'Shame On Her': Senator Joe Manchin SLAMS Kamala Harris For Going After The 'Holy Grail Of Democracy'

On Tuesday, Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) said that he would not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president after the Democratic candidate said that she would support ending the Senate's filibuster rule, which requires legislation to be supported by 60 senators to pass through the upper chamber. Harris's plan, which progressive lawmakers have long pushed, would reshape the Senate and bring down the threshold to pass legislation to 51 votes.

"Shame on her," Manchin said on Capitol Hill. "She knows the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy. It's the only thing that keeps us talking and working together. If she gets rid of that, then this would be the House on steroids."

"That ain't going to happen. I think that basically can destroy our country, and my country is more important to me than any one person or any one person's ideology...I think it's the most horrible thing," the West Virginia independent said. "She said she supported banning fracking, too, and she changed that. I was hoping she would change this."

During an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio this week, Harris said that she would support eliminating the filibuster to reverse state laws on abortion. "I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe," she told WPR on Tuesday morning. "And get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do."

Sen. Manchin, retiring at the end of his term at the end of the year, wasn't the only senator to condemn Harris' proposal. GOP Whip Sen. John Thune (R-SD), who's running for Republican Senate leadership to replace Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), said that Democrats wouldn't stop at just abortion legislation but would institute changes across the board once the filibuster was eliminated. "I think they're willing to change the filibuster over a whole range of issues," Thune said. "That's the problem," adding they have a list of legislation they want to "pass at 51 votes in the Senate, which undermines not only the Senate but the country, which is designed to protect minority rights. Once they do it there, they will do it on everything."

Despite opposition from Manchin and the GOP, Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), a vulnerable Democrat seeking reelection this November against GOP Senate candidate Dave McCormick (R-PA), said that he supports eliminating the Senate rule. "I think it makes sense to change the rule," he told CNN. "Well, I'll just say what I believe. I believe for a long time that the 60-vote rule has been an impediment to progress on a whole host of fronts, including voting rights, which we tried to pass in 2022. And in the process of trying to pass the bill, we tried to change the rule. So we can pass voting rights. I think the same is true for women's rights, workers' rights, so common sense gun measures to reduce gun violence. So on a whole host of fronts."

Democrat efforts to eliminate the filibuster, which has been around for over a century, represent a major threat to the Senate's legislative process and would bring even more instability to Washington as each party radically changes policy every two to four years. As said by Georgie Washington, the Senate is the cooling saucer meant to check the "hot tea" of the House of Representatives. The elimination of the filibuster would be a direct affront to that purpose.

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