Set Aside Filibuster for Voting Rights

Democrats who hesitate to change the rule in the Senate around the filibuster out of fear of opening the floodgates to Republican party chicanery would do well to remember Majority Leader McConnel’s history. He refused for nine months to allow hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland, whom many Republican senators were on record as supporting as a moderate, on the insincere justification of leaving the choice to the next president, and then pushed through the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett in the waning hours of the Trump administration. Should anyone doubt that McConnel would change or bend any rule that stood in his way, regardless of what Democrats had done previously? Once again, we are being asked, often by the so-called moderates in our own party, to do battle with one figurative hand tied behind our back. Set aside the filibuster, as was done for judicial nominations, and pass the voting rights bills now.

This was submitted as a letter to the editor to The Boston Globe but not selected for publication.