Hawley and McConnell are blocking Biden

Joe Biden has only been president for 24 hours, and Senators Josh Hawley and Mitch McConnell are already throwing roadblocks in the way of his progress.

McConnell is refusing to give Democrats their committee chairs unless they agree to protect the filibuster rule he used to help block more than 400 bills last year alone.¹ Hawley—the same senator who raised his fist in solidarity with the Capitol Building insurrectionists—is attempting to block Biden’s nominee for head of the Department of Homeland Security.²

We can’t afford another four years of Republicans using procedural rules to kill legislation and nominations. If we’re going to see the progress America needs right now, the Senate’s first order of business must be killing the filibuster. But there are Senate Democrats who want to keep this outdated procedural rule.

Demand Progress is mobilizing the grassroots to fight by flooding Senate offices with calls and emails, as well as working on the inside, pressing senators to stand strong and do the right thing by ending the filibuster. This is a critical moment, and we need your help to get this campaign underway. 

The Senate filibuster is a relic of slavery and Jim Crow. It was invented in the years before the Civil War by a white slaveowner from the South in order to protect slavery. And the rules regarding the filibuster were put into place by white Southern senators in the 1910s to uphold white supremacy and segregation.³

Fast-forward to the present day, when many of the bills Mitch McConnell blocks with the filibuster involve voting rights and racial justice.⁴

And now Josh Hawley is using Senate procedure to block Biden’s Homeland Security nominee, a Latino who can help address some of that agency’s worst abuses against immigrants.

Our country cannot afford to have critical legislation bogged down in the Senate by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his allies. But Senate Democrats, including Joe Manchin, Dianne Feinstein, and Kyrsten Sinema, are leaning toward keeping the same old ways that tied up legislation for years without movement.

We need action right now, which is why we’re mobilizing the grassroots and lobbying Congress to use its power to end the filibuster immediately. But that costs money, and donations are down since the election ended. This is a key moment that could determine the outcome of the entire Biden presidency. We cannot let McConnell and Hawley win.

Thanks for standing with us.

Robert Cruickshank,
Demand Progress

Sources:

1. The Week, "McConnell threatens to block Senate's power-sharing agreement if it doesn't preserve the filibuster," January 21, 2021
2. Reuters, "Senator Hawley blocks quick consideration of Biden homeland security nominee," January 19, 2021
3. The New York Times, "Joe Biden May Have Only Two Years to Get Things Done," January 20, 2021
4. The American Independent, "McConnell is blocking 400 bills Americans want — but he's rushing a Supreme Court pick," September 22, 2020