Kamala Harris says she helps ending the filibuster for abortion rights : NPR

Vice President Harris says she would help eliminating the filibuster within the U.S. Senate as a way to convey again federal protections for a girl’s proper to an abortion as they existed below Roe v. Wade.

Harris outlined her place throughout an interview Monday with NPR member station Wisconsin Public Radio, saying that with regards to the problem of abortion, she believes the Senate ought to cast off the filibuster rule that requires a 60-vote threshold for many laws to cross.

“I have been very clear, I feel we must always remove the filibuster for Roe, and get us to the purpose the place 51 votes can be what we have to really put again in legislation the protections for reproductive freedom and for the power of each particular person and each lady to make choices about their very own physique and never have their authorities inform them what to do,” Harris advised WPR host Kate Archer Kent.

Harris’ feedback got here as she works to sharpen the excellence between herself and former President Donald Trump on probably the most pivotal points dealing with voters on this 12 months’s presidential election. And whereas she has voiced help for ending the filibuster earlier than — together with on the problem of reproductive rights — it is a matter she has not often addressed since President Biden’s choice to desert his reelection bid and endorse her as an alternative.

Her message might carry specific weight in Wisconsin, a vital battleground state the place nearly no authorized abortions had been carried out for almost 15 months within the aftermath of the Supreme Courtroom’s choice in 2022 to strike down Roe.

Harris has blamed Trump for the autumn of Roe, saying as lately as Friday that he’s the “architect” of a well being care disaster brought on by the Supreme Courtroom’s choice in Roe — a legislation that Trump’s three Supreme Courtroom nominees voted to overturn. In the identical speech, she referenced current reporting from ProPublica about two Georgia girls whose deaths, after implementation of the state’s new abortion legislation, had been deemed “preventable” by a state committee of maternal well being specialists.

Trump has sought to push again in opposition to Harris, telling an viewers in Pennsylvania on Monday that “girls will probably be completely satisfied, wholesome assured and free” if he’s elected to a second time period in workplace.

“You’ll not be eager about abortion, it is all they speak about, abortion, as a result of we have executed one thing that no person else might have executed. It’s now the place it all the time needed to be, with the states and so they [sic] vote of the individuals,” Trump stated.

Harris on housing and “perpetually chemical compounds”

Throughout her interview, Harris was additionally pressed on a variety of different points dealing with Wisconsin voters. On housing, she reiterated her plans to supply $25,000 in down fee help for first-time homebuyers, and stated she would work with the non-public sector and residential builders “to construct 3 million new properties by the top of my first time period.”

Harris stated she would attain that aim by means of a mixture of tax credit for builders and eliminating pink tape within the building course of.

The vice chairman was additionally requested about poisonous chemical compounds generally known as PFAs which might be contaminating consuming water round Wisconsin, and whether or not she would press for stricter laws of those chemical compounds.

Harris stated the Biden administration is funding billions in water infrastructure initiatives across the nation to scrub up consuming water and substitute lead pipes. Practically $2 billion of that funding goes to Wisconsin, she stated.

A transcript of Harris’ interview with Wisconsin Public Radio will probably be out there on the station’s web site.