Wednesday, June 30, 2021 | 2 a.m.
View more of the Sun's opinion section
Pride month is an annual chance for the LGBTQ+ community to reflect on our hard-won progress and to remember how much work remains.
At Silver State Equality, we’re celebrating such victories as modernizing Nevada’s HIV laws and third-parent adoption. Our community’s victories in Nevada and across the country are part of the larger struggle to expand and strengthen our democracy to ensure that all Americans have the same rights and responsibilities under the law — no matter who we love, how we worship, or what we look like.
Unfortunately, this year brings fresh reminders of what we’re up against and what’s at stake. From the wave of transphobic legislation in Republican-led states to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling upholding discrimination against same-sex foster parents, threats to our community continue to evolve. Meanwhile, the Equality Act, landmark legislation to expand civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ Americans, passed the House but is blocked by Republicans in the Senate.
Issues such as voting rights, racial justice, health care access, gun violence, the climate crisis, immigrants’ rights and democracy reforms also affect the LGBTQ+ community. And progress on each of those issues, in addition to the Equality Act, is bottlenecked by senators’ abuse of the filibuster. The filibuster and its 60-vote threshold give Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republicans a veto over our democracy.
Given what’s at stake for our country, for the LGBTQ+ community and beyond, Senate Democrats must eliminate the filibuster as a weapon for McConnell and Senate Republicans to use to block progress.
In Nevada, we are proud to see our senators, Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen, build on the legacy of former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on filibuster reform. Reid wrote, “If the Senate cannot address the most important issues of our time, then it is time for the chamber itself to change, as it has done in the past.”
Just look at the past few weeks for reminders of how the Senate, to use Reid’s formulation, cannot address the most important issues of our time. Senate Republicans filibustered the bipartisan bill to investigate the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection; they filibustered legislation to help close the pay gap and ensure equal pay for equal work; and they used the filibuster to block even the start of debate over legislation to protect Americans’ voting rights, which are under their greatest assault since the Jim Crow era. Whether Democrats choose to keep the filibuster will determine whether our country can address these and other essential issues to move America forward.
Thankfully, both sitting Nevada senators recognize that even if the filibuster of a different era could promote bipartisan cooperation, today it is simply a tool of partisan obstruction that blocks progress on essential issues. Cortez Masto recently called for filibuster changes, noting that if McConnell “wants to block action on health care, climate change and voting rights, he should have to stand on the Senate floor and be transparent about his obstruction.”
Meanwhile, Rosen recently said she would support eliminating the filibuster “in the case of protecting democracy,” noting that, “Right now, our democracy is under attack and we must do everything we can to protect voting rights. If eliminating the filibuster is what it takes to get it done, then we must protect our democracy at all costs.”
It is clearer than ever that Senate Democrats, including Cortez Masto and Rosen, must eliminate the filibuster to ensure they can deliver for Nevada, the American people, and our democracy. From voting rights to the Equality Act, there is simply too much at stake for our country and our community.
Reid has said that eliminating the filibuster is a matter of “when,” not “if.” Now should be that time.
Valerie Ploumpis is the national policy director for Silver State Equality. She leads the fight to protect LGBTQ+ rights at the federal level and helps provide strategic political expertise for the group’s legislative and regulatory work.
