Klobuchar: Senate needs to eliminate filibuster to protect abortion rights

by Caroline Vakil - 09/05/21 10:43 AM ET

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said on Sunday that the Senate should eliminate the filibuster in order to protect women’s abortion rights after the Supreme Court last week declined to block a Texas law that bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.

CNN’s Dana Bash asked the Minnesota senator what Democrats could realistically do to protect abortion rights for women in Texas as a result of the ruling.

“So, my solution to this, which is my solution for voting rights and so many other things, including climate change, where one side of the country is in flames, the other side of the country is flooded, with people dying submerged in their cars, I believe we should abolish the filibuster,” Klobuchar told Bash on “State of the Union.”

“We just will get nowhere if we keep this filibuster in place,” Klobuchar added.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar says the Senate should abolish the filibuster in order to codify abortion rights after the Supreme Court allowed Texas’ restrictive anti-abortion law to stand: “Now and over the next years, we just will get nowhere if we keep this filibuster in place.” pic.twitter.com/7ZexK03wdp

— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) September 5, 2021

Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have signaled that they are not in favor of overturning the filibuster – a rule that requires the vote of at least 60 senators in order to pass legislation in the chamber. Without their support, the filibuster is unlikely to be eliminated given the chamber’s 50-50 split.

Klobuchar said she hoped that the Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority, would not overturn Roe v. Wade at the federal level in the future. She added that she was in favor of expanding the number of seats on the court’s bench but that she preferred eliminating the filibuster instead.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last Thursday that the House would be voting on legislation to protect abortion rights after members returned to Washington, but Bash noted that there was not enough votes in the Senate to secure passage of possible legislation.