MIAMI – Debbie Mukarsel-Powell, the Democratic front-runner to face Florida Sen. Rick Scott this fall, said she would support a walkout. Senate The filibuster passed a number of policy measures, including federal protections for abortion.
“Democracy is one in 50, and on some issues I’m very much in favor of ending the filibuster and voting on a woman’s right to choose to codify Roe v. Wade,” said Mucarsel-Powell, a former member of the House of Representatives. The Miami area said in an interview Wednesday after a press conference where he addressed Florida’s implementation of a six-week abortion ban.
Mucarsel-Powell said she would support repealing the filibuster, which requires 60 Senate votes to pass majority legislation to protect federal voting rights and pass gun measures.
Pressed on whether to support removing the filibuster entirely without the possibility of reinstallation, Mucarsel-Powell demurred.
“I’ll have to think about it,” he said, adding that the filibuster “has been there for a long time” and he “will have to understand the implications” before deciding whether he supports eliminating it permanently.
Mucarsel-Powell’s announcement comes amid broader Democratic efforts to coordinate the 2024 campaign and abortion rights, both in terms of federal policy platforms and abortion rights ballot measures that will go before voters in several states, including Florida. While Democrats’ performance in Florida has declined in recent years, a series of queries there have shown wide support for abortion rightseven as state Republicans ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, one of the stricter restrictions nationwide.
Efforts by Democrats to stamp out Senate gerrymandering have failed in recent years.
Eliminating the filibuster was a challenge for a number of Democratic Senate candidates in 2020. But the party won the Senate by only a small margin and Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona were key players in the early years of the Biden administration, blocking efforts by their Democratic colleagues to remove the obstruction.
Later, Manchin and Sinema left the party independent, both have since announced they will not seek re-election this year. That could help return the Senate to Republican control, but it also means any future Democratic majority could be more amenable to rule changes to remove the 60-vote barrier for most legislation.
For example, In Arizona, Democrat Ruben Gallego, who wants to succeed in Cinema, has signaled his support for reforming the procedure.
Mucarsel-Powell put A laser focus on abortion rights in the weeks following the Florida Supreme Court voted to allow the referendum to go before voters this fall, if passed Roe v. Wade would include the defense of the era state constitution.
“At the same time, we have an amendment on the ballot,” he said, adding that voters “will have the opportunity to make sure that extremists like Rick Scott, who support this extreme abortion ban, are not re-elected.”
“If we pass this amendment in Florida, but he gets re-elected, he goes back to the Senate and pushes for a federal abortion ban,” he said.
Recently, Scott has given mixed signals on the abortion issue. In a few days in April, he He said he believed there was a “consensus” around the 15-week limitsbut he too He said this in an interview with Spectrum News if he were still governor, he would sign the state’s new six-week ban.
Scott’s campaign has said he does not support national abortion legislation.
“Everybody knows that Senator Rick Scott supports the right to life. Congresswoman Debbie Mukarsel-Powell does not,” Scott campaign spokesman Will Hampson said in a statement.
“Floridians agree that there should be some reasonable restrictions on abortion. Senator Scott made it very clear where he stood: No national bans, 15-week consensus limits on rape, incest and the life of the mother,” he said.