Path for Democrats to eliminate the filibuster runs through NC, Kamala Harris says

Vice President Kamala Harris, while visiting Durham on Thursday, said the path for Democrats to overcome the filibuster and enact the legislation they want runs through North Carolina.

Harris told campaign donors the open U.S. Senate race being contested in North Carolina this November could prove crucial in potentially delivering Democrats a majority large enough to end the legislative filibuster, a longstanding Senate rule that allows lawmakers to block bills from being voted on unless supporters can put together a three-fifths supermajority in favor of the legislation — typically a 60-vote threshold.

“I will stress that here in North Carolina you have a Senate race coming up,” Harris said, referring to the contest between Republican Ted Budd and Democrat Cheri Beasley.

The comments came during a private Democratic Party fundraiser that followed Harris’ visit in the afternoon to the Durham Center for Senior Life, where she promoted the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act, the wide-ranging spending package that addresses health care costs, climate change, and tax enforcement.

The bill passed with no Republican support in either chamber of Congress, which meant that Harris had to cast a tie-breaking vote to move it out of the Senate.

Through a special legislative process called budget reconciliation, Democrats have been able to enact sweeping spending bills relying only their own 50-vote majority, but the process allows only for legislation that directly affects spending and revenues, thereby blocking other major legislative priorities Democrats have wanted to act on since President Joe Biden took office.

Many Democrats, particularly in the progressive wing of the party, have urged Biden and other party leaders to unify in opposition to the filibuster rule, which can be altered or done away with entirely with a simple majority.

Harris said that Biden, a 36-year veteran of the Senate, has long respected the “traditions and nobility” of the Senate, “but has had enough.”

“He will not let the filibuster get in the way,” Harris said. “So what that means is we need to hold on to the seats that we’ve got and we need two more. One of them is right here.”

Centrist Senate Democrats, especially Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have insisted that the filibuster remain as a way to prevent extreme legislation from moving forward.

Beasley, a former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, did not attend Thursday’s fundraiser or the earlier event at the senior care center.

“While the Vice President is in North Carolina for an official White House visit, Cheri is focused on her campaign to give North Carolinians a Senator in Washington who will work for them,” Kelci Hobson, a spokesperson for the Beasley campaign, told The News & Observer.

Beasley has said she supports eliminating the filibuster, particularly in order to pass a voting rights bill that Democrats have described as a priority, and in light of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in June, to codify protections for abortion rights into law.

Earlier in her campaign, Beasley expressed a less firm position on filibuster reform.

In July 2021, she told The N&O that the filibuster shouldn’t be used to block policies that are widely popular, and said she would support “(taking) a look at changes that would benefit our state, recognizing that it also has been used to block harmful legislation in the past.”

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