Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris said she’d fight to end the filibuster if Republicans obstructed the passage of a Green New Deal.
At a CNN town hall on the climate crisis Wednesday, the California senator cast doubt over the possibility of bipartisan support for sweeping climate legislation and said she’d consider scrapping the 60-vote threshold for ending debate on legislation in the Senate.
Doing so would likely require a Democratic majority in the Senate.
“If Republicans continue to block progress, I’ll get rid of the filibuster to pass a Green New Deal,” her campaign tweeted shortly after she made the remarks on TV.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who until last month was running as the climate candidate in the 2020 Democratic primary, made eliminating the filibuster a top priority. In April, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a top-polling presidential contender, joined him. Last month, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) told Pod Save America he would end the filibuster to pass gun control legislation.
Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) came out in favor of ending the filibuster, and told reporters on a conference call Wednesday: “It’s not a question of if the filibuster’s going to be wiped out. It’s just a question of when. It’s going to happen.”
Harris released her long-awaited climate proposal on Wednesday morning, promising to zero out planet-heating emissions by 2045 and direct $10 trillion in investments in clean infrastructure over the next decade. She co-sponsored the Senate version of the Green New Deal resolution Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) introduced in February. Harris also introduced the Climate Equity Act with Ocasio-Cortez to assess how vulnerable communities are to climate change.
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