US President Joe Biden on Thursday urged the Senate to guarantee the right to abortion across the country by law, after the country’s Supreme Court suspended it. Conservative senators, however, have acted to obstruct the agenda in the legislature.
Obstruction, called filibuster, is a controversial procedure in the United States, it determines that some issues to go to a vote in the Senate first need the approval of 3/5 of the senators, that is, it needs the approval of at least 60 senators who are in favor. , and then proceed to voting.
Currently, the Senate is made up of 50 Democratic senators, 50 Republicans plus Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, giving a simple majority – by a very narrow margin – to the Democrats.
In practice, this means that Republicans can bar Democratic measures in the Senate using filibuster.
For, even if some measure depends on a simple majority vote, to go to the vote the Republicans can block in this stage called filibuster, since at least 10 Republicans would need to join the Democrats to get the 60 votes, for then the issue to go for voting.
That’s what President Joe Biden talked about today, to make abortion rights nationwide into federal law, Congress would need to pass the proposal and at least 10 Republicans would need to join the Democrats to join this procedure called filibuster.
Biden said he would be in favor of overturning that procedure, skipping this step and going straight to a simple majority vote and then getting approval. With that, there would be a narrow majority of Democrats, and it would be enough to pass the measure and put the right to abortion, across the country, into law.
unlikely decision
Most likely this will not happen, because although with a simple majority Democrats can skip this step, some are against this measure, specifically two Democrats who are more centrally positioned.
They are against the measure because they believe that by skipping the filibuster stage there is a guarantee of mutual destruction, that in the future, when they have a majority in Congress, the Republicans will do the same.
Source: CNN Brasil
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