Watch — Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal: ‘That Filibuster Must Go’

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) appeared in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, DC, on Tuesday to stump about abortion to a crowd of hundreds of abortion advocates in the wake of Politico releasing a draft court opinion showing a decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Blumenthal, like several of his colleagues from the far-left flank of the Democrat Party, reignited calls for nuking the filibuster so that Senate Democrats could vote in favor of pro-abortion legislation by way of a simple Senate majority.

“The only way to codify Roe v. Wade is in fact to end the filibuster, and that filibuster must go,” Blumenthal declared after the draft decision, published Monday evening, reflected that the Supreme Court may have ruled in its forthcoming pivotal Mississippi abortion case that abortion is not a constitutional right.

Blumenthal was a lead sponsor of the Women’s Health Protection Act, which passed the House in 2021 mostly on partisan lines but was blocked in the Senate, 46–48, in February. The bill would have worked to nullify or block existing pro-life legislation in individual states while maintaining women’s access to abortion at a federal level, but it had needed 60 Senate votes to pass.

Blumenthal joined Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and several other Democrats over the past day in reviving calls to end the Senate’s filibuster rule, a key protection for the minority party that requires 60 votes to pass legislation. In an upper chamber split 50–50 with a Democrat vice president casting tiebreaking votes, ridding of the filibuster rule is necessary for Democrats to pass any pro-abortion legislation, which Republicans mostly oppose.

Blumenthal said to the crowd on Tuesday, “Because we’re here, not about some abstract or hypothetical threat. We know it’s real now.”

“It’s on that magic stationery, the Supreme Court’s font,” he said. “It’s an opinion, maybe a draft. They can dress it up. They can smooth the edges. Some of this language is so strident I can’t imagine they’re going to adopt it, but the result is the same. It takes away women’s right to choose.”