Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat from Arizona, defends her support of the 60-vote Senate filibuster at an event held by The McConnell Center with Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky.
SINEMA: “You know over the last year much has been discussed about the Senate's 60-vote threshold. And there's been a lot of talk about my continued support of it. American politics are cyclical and the granting of power in Washington, DC is exchanged regularly by the voters from one party to another. The shift of power back and forth means that the since 60-vote threshold has proved maddening to members of both political parties. As we have seen in recent years, beauty either as a weapon of obstruction or a safety net to save the country from radical policies, depending on whether you serve in the majority or the minority at the moment. But what is the legislative filibuster other than a tool that requires that new federal policy to be broadly supported by Senators representing a broader cross-section of Americans, a guardrail ensuring that the millions of Americans not represented by the majority party in the moment have a voice in the process. Demands to eliminate this threshold, by both political parties, amount to a group of people separated on two sides of a canyon shouting to their colleagues that the solution to their shared challenges is to make that rift both wider and deeper.”
