As he battles for President Donald Trump’s endorsement, Sen. John Cornyn announced Wednesday that he supports doing away with the filibuster to pass the president’s top legislative priority.
Cornyn, a former member of Senate Republican leadership, was previously a defender of the filibuster, a rule that mandates bills must meet a 60-vote threshold to be called for a vote on the Senate floor. But he said in an op-ed that Senate Republicans should ditch the rule in order to pass a House-passed voting restrictions bill.
“After careful consideration, I support whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary for us to get the SAVE America Act and homeland security funding past the Democrats’ obstruction, through the Senate, and on the president’s desk for his signature,” Cornyn wrote in a New York Post op-ed.
Cornyn told reporters later Wednesday that he didn’t write the op-ed to curry favor with the president, adding he didn’t feel like he had compromised on any of his core values.
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“Hopefully the president likes what he sees,” Cornyn said. “But this has really been an evolution in my own thinking. And I thought, rather than have it misunderstood, I’d just put it down in writing.”
Cornyn is locked in a 10-week runoff to defend his seat against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a close ally of Trump’s, after Trump declined to endorse a candidate ahead of the primary.
Politico reported last week that Trump has declined to support Cornyn in order to pressure Senate leadership to scrap the filibuster and pass the SAVE America Act. Trump has said he will not sign any legislation until passage of the bill, which would require voters to present a photo ID and provide proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. The White House also wants to include measures to limit gender-affirming care for transgender minors and transgender women from participating in women’s sports and to ban mail-in voting. Trump told House Republicans on Monday that the bill could “guarantee” the party’s victory in the midterms.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has maintained that there are not enough votes in the upper chamber to do away with the filibuster.
“I think the midterm is going to be about the economy, and that’s why we are focused on that,” Thune told reporters on Wednesday. “It’s great to have the SAVE Act if we could do it. But as has been made very clear, I think you guys know this pretty well, we don’t have the votes.”
Cornyn acknowledged to reporters that any change to the filibuster would be difficult, adding there “doesn’t seem” to be universal support for changing the filibuster in the Republican conference.
He wrote in his op-ed that he is in support of a “talking filibuster,” a tactic that would force Democrats to speak on the floor to delay or block the legislation or any other maneuver that would permit Republicans to pass the bill.
The move represents a significant reversal for Cornyn, who has long stood behind the filibuster. In 2022, Democrats in the majority attempted to overhaul the filibuster in order to pass their own set of federal voting changes.
At the time, Cornyn warned on the Senate floor that allowing any party in power to legislate unilaterally would be dangerous.
“Once we head down that slippery slope, the legislative filibuster is gone,” Cornyn said in 2022. “Taking over America’s elections may be the first item on their agenda, but it won’t be the last. Power is fleeting, and at some point the shoe will always be on the other foot.”
Cornyn acknowledged the change in his stance on Wednesday, writing that the reality on the ground has changed and Senate leadership should “take stock and adapt.” Cornyn said that the increasing gap between the two parties is what forced him to flip his view.
“Since I’ve been in the Senate, you’ve had Republicans and Democrats working together to find common ground where we can,” Cornyn said. “We have two choices. One is just to stay stuck … or we can try to look for alternatives.”
This article has been updated with further comments from Cornyn.
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