Filibuster (3/28/21)

There have been 29 mass shootings in the last five years in the United States. Twice, in less than a week, our president has called to lower flags to half-staff in the wake of mass shootings. 18 people going about their normal lives were slaughtered in Georgia and Colorado. As Senator Durbin stated, “it just keeps coming at us” and we “can’t keep up”. Our country has a horrific problem with gun violence and sadly nothing has changed since the horrors of Sandy Hook almost a decade ago. It is wrong that there are more guns in the U.S. than people and that it is easier to buy a gun than vote. Barack Obama stated that “a once-in-a-century pandemic cannot be the only thing that slows mass shootings in this country. It’s time for leaders everywhere to listen to the American people when they say enough is enough.” We are in an epidemic of gun violence and it is disgraceful that our elected officials are unable to take meaningful actions to curb the violence.

Once again, the conversation circles back to policies that many Americans want, but seem to lack the 60 votes in the Senate to be passed. We find ourselves confronted with the question of whether to end the filibuster and allow measures to be passed with a simple majority of votes. In Senator Murphy’s words, "Democracy dies when things that have the majority of support in Congress, the support of the president and 90 percent public support can't become a law." We have reached the moment for us to get educated about the history of the filibuster, what it means to end or amend it, and urge our elected officials to do the right thing. To start to do this work, see below in the “you may be interested “ section, some filibuster related events. It is time to get educated on this subject.