Senator Grassley. (file photo)
Republican Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley fears Democrats in the chamber are trying to use the “nuclear option” of eliminating the Senate’s 60-vote threshold.
Grassley reminds, it doesn’t take 60 votes to pass laws, but it does take 60 votes to stop debate in order to proceed to pass laws. He says getting rid of that 60-vote requirement would bring disaster.
Grassley says, “This might seem like a subject that’s very much ‘inside the beltway,’ but Democrat leaders’ first order of business, after destroying this Senate tradition, is going to be the federal takeover of the elections.”
Since the nation was formed, Grassley says it’s always been state laws governing who could and couldn’t vote — with the only exceptions being the Constitutional amendments that granted voting rights to blacks, women, and people 18 and older.
“So without this 60-vote requirement, the Senate and the country will be worse off,” Grassley says. “We could have wild swings in federal policy or even more partisan rancor.” Democrats have a laundry list of “divisive, partisan policies” which Grassley says “could rocket through the Senate without amendment or debate.”
He says the Senate is the “only place where minority views can be respected,” noting, the 60-vote margin has long driven Senate compromise. “When I have my Q-and-As in the 99 counties of Iowa, people are most often giving me a question about ‘How come we don’t have more bipartisanship?’,” Grassley says. “This 60-vote threshold forces the Senate divided 50-50 to get together or nothing’s going to get done. You might not believe it, but once in a while, we pass legislation.”
Grassley urges Democrats to “uphold the rights of the minority” because one day, they won’t be in power, and “they’ll be sorry.”