Casten, Bush, Crow, and Jayapal Lead Broad Coalition of Nearly 100 House Democrats in Calling for an Immediate End to the Filibuster to Address Climate Crisis, Gun Violence, Racial Injustice, Voter Suppression
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Congressman Sean Casten (IL-06), Congresswoman Cori Bush (MO-01), Congressman Jason Crow (CO-06), Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), and nearly 100 House Democrats sent a letter urging Senate Democrats to end the filibuster so that Congress can deliver on the promises made to the voters who gave Democrats control of the U.S. House, Senate, and Presidency.
Casten hosted a press conference this morning with Reps. Bush, Crow, and Jayapal at the Capitol, where he spoke about the roadblock the filibuster poses to passing legislation sufficient to do what's scientifically and economically necessary to protect Americans from climate change.
"100% of Americans do not want to lose their home. 100% of Americans believe that the laws of physics are non-negotiable. 100% of Americans want to leave a better planet to their kid than the one that they inherited from their parents," said Rep. Casten. "And yet for three decades, 100% of Americans have not been represented by a Senate that is willing to do the bidding of the majority of the American people. So it may be easy to count to 60, but this problem is hard. It is urgent. Let us now go do hard things. It's time to end the filibuster."
Click here or on the image below to watch Casten's remarks:
In their letter, the Members demonstrated the need to put people over procedure in order to move forward with legislation to protect voting rights, establish a $15 minimum wage, prevent gun violence, reform our country's immigration system, achieve climate and environmental justice, protect workers, begin to transform our criminal-legal system, and so many more urgent, life-saving policy priorities.
"This is an existential moment for our country," the Members wrote. "We must end the gridlock that has become common practice in Washington and govern boldly and transformatively to improve the lives of millions of people, children, and families all across the country. For too many people in our communities, their very survival is at stake. Republicans are well aware of this reality. It is why they are passing legislation at the state level across the country in an attempt to suppress the votes of Black, brown and Indigenous people. It is also why they are preventing the Senate from advancing critical legislation that can meet the needs of the people we represent."
"This is not the first time many in Congress have called for the elimination of the filibuster. Senate leaders from both sides of the aisle have tried and failed to remove the filibuster. The filibuster has been a key tool in preventing progress towards racial justice. It is a relic of Jim Crow-era policies that continue to preclude our nation's efforts to fulfill a foundational promise laid out in the constitution to "establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity." From voting rights to gun violence prevention, the filibuster continues to deny justice and racial equity to communities of color and blocks meaningful legislation from moving forward," the Members continued.
"We urge Senate Democrats to do what it takes to pass an agenda that meets the needs of everyday people, including eliminating the filibuster. We understand the balance of power and share a desire to maintain a healthy political environment through bipartisanship. However, what has become patently clear is that we cannot let a procedural tool that can be abolished stand in the way of justice, prosperity, and equity. We simply cannot afford such a catastrophic compromise. We must legislate towards a better, more just America?and that requires us to do what's necessary to deliver for the communities that we all represent."
The letter is co-signed by nearly 100 Members of the House Democratic Caucus: Jason Crow (CO-06), Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), Sean Casten (IL-06), Jake Auchincloss (MA-04), Nanette Diaz Barragán (CA-44), Karen Bass (CA-37), Earl Blumenauer (OR-03), Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01), Jamaal Bowman (NY-16), Brendan F. Boyle (PA-02), Anthony G. Brown (MD-04), Andrè Carson (IN-07), David N. Cicilline (RI-01), Judy Chu (CA-27), Katherine Clark (MA-05), Yvette Clarke (NY-09), Steve Cohen (TN-09), Gerald E. Connolly (VA-11), Jim Cooper (TN-05), Danny K. Davis (IL-07), Madeleine Dean (PA-04), Peter A. DeFazio (OR-04), Mark DeSaulnier (CA-11), Ted Deutch (FL-22), Debbie Dinegll (MI-12), Lloyd Doggett (TX-35), Veronica Escobar (TX-16), Adriano Espaillat (NY-13), Anna G. Eshoo (CA-18), Dwight Evans (PA-03), Lois Frankel (FL-21), Ruben Gallego (AZ-07), John Garamendi (CA-03), Jesús G. "Chuy" García (IL-04), Sylvia R. Garcia (TX-29), Jimmy Gomez (CA-34), Raúl M. Grijalva (AZ-03), Alcee L. Hastings (FL-20), Brian Higgins (NY-26), Jared Huffman (CA-02), Sara Jacobs (CA-53), Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18), Henry C. "Hank" Johnson, Jr. (GA-04), Mondaire Jones (NY-17), Kaiali'i Kahele (HI-02), Ro Khanna (CA-17), Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL-08), Brenda L. Lawrence (MI-14), Barbara Lee (CA-13), Ted Lieu (CA-33), Andy Levin (MI-09), Alan Lowenthal (CA-47), Carolyn B. Maloney (NY-12), Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-18), A. Donald McEachin (VA-04), James P. McGovern (MA-02), Jerry McNerney (CA-09), Gregory W. Meeks (NY-05), Grace Meng (NY-06), Seth Moulton (MA-06), Jerrold Nadler (NY-10), Joe Neguse (CO-02), Marie Newman (IL-03), Michael F.Q. San Nicolas (Guam), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Ilhan Omar (MN-05), Frank Pallone (NJ-06), Ed Perlmutter (CO-07), Chellie Pingree (ME-01), Mark Pocan (WI-02), Katie Porter (CA-45), Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), Mike Quigley (IL-05), Jamie Raskin (MD-08), Bobby Rush (IL-01), Mary Gay Scanlon (PA-05), Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), Terri A. Sewell (AL-07), Debbie Wasserman Shultz (FL-23), Brad Sherman (CA-30), Eric Swalwell (CA-15), Haley Stevens (MI-11), Mark Takano (CA-41), Mike Thompson (CA-05), Rashida Tlaib (MI-13), Paul Tonko (NY-20), Ritchie Torres (NY-15), Lori Trahan (MA-03), Lauren Underwood (IL-14), Juan Vargas (CA-51), Nydia M. Velázquez (NY-07), Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12), Maxine Waters (CA-43), Peter Welch (VT), Nikema Williams (GA-05), and Frederica S. Wilson (FL-24).
More than 20 grassroots organizations joined the coalition of House Democrats and endorsed the letter, calling on the Senate to end the filibuster and deliver the bold, progressive legislation the American people want and need.
"The filibuster is a racist remnant of a Senate designed to entrench white minority rule at the expense of the multiracial majority," said Demos Senior Policy Analyst Laura Williamson. "Black and Brown Americans in particular have born the brunt of the filibuster, historically and today. From blocking anti-lynching and anti-poll tax legislation during Jim Crow to thwarting today's efforts at gun violence prevention, raising the minimum wage, and passing structural democracy reform, the filibuster remains a linchpin of the minority obstructionism that is blocking progress on racial justice and every other pressing issue of our time."
"Filibuster reform is critical for advancing racial justice," said Scott Roberts, Senior Director of Democracy and Criminal Justice for Color of Change. "Throughout its history, Senators have used the filibuster to block important Civil Rights protections for Black Americans. Democratic Senators who defend the filibuster are protecting a legacy of racism, and are choosing to let an outdated rule block progress that would begin to address the challenges facing Black communities across the country."
A PDF of the letter can be found here.
Earlier today, the Members convened a press conference to discuss the urgency of their letter, the full video of the presser can be found here.
Read Casten's full remarks:
Thank you Congresswoman Bush for your leadership and putting this letter together. I'm Sean Casten from the 6th District in Illinois.
I've dedicated my life to climate change, first as a scientist, an engineer, 16 years as an entrepreneur and now as a member of Congress.
And it is fitting and appropriate that we're having this conversation on the 52nd anniversary of Earth Day that was an environmental movement started in 1970 that would lead to the creation of the EPA. It would dramatically improve our lives.
The smog filled Los Angeles of my youth is no more. The burning rivers of Ohio or no more. The soot encrusted buildings Pittsburgh are no more. Those are all consigned to history. We've all been awakened to our role as stewards of what Carl Sagan referred to as this pale blue dot, and the only home we've ever known.
Now in 1987 this Senate, awake to that reality, passed the Montreal Protocol 83 to 0. That was an agreement that, tell me if this sounds weird, committed the United States to joining a global treaty to put a price on pollution that would all cap and trade to reduce pollution.
And it worked. Reduced chlorofluorocarbons in the ozone hole that we were scared about ultraviolet radiation that the problem is largely solved. In 1990, this Senate, built on that tradition with the amendments to the Clean Air Act, they passed that 87 to 11 that, among other things, included the acid rain trading program that took that international model.
We had to put a price on pollution to create markets to use that to lower in this case, acid rain forming compounds. And the fears that I was told as a kid that the sugar maples of New England would be gone. This was addressed because we put a lot of controls on the back of coal plants in the Midwest. We reduce those acid rain forming compounds and we are better as a result.
Climate change was supposed to be next. And then the Senate went completely, this is a technical term--bonkers.
In 1997, Bill Clinton didn't even bother bringing the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate because he knew he didn't have the votes. That was a global treaty to put a price on a pollutant and agree much of the Montreal Protocol did, but this time for carbon dioxide.
In 2009, the Senate lowered their ambition. We said, let's just do that domestically. Let's do that for the Waxman Markey Act, let's create a domestic and trade market for CO2 emissions. In the words of Harry Reid, it's easy to count to 60 and we don't have the votes.
The rest of the world simply takes for granted at this point that the Senate is incapable of action. The Paris Climate Accord which we are in. it is fantastic that Obama signed us into it. It is shameful that Trump took us out of it, and I'm delighted that President Biden has brought us back in.
But the structure of that agreement expressly does not require parliamentary consent because the rest of the world assumed that if that happened, the United States would never join. That is shameful.
The world, the planet, works under the assumption that the United States Senate will not take the single existential crisis to our planet seriously, that is the reality we have to deal with right now.
Meanwhile, the pollution continues. 50% of carbon dioxide we have ever admitted as a species from the first caveman to build a wood fire, 50% of all that we've ever admitted as a species has come since 1985, the year Back to the Future was created.
Roughly the year the Montreal Protocol was signed. Global temperatures have risen a half a degree during that time period. For context, they rose a half a degree in the 100 years prior to that point, it is getting hotter and it is getting hotter faster. Sea levels have risen 3 inches in that period. On current trajectories, Miami parts of Miami are going to be under 3 feet of water by 2070.
We're closer to that day in the future than we are to the day in the past when we first created Earth Day. That is the reality we have to deal with right now. Hundreds of billions of property loss from coastal flooding, from hurricanes from derechos from wildfires is now an annual event.
Now the good news is I've got some polling data with me. because we have the opportunity to fix this and all we have to do is what Americans want.
100% of Americans do not want to lose their home. 100% of Americans believe that the laws of physics are non-negotiable. 100% of Americans want to leave a better planet to their kid than the one that they inherited from their parents. And yet for three decades, 100% of Americans have not been represented by a Senate that is willing to do the bidding of the majority of the American people. So it may be easy to count to 60, but this problem is hard. It is urgent. Let us now go do hard things. It's time to end the filibuster.