. In a session with reporters at the Democratic National Convention, Schumer (D-NY) suggested that — should Democrats win the White House, Senate and House in November — he would seek to end the filibuster for purposes of passing voting rights and abortion legislation. This would be an inflection point in American government. There’s no nuking the legislative filibuster a little bit. The end run around the Senate’s long-standing requirement for...

National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) chairman Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) warned in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News last month that the Democrats have “radical” power-grabbing plans for the United States if they hold the majority in the upper chamber of Congress. When asked what the plan is for Republicans to combat that potential by retaking the U.S. Senate majority, Daines — the man who leads the NRSC, the party committee charged with doing so — laid out how close the margins are in the chamber right now, but how very far apart the two parties are ideologically.

Senator Mark Kelly (R-AZ) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he supported eliminating the filibuster to codify abortion rights. Host Kristen Welker said, “Let’s talk about what’s happening in your state, Arizona, is now effectively ground zero for the national fight over abortion rights. This week, the state legislature voted to repeal Arizona’s ban that went all the way back to 1864. Do you think the repeal minimizes the urgency that some voters will feel to get out and vote for Democrats?”

Nebraska State Sen. Mike McDonnell (R-5) announced he is fleeing the Democrat party to become a Republican, giving the GOP what U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) calls a “filibuster-proof majority” in Nebraska’s unicameral legislature. McDonnell’s party change bears major implications for local and national politics as the state is on the verge of moving to a winner-take-all electoral vote allocation system for presidential elections. The state currently has a split electoral vote awarding system that gives “two electoral votes to the state popular vote winner, and then one electoral vote to the popular vote winner in each congressional district,” as...

@RandPaul Talking filibuster begins in earnest this afternoon!

Senate candidate John Fetterman (D-PA) wants to end the filibuster so Democrats can push through a gun ban for “assault weapons.” Fetterman’s gun control positions were in the spotlight over the weekend after a September 30 FOX News mention of his reference to NRA members as the “lunatic fringe of gun ownership.”

Vice President Kamala Harris said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that if Democrats win two more seats in the U.S. Senate, they will remove the filibuster rule to pass abortion and voting legislation. Harris said, “In less than two months, we are looking at a midterm election in which so much is on the line. Take, for example, the issue of choice. The United States Supreme Court in the Dobbs decision just took away a constitutional right that had been recognized from the women of America from the people of America.”

Many in the Republican conservative base have good reasons for disliking Senator McConnell. However, he is the leader of the Senate Republicans, making him the highest-ranking Republican in office. Republicans with more political power and a larger base are currently on the outside looking in. That can change. I would never pretend to know what is going on in my senior senator’s head, but I have observed him since the Reagan administration, so I know how he operates.*** Kentucky does not elect him as the Republican leader of the Senate. That is on the senators who vote for him as...

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in its decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist, put out tweets calling for the codification of Roe v. Wade. “Overturning Roe v. Wade and denying women the right to control their own bodies is an outrage and in defiance of what the American people want,” said Sanders in a tweet on June 24. …

Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema remain steadfast in their defense of the filibuster, their offices said, despite public pressure from all the way up to President Biden. Manchin's office told DailyMail.com that the West Virginia Democrat's position had not changed in light of the president's new comments, and Sinema's office referred DailyMail.com to a statement the Arizona Democrat made after the leaked Supreme Court decision: 'Protections in the Senate safeguarding against the erosion of women's access to health care have been used half-a-dozen times in the past ten years, and are more important now than ever.' In new comments...

Though the conservative Supreme Court appears poised to strike down Roe v. Wade, Democrats control slim majorities in both chambers of Congress, and they have a president in the White House supportive of abortion rights. They also have public opinion on their side. But one thing stops them from passing a federal law protecting abortion rights and codifying Roe into law: the filibuster. The filibuster is a Senate rule that requires 60 votes to pass most legislation. Most controversial legislation is passed on party-line votes these days, and it’s very rare for parties to have 60 senators. Democrats only have...

- with McConnell and 14 other Republicans giving it a boost The Senate voted 65 to 34 to end a Republican-led filibuster on the gun reform package, with final passage coming as early as later Thursday Senators were working on an agreement that would allow them to expedite the process instead of waiting 30 hours for a final vote Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was among the 15 Republicans to vote in favor of the package The House could pass the package by the end of the week House Republican leadership is encouraging members to vote against it

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) says she doesn’t believe “that DC solutions are realistic” for stopping massacres like yesterday’s in Uvalde, Texas. NBC’s Jake Sherman said Sinema stopped reporters outside the Senate chamber because she “had something to say.” “This is rare” for her, he added. Sherman asked if Sinema would be willing to “set aside” the filibuster to force some kind of gun control measure through the evenly divided Senate. Her fellow Democrat Senator, Jon Tester of Montana, waited mere hours after Tuesday night’s slaughter to press for universal background check legislation. “Come on guys, kids got killed yesterday for...

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on Tuesday lamented the lack of Senate support for tougher gun laws following a mass shooting in Texas hours earlier but rejected the notion of eliminating the filibuster for the purpose of passing such a bill. Manchin noted that he has three grandchildren similar in age to the victims at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where at least 14 kids and one teacher were shot and killed.