President Joe Biden has been critical of the Senate filibuster, describing it as a Jim Crow relic and claiming it has been abused, although Democrats reportedly used it more than 300 times in 2020 when Republicans only used it once.
Fox News’s John Roberts tweeted Friday that after the president “denounced the rampant abuse of the filibuster last year, we did some digging. Republicans used it once. Democrats used it 327 times”:
After @POTUS @JoeBiden denounced the rampant abuse of the filibuster last year, we did some digging. Republicans used it once. Democrats used it 327 times. @FoxNews
— John Roberts (@johnrobertsFox) March 26, 2021
During his first solo press conference last week, Biden agreed with former President Barack Obama’s belief the filibuster is a “Jim Crow relic,” according to the Washington Examiner.
“I was going to give you the statistics, but you probably know them, that it used to be that — that from between 1917 to 1971, the filibuster existed, there was a total of 58 motions to break a filibuster that whole time,” Biden said.
“Last year alone, there were 5 times that many. So it’s being abused in a gigantic way,” he continued.
However, Republicans had the majority in the Senate and also had the White House in 2020, therefore, Republicans did not use the filibuster as many times as the Democrats reportedly did.
According to the United States Senate website, “The Senate tradition of unlimited debate has allowed for the use of the filibuster, a loosely defined term for action designed to prolong debate and delay or prevent a vote on a bill, resolution, amendment, or other debatable question.”
The site continued:
Prior to 1917 the Senate rules did not provide for a way to end debate and force a vote on a measure. That year, the Senate adopted a rule to allow a two-thirds majority to end a filibuster, a procedure known as “cloture.” In 1975 the Senate reduced the number of votes required for cloture from two-thirds of senators voting to three-fifths of all senators duly chosen and sworn, or 60 of the 100-member Senate.
During an interview Friday on Fox News Primetime, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) criticized Democrats for claiming the filibuster is racist after they used it to block his police reform bill in 2020.
He stated:
It was a frustrating, irritating moment where the Democrats used the filibuster to block police reform that would have positively impacted disproportionately African American communities. Here’s what we know about the Democrats: They were for the filibuster before they were against the filibuster. I keep asking myself, will the real Chuck Schumer please stand up? Is it the one who was for the filibuster or is it the new one who’s now against the filibuster?
Meanwhile, White House press secretary Jen Psaki claimed Friday the filibuster is “allowing for systematic racism in the country,” Breitbart News reported.
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