Senator Kyrsten Sinema defends filibuster ahead of key vote on voting rights bill
CBSN
Washington — Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona on Monday defended the filibuster as the Senate prepares to take a procedural vote on a sweeping voting rights bill, saying the rule "compels moderation" and helps shield the country from policy swings or reversals driven by changing party control.
"Instability, partisanship and tribalism continue to infect our politics," Sinema wrote in an op-ed published by the Washington Post. "The solution, however, is not to continue weakening our democracy's guardrails. If we eliminate the Senate's 60-vote threshold, we will lose much more than we gain." Some Senate Democrats have been pushing to eliminate the legislative filibuster, which requires 60 votes to advance a bill in the Senate, to allow measures to pass with a simple majority. Because Democrats only hold 50 seats in the upper chamber, votes from 10 GOP senators are needed to overcome a filibuster.Rodeo star Spencer Wright and his wife are making end-of-life preparations for their 3-year-old son after he was found unconscious in a creek, a close family friend said in updates posted on social media and confirmed to CBS affiliate KUTV. The boy had been playing on his tractor before he ended up in the water and a mile downstream.
The launch of Boeing's star-crossed Starliner spacecraft on its first piloted test flight is slipping to at least June 1 to give engineers more time to assess a small-but-persistent helium leak in the capsule's propulsion system, and its potential impact across all phases of flight, NASA announced Wednesday.
Washington — As former President Donald Trump's "hush money" criminal trial in New York proceeds to closing arguments next week, the legal focus is moving south. His attorneys and longtime aide Walt Nauta appeared before Florida federal Judge Aileen Cannon, where they sparred with prosecutors during two contentious, day-long hearings on Wednesday.