Monday on FNC’s “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) argued the filibuster rule should be applied as was intended originally, with senators forced to be there to filibuster to slow down the progress of legislation.
Lee’s comments were regarding the SAVE Act, which faces stiff Democratic opposition.
“It does, and you gave a presentation last week to your colleagues, because in order to pass this, you have to get past the filibuster,” guest host Kayleigh McEnany said. “And your colleague, Rick Scott, has said to me, I want the standing filibuster. This would force Democrats to talk as to why they were on the 20 percent side of an 80/20 issue, endlessly talk about this. I think the idea is fantastic. You presented it to your colleagues. What did they say?”
Lee replied, “Look, everyone in the Senate Republican Conference, basically everybody was there. They listened. Not one of them came up with a rules based argument against doing this. The only real strong argument against it is that it would take time, and that it’s fraught with a certain degree of uncertainty. Why? Well, it’s because this sort of thing hasn’t been accomplished in a while because people haven’t tried it. Sometimes muscle starts to atrophy when that muscle isn’t used. But the rules are still in place. We don’t have to change one rule. We don’t have to nuke the filibuster as a whole. We just have to enforce our existing laws. Look historically, the filibuster was understood as speaking, and over the last few decades, we’ve made it way too easy, where people can filibuster in their sleep or while on vacation, while at recess, at a bar, whatever. They don’t have to show up and speak.”
“All we’re asking is that if you want to filibuster this bill, you should have to show up, stand up, seek recognition and speak,” he added.
McEnany said, “Majority Leader John Thune said to Politico, this is how they describe it. Asked later if he knew how a talking filibuster could work without a prolonged floor battle, something that the South Dakota Republican warned could derail other GOP priorities, Thune started laughing. ‘No, I don’t,’ Thune said. It takes you back over a hundred years, so unlimited debate and unlimited amendments, nobody knows. Well, you seem to know, and I wonder what you would say to Thune, because James Carville has told me I’m going to be nuking the filibuster. The Democrats are going to get rid of it entirely. So, now seems like the only time for Republicans to step up and do something.”
Lee answered, “Yes, first of all, the fact that we haven’t done something in a while, the fact that it would require a fair amount of work, and that we don’t know exactly what curve balls the Democrats might try to throw at us when we do this, isn’t a good reason not to do it. In fact. Kayleigh, when you look at how important this is, the fact that we’re looking at somewhere between 80 and 85% of all Americans support this, the fact that this may well be necessary in order for us to preserve the majority that the Republican Party holds in the Senate and in the House. When you look at the fact that the American people want this done, this is the most important thing that we could do. And so, look, it may take a while. I expect that it probably would take a few weeks. It would be far worth the investment, and I believe we could get it past what we do know is that if we don’t try, it won’t happen and it won’t pass. We’ve got to try this, Kayleigh. The American people demand it.”
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