"In 2013, while serving as majority leader of the Senate, I made the decision to support a change to the Senate’s rules to get rid of the filibuster on most presidential nominations. The decision was not easy but I made it because Senate Republicans’ brazen, unchecked obstruction left me no other choice. Prior to President Barack Obama’s inauguration, only 68 presidential nominees were stymied by a filibuster. But in President Obama’s first four years, McConnell’s Republican minority filibustered 79 of the nominees the president sent to the Senate. It was unprecedented and it called for action that I’m proud I and the majority of my colleagues at the time took.
"We face that same choice today. Just as he did in President Obama’s first term with nominations, Mitch McConnell and his fellow far-right Republicans are again making clear that they will stop at nothing to steamroll Democratic priorities — even when it means grinding the Senate’s proceedings to a halt.
"The sanctity of the Senate is not the filibuster. The sanctity of the Senate — in government as a whole — is the power it holds to better the lives of and protect the rights of the American people. We need to get the Senate working again.
"It’s time Senate Democrats act with the urgency that this moment demands and abolish the filibuster once and for all." -- former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV, in today's Las Vegas Sun (our emphasis) (h/t Mock Paper Scissors).
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