Washington Post v. Fox News: Harris States Support for Ending the Filibuster Required to Reinstate Roe v. Wade.

During an interview on Tuesday with Wisconsin Public Radio, Kamala Harris stated her support for eliminating the filibuster to pass a law restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade.

The Washington Post: "Harris voices support for eliminating filibuster to secure abortion rights"

• On Tuesday, Harris voiced support for eliminating the Senate filibuster in order to pass a law restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade and secure nationwide abortion rights. 

• Harris, speaking to Wisconsin Public Radio, said: “I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe. To actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do.”

• The filibuster means a 60-vote threshold is required to advance Senate legislation. 

• Harris’s statement on Tuesday marks the first time she affirmed her support for ending the filibuster to protect reproductive and voting rights since she promised to do so in 2022.

• When asked by Wisconsin Public Radio about her plan to get Congress to codify abortion rights Harris stated
• The importance of voters reelecting Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) for crucial votes in Congress. 
• The importance of Democrats needing to win both chambers to change the filibuster rule.

• Harris’s fight for reproductive rights is central to her campaign. In contrast, Donald Trump claimed credit for the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe.

• During an event in Indiana, Pa. on Monday, Trump stated that abortion policy should be determined by states, and dismissed the issue's relevance.

• Wisconsin basically banned abortions for a year after the overturning of Roe.
• Wisconsin reinstated abortions in September 2023 

• In response to Harris’s recent comments on this issue, Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) expressed his disapproval, stated he would not endorse Harris, and defended the filibuster as essential for democracy.

• Manchin stated that ending the filibuster  “basically can destroy our country, and my country is more important to me than any one person or any one person’s ideology.”

Fox News: "Harris calls for eliminating filibuster to pass ‘Roe’ abortion bill into federal law"

• During a Wisconsin Public Radio interview on Tuesday, Harris stated her support for eliminating the 60-vote filibuster requirement to reinstate Roe v. Wade. She remarked that 51 votes should suffice to reinstate reproductive freedom. 

• In the Senate, the filibuster rule allows a minority to block legislation pending a supermajority vote.

• Harris’s comments were made during her fourth campaign visit to the battleground state.

• Senator Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.), a strong advocate for the filibuster, criticized Harris’s remarks.

• Manchin had previously indicated he would be endorsing Harris but has since reversed his decision due to her comments

• Harris emphasized the importance of keeping a Democratic Senate majority and taking back the House.

• Harris first stated her support for ending the filibuster to reinstate Roe in 2022. She has since made abortion a major part of her campaign.

• Harris had also expressed support for ending the filibuster to pass the progressive Green New Deal climate legislation in 2019.

• Discussing the Senate filibuster in 2022 Harris remarked that gaining two additional Senate seats could enable the passage of important legislation such as protections for Roe. She also stated that President Biden is done with "archaic Senate rules" and expressed her eagerness to cast a deciding vote to break the filibuster.

Discussion:

Out of all the articles I have compared so far in this blog, I feel like the two in this post contain the least amount of bias. Both articles basically said the same thing. They both seemed to stick to the facts and included an assortment of quotes from both Harris and Manchin. The wording choices used by the authors of each article did not seem to attempt to pull a reader towards any particular ideological viewpoint. 

Something interesting that I noticed while reading these two articles is that, despite the absence of bias in the writing, I feel like I projected a conservative bias onto the Fox News article and a liberal bias onto the Washington Post article. By this, I mean that because I was expecting the Fox News article to have a conservative bias, and the Washington Post article to have a liberal bias, I initially read each article as defending an ideological position despite there being no evidence of this in the writing. Experiencing this made me realize that I seem to have a very low trust in the accuracy of news. I am so used to expecting news to contain a bias that I have a hard time accepting when an article actually sticks to the facts.