Voters are split on whether the Senate should require a majority or supermajority to pass legislation, according to a new poll conducted by Politico and the Morning Consult.
When asked if the Senate should do away with the filibuster, which allows the minority party to block the majority unless there are 60 votes in the 100-member chamber, 42 percent of voters said they agreed with the rule while 30 percent said they disagree with the rule. Twenty-eight percent of respondents said they were unsure or had no opinion on the matter.
The question comes as President Biden has called on the Senate to do away with the filibuster in order to pass voting rights legislation.
“Sadly, the U.S. Senate, designed to be the world’s greatest deliberative body, has been rendered a shell of its former self,” Biden said during a speech on voting rights in Atlanta on Tuesday. “It gives me no satisfaction in saying that as an institutionalist, as a man who was honored to serve in the Senate,” Biden said. “But as an institutionalist, I believe the threat to our democracy is so grave that we must find a way to pass these voting rights bills.”
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has threatened to change the filibuster rule if Republicans do not help move voting rights legislation forward by Monday, but it appears to be a longshot because he would also need the votes of Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), both of whom have said they do not want to change the Senate rules.
Thirty-seven percent of voters said they support Schumer’s threat to change the filibuster for voting rights legislation, while 36 percent say they disagree with the move. The poll found 27 percent don’t know or have no opinion on the issue.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on the Senate floor Democrats are overhyping the impact of new voting laws in order to “justify [a] top-down election takeover.”
“The Democratic leader is using fake hysteria, fake hysteria about 2021 state laws to justify a power grab he began floating actually back in 2019, and an election takeover that was first drafted in 2019,” McConnell said.