Schumer Threatens to End Filibuster for Good if GOP Uses it to Block New ‘Voting Rights’ Legislation

Via AAN:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is now threatening to kill the filibuster once and for all, if conservatives use it to stop his newly proposed ‘voting rights’ legislation that is.

As NPR reports:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has vowed the Senate will forge ahead on voting rights legislation and will vote on changing the rules of the upper chamber by Jan. 17 if the GOP once again blocks the bill.

“We must adapt. The Senate must evolve, like it has many times before,” Schumer wrote in a Dear Colleague letter Monday morning. This message is his strongest to date suggesting that changes to the legislative filibuster are necessary.

“As former Senator Robert Byrd famously said, Senate Rules ‘must be changed to reflect changed circumstances,’ ” he said. “Put more plainly by Senator Byrd, ‘Congress is not obliged to be bound by the dead hand of the past.’ ”

In an effort to make good on their promise to take up voting rights legislation this month, Senate Democrats are linking the upcoming anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol with what they see as increasing threats to the right to vote enacted by various Republican state legislatures.

The GOP is expected to oppose the move, and it remains unclear whether Schumer can count on Democrats Krysten Sinema and Joe Manchin to support his potential crusade to destroy the filibuster, with both having previously expressed their support for keeping the filibuster as is.