Fact test: what happens when the Republican Group’s claim over Senator Jeff Jackson’s filibuster stance goes through the Flip-O-Meter? | WFAE 90.7

It’s now time for a fact check of North Carolina politics. This week we look at next year’s race for the US Senate. The National Republican Senatorial Committee said in a press release this month that the Democratic candidate and the current state, Senator Jeff Jackson of Charlotte, have flip-flopped over his view on abolishing the filibuster. WRAL’s Paul Specht joins us to judge this.

Marshall Terry: First, Paul, the filibuster is currently a point of discussion about Capitol Hill. Why is this?

Paul Specht: Well, it’s because Democrats control Congress and they have the White House, but their majority is slim. One can therefore use the filibuster to make their plans for their agenda succeed, on all these things for which they have strived. First, it was the stimulus. Now they are trying to implement new rules for the vote.

And so if someone uses the filibuster, which is a big term to describe a rule that senators can use to just make a stall, then the filibuster is a stationary tactic. To end someone’s filibuster, you basically need 60 votes, and Democrats do not.

So this is where they are. They plan to pass their agenda this year and next year before the midterm elections. And they sit here wondering, “What will we do if Republicans make a filibuster, and then we do not have the 60 votes to end it?”

Terry: OK, so now go to Jeff Jackson. What did he say about where he stands on the filibuster?

Woodpecker: Now Senator Jackson was asked about this for the first time in January. He was on “Capital Tonight” and the anchor, Tim Boyum, asked him, do you know, should it survive? And Jackson said, and I quote, “It all depends on whether Senator Mitch McConnell prefers to act responsibly.” He goes on to say that if McConnell uses it to block legislation, he is saying, “It’s gone.” So it’s clear Jackson’s a little skeptical about Mitch McConnell, but his opinion depends on what McConnell does.

Now, fast forward to April 8th. Jackson reads a story in The Washington Post that says West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat, is considered a swing vote, saying he would under no circumstances even consider reforming the filibuster. That’s when Jackson stepped in and called Manchin’s position ‘reckless’, accusing him of giving up here at the outset, and saying Democrats should “deliver things that matter to people.”

The NRSC saw Jackson’s tweets on April 8 as proof that he was talking about it and that he was opposed to it. When we asked Jackson about this, he says nothing has changed. His view of the filibuster remains the same. He is ‘filibuster skeptical’.

Terry: The National Republican Senatorial Committee’s press release also mentions fellow Democratic Senate candidate Erica Smith and said that Smith let Jackson flip-flop over the filibuster in less than a month. What is the committee talking about?

Woodpecker: There was a story in Politico in March that spoke to Democrats across the country, and one of them said that killing the filibuster, abolishing it, is the new litmus test for democratic candidates. And in the story, Jackson describes himself as ‘filibuster skeptical’ and says he knows some sort of this lukewarm position, this wait-and-see approach.

Meanwhile, her Democratic opponent in this U.S. Senate, Erica Smith, says she opposes the filibuster. She is willing to go so far as to say, let’s do it.

There was a poll that Smith and Jackson did not show far apart. And so the NRSC here suggests, hey, this story came out and then this poll comes out. And Jackson responds to that. This is their claim with the press release.

Terry: You have reached the committee on this press release. What did it say?

Woodpecker: They thought it was obvious. They showed us the Spectrum News interview. They pointed to the poll with Jackson and Smith, and then they pointed to Jackson’s tweets and said: hey, you know, it’s clear he’s going from a pro-filibuster position to an anti-filibuster position went.

Terry: How did you rate the claim?

Woodpecker: We make this claim through the “Flip-O-Meter” because it is a very specific term when someone is accused of flip-flopping. And that’s a very dangerous thing. If you’re a politician and are found to have slapped something? People can hold it against you for years. And that’s why we have a meter just for this. It’s not the ‘Truth-O-Meter’ that judges things whether they’s true, false or somewhere in between. We have a ‘Flip-O-Meter’ that determines whether people have done a full flip-flop, a half flip or not at all.

And in this case, we saw no clear evidence of a flip. So Jackson here on our Flip-O-Meter, it’s a ‘no flip’.

Terry: All right, Paul, thank you.

Woodpecker: Thank you.