Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called to eliminate the Senate’s filibuster rule in order to pass aggressive gun control measures – such as universal background checks and an assault weapons ban – during Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate.
Warren agreed with competitors like former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) that “we have a gun violence problem in this country” and said Congress has not addressed it due to “corruption, pure and simple.”
However, instead of focusing on gun confiscation like O’Rourker, she called to eliminate the filibuster as the first step in a gun control strategy — a Senate rule that effectively requires 60 procedural votes to end debate for a bill before it can be passed by a majority vote.
“We have a Congress that is beholden to the gun industry, and unless we’re willing to address that head-on and roll back the filibuster, we’re not going to get anything done on guns,” Warren said.
“I was in the United States Senate when 54 senators said, ‘Let’s do background checks, let’s get rid of assault weapons,’ and with 54 senators it failed because of the filibuster,” she continued.
“Until we attack the systemic problems, we can’t get gun reform in this country,” she added, calling to “go straight against the industry.”
“We’ve got to change Congress so it doesn’t just work for the wealthy and well-connected– so it works for the people,” she declared.