Center for American Progress

STATEMENT: Tom Perriello on the Senate’s Move to Reform the Filibuster
Press Statement

STATEMENT: Tom Perriello on the Senate’s Move to Reform the Filibuster

Washington, D.C. – In response to the Senate’s move to reform Senate rules and allow most presidential nominations to be confirmed by a simple majority vote, the Center for American Progress’s Tom Perriello issued the following statement:

Today’s vote to reform the Senate rules is a victory for the American people and an important step towards getting Washington back to work. Today’s targeted reforms come after years of unprecedented partisan obstruction by the same Republicans who shut down the government and repeatedly held our economy hostage. By abusing the rules of the Senate, the Republican minority has used extreme tactics to retroactively veto laws and the institutions that uphold them.

These obstructionist tactics have crippled the ability of the executive and judicial branches to address the most important issues of the day, such as our nation’s housing crisis, consumers’ and workers’ rights, and the ability to enforce clean air and water protections. Even Chief Justice John Roberts agrees that the current number of judicial vacancies represents a crisis and has urged the Senate to fill these vacancies, including those on the D.C. Circuit, as quickly as possible.

The American public is tired of partisan obstruction and wants Congress to do its job. In the Senate that means allowing simple up-or-down votes on nominations. By reforming its rules, the Senate will finally return to its proper role as spelled out in the Constitution: advise and consent, not obstruct and delay.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and his colleagues  deserve praise for reforms that prioritized the needs of the American people over partisan gamesmanship.

Related resources:

To speak with CAP experts on this issue, please contact Madeline Meth at [email protected] or 202.741.6277.

###