Harris supports abolishing the filibuster to enforce nationwide abortion protection, angering Manchin

Vice President Kamala Harris said Tuesday she supports changing the Senate filibuster rules to codify women's federal right to abortion with a simple majority.

“I have said it very clearly, I think we should abolish the filibuster tactic for Roe (by Wade), and bring us to the point where … “51 votes would be exactly what we need to actually put into law the protection of reproductive freedom and the ability of every man and every woman to make decisions about their own bodies without the government telling them what to do,” Harris said in an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio.

Under current Senate rules, either party can use the filibuster tactic to delay or prevent a vote on a bill. To end a filibuster tactic and clear the way for a vote, nearly two-thirds of the chamber, or 60 votes, must agree. In her remarks on Tuesday, Harris limited her proposal to abolish the filibuster rules to the issue of abortion.

While Democrats and the independents who vote with them currently control 51 seats in the Senate, the 49 Republicans can effectively block votes on issues such as codification. Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that guaranteed a woman the right to abortion.

Manchin angry

One of the biggest opponents of such a change to the filibuster is Democratic and now independent Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. He expressed his displeasure with Harris' stance on Tuesday.

“Shame on her,” he told reporters in Washington. “She knows the filibuster is the holy grail of democracy. It's the only thing that gets us talking to each other and working together. If she gets rid of it, it would be a House of Representatives on steroids.”

Manchin added that he refused to support Harris because she promised to abolish the filibuster tactic and bring about a vote on expanding abortion rights nationwide.

“That's not going to happen,” he said. “I think it can fundamentally destroy our country, and my country is more important to me than any one person or any one person's ideology… I think that's the most terrible thing.”

Trump vs. Harris on abortion and filibuster

In 2017, as president, Donald Trump called on Republicans in the Senate to end the filibuster tactic so that the party could repeal the Affordable Care Act.

“The completely outdated filibuster rule must be abolished,” Trump said at the time.

Since then, the Supreme Court Roe v. Wade, and Trump has made this decision his own. “After 50 years of failure, in which no one even came close, I was able to overturn Roe v. Wade, much to the 'shock' of everyone,” Trump announced in a post on his social media website in 2023.

Harris has sought to make abortion rights a central issue of the 2024 campaign. Last week, as she campaigned for votes in Georgia, she focused on the stories of two women who died after the state's strict new abortion restrictions denied them medical care for complications from taking abortion pills.

As with the question of whether to abolish the filibuster in its current form, she seemed to have some agreement with Trump on who should take credit (or blame) for ending roe.

“When Donald Trump was president, he personally selected three members of the Supreme Court of the United States,” Harris said at a rally in Atlanta, adding, “with the intention that they would uphold the protections of the Roe v. Wade. And they did it as he intended.”