Senate Majority Leader Schumer Threatens to go Nuclear If He Doesn’t Get His Way

The Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate Chuck Schumer has announced that he wants the Senate to get rid of the filibuster. The Senate will address changing the legislative filibuster rules on or before January 17th. This comes at a time when the Left has not been successful in passing the Build Back Better plan.

Senator Schumer stated in a letter to his colleagues:

We must ask ourselves, if the right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, then how can we in good conscience allow for a situation in which the Republican Party can debate and pass voter suppression laws at the State level with only a simple majority vote, but not allow the United States Senate to do the same? We must adapt. The Senate must evolve, like it has many times before. The Senate was designed to evolve and has evolved many times in our history. . . . We hope our Republican colleagues change course and work with us. But if they do not, the Senate will debate and consider changes to Senate rules on or before January 17, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, to protect the foundation of our democracy: free and fair elections.

Let’s remember back in 2017 when Senator Schumer was begging the Senate not to change the filibuster rule for Supreme Court nominees after President Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court:

It looks like Gorsuch will not reach the 60-vote margin. So, instead of changing the rules, which is up to Mitch McConnell and the Republican majority, why doesn’t President Trump, Democrats, and Republicans in the Senate sit down and come up with a mainstream nominee? Look, when a nominee doesn’t get 60 votes, you shouldn’t change the rules. You should change the nominee.

It is clear he is only willing to change the filibuster when it benefits him. The Democrats will have to be completely in unison for this to be passed. And for that, Senator Joe Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema will be key votes. But Senator Manchin has not made his stance clear, saying:

There is basically the need for us to protect democracy as we know it and the Senate as it has operated for 232 years are extremely . . . high bars that we must be very careful. . . . So, I am talking, I am not agreeing to any of this to the extent. I want to talk and see all of the options we have open. And that’s what we’re looking at.

It’s important to note that the Constitution does not contain a filibuster mandate. ACLJ Senior Counsel Andy Ekonomou explained this:

There is no constitutional mandate for the filibuster. It is an internal Senate operating procedure. But it is what distinguishes the Senate from the House. The House everything goes by a simple majority. The idea is that the Senate is the premier legislative and deliberative body in the world. And that means that it takes its time and the legislation that is made by popular consent popping up in the House of Representatives, the breaks are put on that in the Senate, and it deliberates, and it debates. That’s what distinguishes the Senate from the House. And that’s why you need to keep it the way it is and has historically been.

We will continue to monitor the development of this potential change in the Senate and provide you with updates.

While we have been fighting back against the radical Left’s agenda, our international affiliate – the European Centre for Law and Justice – has been working too. We just filed a new submission at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on the question of whether Israel’s conduct in so called “Palestinian territory” breaches the prohibition under international law against apartheid. The UNHRC is spending their time accusing Israelis of being a part of an apartheid regime, ignoring all of the other human rights abuses around the world.

ACLJ Senior Counsel for Global Affairs and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo summed up what this report means:

This is so tiresome, and so deep, and so morally inappropriate. . . . Even the language of the conversation “we are going to evaluate whether their occupation” . . . that is assuming the conclusion. Israel is in fact not occupying this land. It is Israeli land; it is the Jewish homeland. But the . . . idea starts we are just going to evaluate the occupation; well, the answer is pretty darn clear. We worked for a time with the Human Rights Council trying to get in a better place. We ultimately concluded this was a corrupt organization . . . . So, we left it . . .  and now the Biden Administration has rejoined . . . the UN Human Rights Council that is going to declare that one of America’s best allies and a nation the United States has always recognized to be noble and democratic and important to our security interests . . . apartheid. We know that’s not true. . . . But sadly, they will issue a report saying that.

Today’s full Sekulow broadcast is complete with even more analysis of Sen. Chuck Schumer attempting to change filibuster rules and our new submission to the UNHRC.

Watch the full broadcast below.