Democrats Are Headed For A Clash Over The Filibuster

The NPR Politics Podcast

NPR

Politics, Daily News, News

4.5 • 24.9K Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2022

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Senate Democrats are bringing new voting rights bills to the floor this week. There's just one problem: They don't have the votes. That could have consequences for the 2022 midterms, and it's setting up a public showdown about the future of the filibuster.

This episode: White House correspondent Ayesha Rascoe, congressional correspondent Kelsey Snell, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Am. This is Patrick. At Missouri Baptist Hospital in St. Louis. Today our new
0:05.8	mourn son is being discharged from the NICU and we get to take him home to reunite with his twin
0:11.0	sister. This podcast was recorded at... It is 152 pm on Tuesday, January 18th, 2022. Things may
0:21.4	have changed by the time you hear it, but we'll still be grateful for all the NICU nurses and
0:26.0	doctors who give these tidy humans the best possible care. Okay, on with the show.
0:34.8	Aw, congratulations! Twins, my goodness! Wow! God bless them! God bless them!
0:46.4	Hey there is the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm a Yisirasco. I cover the White House.
0:51.2	I'm Kelsey Snulley, cover Congress. And I'm Dominico Montanara, Senior Political Editor and
0:55.3	Corp. Sinett Democrats are forging ahead with their plan to pass two major voting rights bills.
1:04.7	Of course, the issue today and is the same as it was yesterday and the days before that is that
1:12.9	they do not have the votes. They do not. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer pushed a vote on this issue
1:18.9	from last week to this week because he didn't have votes and it doesn't seem like anything has
1:23.6	changed, but they're moving ahead. So Kelsey, where do things stand now? Well, they started debate
1:30.0	on this bill because they came over a very technical explanation as it came over from the House in a
1:35.1	way that allowed them to avoid the first filibuster that would have prevented them from starting debate.
1:40.4	But they would still have to overcome one more 60 vote threshold filibuster to actually pass
1:45.2	this bill. So they are debating right now and they expect to kind of come up on that
1:50.5	confrontation about getting 60 votes coming up to the confrontation about the filibuster. In general,
1:55.7	sometime later this week, we don't know exactly when, but they do plan to wrap things up before
2:00.8	they're done this week. What are they hoping to accomplish with that as a move strategically?
2:05.2	Is any insight there from leadership? Well, I mean, essentially, they just need to show that they
2:10.0	tried and they need to show who was not with them. Right? They are proving this for two different
	...

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