Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) Monday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” called on the U.S. Senate to bypass the filibuster by using the reconciliation process to protect the constitutional right of voting or America would be “going the way of the Roman empire.”
Anchor Nicolle Wallace said, “If you have in the Republican Party at this moment a party that is not a governing partner what value then is a tradition not a law like the filibuster?”
Clyburn said, “The filibuster has very little value and should not have any value when it comes to constitutional rights. Voting rights or basically constitutional rights. The filibuster, even a tradition, is to extend debate on legislation question. That’s one thing. For the People Act, sure, if you want to vote against it, then vote against it. If you vote to keep me or anybody else from voting for it, that’s a problem. That’s what Joe Manchin is doing here.”
He continued, “That is just one vote against the For the People Act, and that’s fine. But what he is doing now is aiding and abetting a process that keeps democratic principles from taking place. Jon Ossoff, The two senators from Georgia, would like to vote on The For the People Act but what he is doing is preventing them from voting on the act. That, to me, is a worst possible way to use the filibuster. I never asked them to get rid of the filibuster. We made an exception with the budget. We have what we call a reconciliation. I said to people over and over again the word reconciliation is more apt to applied to the constitutional rights than it is to the budget. So let’s not allow the filibuster to be used to deny basic constitutional rights to anybody. We ought not pass the filibuster denying constitutional rights. ”
He added, “When I used to teach history, I said two dates. When I was studying history. 76 A.D. That’s the year the Roman empire fell and passed the whole world into darkness. And it did not come to light again until 1066 when we opened it up again, and if we’re not careful this — the greatest democracy on the face of the Earth will go the way of the Roman empire. The history is very clear. I would say this is not a democratic problem why this is not a problem for Democrats. This is a problem for every person in these United States of America, and we better wake up or we can going to find ourselves going the way of the Roman empire and many others since.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN