Susie Coen
US Correspondent
24 September 2024 10:58pm
A former Democratic senator has ruled out endorsing Kamala Harris after she pledged to gut the Senate’s voting rules to protect abortion rights.
The Democratic presidential nominee this week said she supported lowering the threshold for the number of votes needed to stop someone talking out reproductive legislation, known as a filibuster.
Responding to her comments, Joe Manchin warned the move could “destroy our country” and said he could not endorse her for president.
At present, the support of 60 senators is required to pass most legislation in the upper chamber, and that would include a national law to codify access to a safe abortion.
“I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe, and get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom”, Ms Harris told Wisconsin Public Radio on Tuesday.
Ms Harris has attempted to make abortion one of the central issues of her campaign as she draws a strong line between herself and Donald Trump, who has tied himself in knots in an attempt to please his pro-life and moderate supporters.
“Shame on her,” Mr Manchin told CNN. “She knows the filibuster is the holy grail of democracy. It’s the only thing that keeps us talking and working together. If she gets rid of that, then this would be the House on steroids.”
Asked whether he would back her bid for the White House, Mr Manchin said: “That ain’t going to happen.
“I think that basically can destroy our country, and my country is more important to me than any one person or any one person’s ideology. … I think it’s the most horrible thing.”
Mr Manchin said he expected Ms Harris, who had previously supported axing the filibuster, would U-turn on the issue as she had with other key issues.
He said: “Well, she said she supported banning fracking too, and she changed that. I was hoping she would change this.”
Ms Harris’s abortion pledge came as Trump attempted to woo female voters at a rally in Pennsylvania by promising to be a “protector”.
“I want to be your protector. As president, I have to be your protector,” he told the crowd on Tuesday.
“You will no longer be thinking about abortion,” Trump added. “Because we’ve done something that nobody else could have done. It is now where it always had to be, with the states and a vote of the people.”
Polling has consistently shown Trump trails Ms Harris on the issue of abortion. A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll found the Democratic candidate leads her Republican rival by nine points among women.
Meanwhile, police are investigating apparent gunfire damage at a Democratic Party campaign office in Arizona, days before Ms Harris is scheduled to visit the battleground state.
Tempe Police Department told NBC News that on Monday “what appears to be damage from gunfire at … a DNC Campaign Office, was discovered”.
Sean McEnery, the coordinated campaign manager for the state’s Democratic Party, said: “Overnight, several shots were fired into our Tempe Democratic Party coordinated campaign office.”
Ms Harris is expected to visit the state on Friday.
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