Kamala Harris is not the brightest bulb in the room. She’s got a law degree and has been a District Attorney and U.S. Senator, but exudes a vapid shallowness that’s hard to miss. She has made more policy U-turns than I can count, and she lies and changes her positions based on whatever the public mood du jour is.

As Cam previously posted, after waffling on and off over the years about getting rid of the legislative filibuster, she’s now doing a full-throated endorsement of the idea. Axios reported the following (archived link):

Harris backs eliminating filibuster to codify Roe v. Wade
By Erin Doherty

Vice President Harris told Wisconsin Public Radio that she supports eliminating the Senate filibuster to codify Roe v. Wade.

Why it matters: Harris' comments are the latest example of the Democratic presidential nominee trying to distinguish herself from former President Trump on the politically potent topic of abortion, viewed as a weak spot for Republicans.

• As the nominee, Harris had, until now, not said publicly whether she would support bypassing the filibuster rule — which requires 60 votes for passage of most major legislation — to enshrine abortion rights into federal law.

Driving the news: "I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe," Harris told the radio station in an interview that aired Tuesday.

• That way, she added, "51 votes would be what we need 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."

It’s unclear from the phrasing whether Harris wants to eliminate the filibuster solely for the purpose of codifying a federal right to abortion, or if it’s a general elimination of the Senate legislative filibuster. Regardless, the latter is guaranteed once you set foot on the slippery slope.

Also note the subtle insertion of culture war in Harris’ words on pregnancy and abortion: “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.”

Harris’ harebrained idea is supported by her fellow Democrats and nominally Independent Bernie Sanders:

Zoom in: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) signaled last month that he'd consider eliminating the filibuster on votes aimed at protecting abortion access if Democrats keep the majority.

• The prospect of further weakening a long-standing Senate rule threatens to divide Democrats.

• But earlier this month, Axios reported that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has long been skeptical of eliminating the filibuster, said he is willing to carve out an exception for abortion rights.

Flashback: Biden, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, said that he supported changing the Senate's filibuster rules to enable Congress to pass a federal law codifying Roe.

• Harris has also previously expressed support for ending the filibuster for votes on voting rights and abortion rights, but she hadn't signaled her positioning since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.

Democrats seem to have the memory of a goldfish. Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) nuked the filibuster for judicial nominations for lower courts in November 2013.

Thanks to all of you who encouraged me to consider filibuster reform. It had to be done.

— Senator Harry Reid (@SenatorReid) November 21, 2013

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned Democrats about the consequences of doing so. Escalation was inevitable, and the writing was on the wall.

As McConnell predicted, after the Republicans won a trifecta in 2016, McConnell nuked the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations in April 2017 to end a Democrat blockade on Neil Gorsuch’s nomination. That’s how we ended up with a Second Amendment-friendly 6-3 Supreme Court majority in 2020. Bruen came from that. A bunch of GVRs on “assault weapon” bans and “high capacity” magazines also came from that.

The same thing will happen again if Democrats get rid of the legislative filibuster for “just Roe v. Wade” or “just abortion and voting” or “just abortion and voting and gun control.” The pendulum of politics swings and it swings hard.

Democrats think that the other side will just sit down and take it. In a country with democratic elections, the other side can also win power. They need to be prepared for their worst nightmares after an inevitable political realignment and change of power. Sure, you got your sugar high today passing gun control. Don’t weep tomorrow when the other side abolishes the NFA, forces through National Concealed Carry Reciprocity, and gives out 100% tax credits for the purchase of every gun and every single round of ammunition.

The Senate filibuster is really the last thing standing between turning the world’s largest deliberative body into another raucous collection of clowns that is the House of Representatives. The Founding Fathers’ intent was to have Senators represent their respective state governments and have a layer of insulation from the vagaries and vicissitudes of populism; the latter were supposed to be captured by the House of Representatives. The lengthier Senate terms were also designed because of that. Likewise, Senators were meant to be appointed by state legislatures to shield senators from momentary passions. All of that has been chipped away over the years. Introducing cameras into the Senate poured fuel over the fire, adding to the descent into demagoguery.

Supposedly well-educated people like Kamala Harris and Chuck Schumer, both of whom went to law school, ought to know better. Their loose words have the potential to snowball and set in motion something far worse.