Harris silent on nixing filibuster for Green New Deal
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In 2019, then-Sen. Kamala Harris pledged as president to eliminate Senate filibuster rules to pass a multi-trillion dollar Green New Deal to transform U.S. energy and climate policy.
- Now, Harris' campaign declined to say if she would push for such a reform if she is president.
Why it matters: Harris has left a lot of question marks about what she'd do as president and her policy priorities since she entered the campaign on July 21.
- Her campaign has been dodging questions about whether she still supports many of her past positions on issues.
- That includes: Ending the death penalty, imposing an electric vehicle mandate, decriminalizing prostitution, providing reparations for slavery, and issuing executive actions for undocumented people brought here as children.
Driving the news: In an interview that aired Tuesday on Wisconsin Public, Harris reiterated that she supported amending the Senate filibuster to restore abortion rights protections nationwide.
- In practice, the filibuster requires 60 votes to pass legislation, which some Democrats and Republicans have argued is undemocratic.
While running for president in 2019, Harris backed changing the filibuster if Republicans stonewalled her climate change agenda.
- "If they fail to act, as president of the United States, I am prepared to get rid of the filibuster to pass a Green New Deal," she said at a CNN town hall in September of 2019.
What they're saying: Asked if Harris supports more filibuster carve-outs, the campaign did not respond.
- The campaign declined to make Harris available for an interview about her position on the filibuster and the Green New Deal.
Zoom in: While running for president in 2019, Harris framed her ambitious environmental agenda as a "moral imperative" to confront the "climate crisis."
- That included "investing $10 trillion in public and private funding to meet the initial 10-year mobilization necessary to stave off the worst climate impacts," according to an archived version of her campaign website.
Zoom out: The filibuster has been chipped away over the past decade by both parties.
- In 2013, Democrats, citing Republican obstruction, tweaked the Senate rules to allow most nominations to the executive branch to be confirmed with a simple majority of 51 votes.
- In 2017, Senate Republicans retaliated by lifting the filibuster rule for Supreme Court nominees, which allowed Trump to nominate more ideological figures.
Former President Barack Obama later expressed regret for not pushing to scrap the filibuster.
- He wrote in his memoir "Promised Land" that he was frustrated that "on my very first day in office, I hadn't had the foresight to tell Harry Reid and the rest of the Senate Democrats to revise the chamber rules and get rid of the filibuster once and for all."
Former President Trump repeatedly pushed Senate Republicans to do away with the filibuster, but he was ultimately unsuccessful.
- Republican Senate leadership made clear earlier this year that they continue to support the filibuster even if Trump wins.
President Biden, a defender of Senate traditions, was long opposed to getting rid of the filibuster.
- In 2021, he told CNN that doing away with it would "throw the entire Congress into chaos" and that "nothing at all will get done."
- In 2022, facing pressure from Democrats, he backed select filibuster carve-outs to pass voting rights and abortion rights legislation. Both attempts failed as centrist Democrats, like Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, opposed them.
