Some US senators claim that they need 60 votes to overturn the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision which reversed Roe. They don’t. They can do it with a simple majority.
- None of the justices who voted to overturn Roe got 60 votes in their confirmation hearings when they were appointed to the court.
- If you add up all of the confirmation votes by senators for justices who favored keeping Roe, it totals more votes than those from senators who voted for justices who opposed Roe.
Right now, there are 55 senators who claim to be pro-choice. They could overturn the SCOTUS decision today if they wanted to.
NEWS FLASH: They don’t want to overturn the SCOTUS decision and make abortion legal.
They are lying to you.
- - - - -
Senators voting for SCOTUS nominee at confirmation:
Votes for justices who support Roe
87
78
68
63
total = 296
Votes for justices who oppose Roe
52
58
54
50
52
total = 266
🇳🇱
@Pat right and they cant. A simple majority is not enough to address roe v wade
>"right and they cant. A simple majority is not enough to address roe v wade"
To change the filibuster rule, they use the same process they used when they changed the rule to confirm a justice with a simple majority.
It's a parliamentary procedure where the senate body votes to overrule the decision of the President of the Senate (or whoever is presiding at the time).
Then they can change the filibuster rule with a simple majority. They've done it before.
They are lying when they say they can't and the MSM just plays along with their lies, while misinforming the public about how congress works.
@Pat it has nothing to do as a fillibuster... even if you coukd eliminate the fillibuster how do you intend to change things? Youd have to create a constitutional amendment if you want to grant abortion as a right. A law, as as i can tell, wouldnt be able to grant a right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option
Rights aren't "granted" by the Constitution, they are *recognized* by the Constitution or by law.
Dobbs overturned Roe saying that SCOTUS could not decide the issue because there was no right in the Constitution to abortion (privacy). In Dobbs, they said the issue should instead be
decided by lawmakers. They literally said that Congress needs to make the decision.
Congress makes lots of laws that recognize rights. Like the Civil Rights Act, for example. They do this all the time.
In this case, they would likely use Wickard v. Filburn or its derivative decisions as precedent for their power to make abortions legal.
@Pat the civil rights act **outlaws** discrimination. It does not grant a right at the civil level. As i said laws decide what is illegal, what a federal law cant do is force something to be illegal. Civil rights act proves my point, it codifies things that are illegal, it does not codify rights.
You mean like this, "It is illegal for any state to prohibit abortions."
@Pat No you cant make it illegal for a state to do x.. states cant be arrested and such a statement makes no sense. You coukd maybe do something like "its illegal for a doctor not to perform an abortion on requesf" but im pretty sure forcing a doctor to do an abortion woukd be unconstitutional.
The interstate commerce clause gives Congress the power to regulate trade between the states. The Supreme Court has ruled that that provision of the Constitution also gives Congress the power to regulate trade within a state if it could possibly effect interstate commerce. Congress uses this provision of the Constitution and the Supreme Court's interpretation of that clause to do just about all the regulations that it does.
Since abortions in one state can effect the market for abortions in other states, Congress can regulate that. That's what the holding in Wickard said.
They have the power to do it. Lindsey Graham actually tried to introduce a bill in the senate to regulate abortions, which only differed from Roe/Casey by a couple of weeks, but they refused to even take it up.
@Pat what exactly are you proposing they make as a law with regard to interstate commerce? I have yet to hear a workable enforcable law you coukd pass with a simple majority that woukd grant a right. Even with interstate commerce the laws passed limit rights dont grant them
For example, no doctor who practices OBGYN can deny an abortion to a person when it can be done in a safe manner.
That's just one way to do it.
I really don't understand what you're talking about here. Congress regulates all kinds of stuff. There are literally thousands of federal laws and regulations about how businesses have to conduct themselves. This would just be another one of those laws.
@Pat i never said congress cant regulate stuff, i am saying they cant grant rights without an amendment.
Take the example here. So lets saythey passed that law, and in some state they also made abortions illegal.. so now you have a situation where if a person goes to an obgyn they will be forced to do the abortion but they also would be forced to report thr woman who got the abortion and have her arrested. How is that a solution?
The supremacy clause of the Constitution does not allow a state to make a law that circumscribes federal law.
@Pat it doesnt circunscribe federal law.. the law you suggested was that an obgyn woukd have tonperform an abortion, he did. Thr woman just went to jail afterwards.
Since a law can only make something illegal no law congress coukd pass woukd prevent a state from making abortion illegal. We have rights for that.
The Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act did just that. It prevented states from passing Jim Crow laws.
A similar law can prevent states from passing anti-abortion laws.
@Pat The voting right act was only possible alongside the 15th amendment, which granted the fundamental rights, then the law itself codified various aspects of it. Which goes to prove my point, laws which secure rights can only exist if those rights are first protected in the constitution since laws only codify what is illegal.
Jim Crow laws came AFTER the 15th Amendment.
Another completely different approach congress could take would be to tie federal funds to states based on them not passing laws prohibiting abortion. They also do this kind stuff all the time.
They could say that no medicaid funding will go to any state that prohibits abortions.
@Pat Jim Crow laws did come after the 15th amendment, in fact the voting rights act was nearly 100 years after the 15th amendment.
None the less laws in the usa **do not** grant rights. They prescribe what is illegal and what the consequences are, nothing more.
Even the introduction to the voting rights act is **very** explicit that the rights granted come from the 15th amendment and that the voting rights act simply codifies the consequences for violating those rights. Read the very first paragraph of the voting rights act which is as follows:
> AN ACT To enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That this Act shall be known as the "Voting Rights Act of 1965."
@Pat What the hell are you talking about?
I think it's clear what I'm talking about. What are you talking about?
@Pat That's not how the federal government works.
You can't overturn a constitutional matter with a simple majority of one house of the legislature.
>"You can't overturn a constitutional matter with a simple majority of one house of the legislature."
What Constitutional matter? The court just said that there was no Constitutional matter. That was what Dobbs was all about -- they said there in nothing in the Constitution about abortion.
So congress can pass a law about it, as long as they don't violate some other provision of the Constitution.
And we're not talking about one chamber. We're talking about a majority in each house, without a veto from POTUS. That's how laws are made.
If the Court said that there was no constitutional matter, then that itself is a constitutional matter, that can't be changed by a simple majority vote in the legislature.
What is or isn't in the Constitution is dictated by the Constitution.
If people want to make it into a constitutional matter then they need to amend the Constitution to put it in there.
Read the opinions. SCOTUS explicitly says in the decision that the matter needs to be taken up by lawmakers, not the court.
The Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate in this area (according to previous court decisions), so congress can pass a law that regulates it.
It's the same way that Congress regulates anything else.
Sounds like you're just doubling down saying it's a constitutional matter to say what is a constitutional matter, which is what I'm saying.
@Pat How ya figure a simple majority would not be enough.