Some reluctant Democrats consider ditching filibuster for voting bill despite grim prospects over changing rules
CNN
Some defenders of the Senate's filibuster rules are reconsidering their past refusal to gut the potent stall tactic if Republicans carry through with their plans to block Democratic legislation to rewrite the nation's voting and campaign finance laws.
Democrats say they expect growing demands to change the filibuster rules later this month when the battle over voting rights heads to the Senate floor, hoping that the pressure will be enough to convince their party's most stalwart filibuster defender, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, to buckle and agree to gut the filibuster -- though he's showing no signs of caving. Adding to that pressure is the expectation in the Senate that other long-time backers of the existing rules will change their views and back killing the requirement that 60 votes are needed to overcome a filibuster in order to ease passage of a measure Democrats argue would combat efforts to restrict access to voting.President Joe Biden on Sunday delivers his first commencement address of the 2024 season at Morehouse College, where the president may for the first time in months have to confront the angst that’s been percolating on college campuses nationwide toward his administration’s policies on the Israel-Hamas war.
Arab and Palestinian Americans left a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday night frustrated they did not have a clear understanding of how the Biden administration might act upon their concerns as the Israel-Hamas war devastates the civilian population in Gaza, participants told CNN.