Bennet Urges Colleagues to Pass Voting Rights Legislation and Restore the Senate In Floor Speech

Press Release

Today, Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet spoke on the U.S. Senate floor to urge his colleagues to pass landmark voting rights legislation and restore the Senate to protect American democracy.

"When I got here in President Obama's first term, the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, used the filibuster a record number of times," said Bennet. "He filibustered everything in his attempt to first make Barack Obama a one-term president, then basically bring down his presidency. He came out to the floor the other day, he said, "sometimes the effect of the filibuster is to block bills outright.' Sometimes? It happens all the time. This is why we never do anything. This is why we can't make decisions. This is why we can't even have debates. And the American people have no idea whom to blame."

Bennet continued: "Senator McConnell argues that the filibuster "gives all kinds of citizens in all kinds of states a meaningful voice in nearly everything we do.' And we've heard that over and over again today -- the voice that somehow we're shutting out. I haven't met anybody who thinks that their voice is meaningfully represented in the United States Senate instead of special interests or the most powerful people. Nobody. And it's because we can't have a debate on anything they care about. Take background checks: 84% of voters, including 77% of Republicans, support them. We can't even have a debate on the floor. Let Medicare negotiate drug prices on behalf of people, 77% of the American people support that. We can't even have a debate here. 74% of people support the dreamers… and we can't get a vote on that. The Freedom To Vote Act: 70% of all voters, including 54% of Republicans, support it. All of them have been blocked by Senator McConnell and his abuse of the Senate rules. Not some great, venerable tradition of the United States Senate, but his modern-day abuse, his caricature of the Senate rules."

"None of this has stopped us from cutting taxes by $8 trillion, mostly for the wealthiest people in this country," said Bennet. "And none of this has stopped us from putting lots of right wing judges on the court when Donald Trump was here, because you can do those things with 51 votes, and that's about the extent of Senator McConnell's legislative agenda. So I'm not surprised that he prefers the status quo. But for the majority of Americans who believe that the next generation actually demands something greater than that -- from the Senate and… from each of us? We need a Senate that works."

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