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“West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, a crucial swing vote in the U.S. Senate, announced on Sunday he intends to oppose a sweeping voting rights bill backed by the majority of his fellow Democrats.” Reuters
Manchin published an op-ed explaining his decision. Charleston Gazette-Mail
“President Joe Biden called out two fellow Democrats [last] Tuesday in explaining why he hasn’t enacted some of the most ambitious elements of his agenda… It appeared to be a veiled reference to Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, both of whom have frustrated Democrats with their defense of the filibuster — the rule requiring most legislation to win 60 votes to pass.” AP News
Here’s our most recent coverage of HR 1 and the Senate filibuster. The Flip Side
The left argues that the voting rights bill is necessary and widely popular, and urges Manchin and Sinema to support it despite Republican opposition.
“In Georgia, [Republicans] stripped the secretary of state as a voting member on the board of elections and basically gave the gerrymandered legislature much more control over the state election board — giving that board the power to take over up to four county boards of elections. That kind of stuff is very disturbing when you think about the fact that Donald Trump tried to overturn the election and that the exact mechanisms he tried to use involved going through county canvassing boards, going through state election boards, and pressuring the secretary of state…
“There’s a Texas bill making it easier for courts to try to throw out votes, to try to overturn an election which, again, is exactly the kind of thing that Trump wanted to do…
“[Such efforts] could allow [Republicans] to not certify elections in 2022 and 2024 so that even if Democrats are able to overcome the suppression measures, Republicans will still control the outcome of the elections and essentially nullify the will of the voters. That’s the worst-case scenario here. Basically, we’ll be in a situation where an election is only viewed as legitimate if Republicans win, and there’s no way that you could describe that as a democracy — where only one side is acknowledged as being able to fairly win an election.”
Ari Berman, Jacobin Magazine
“Five years ago, former Wyoming Republican Sen. Alan Simpson said of sweeping reforms in places as diverse as Maine, California, and Montana, that ideas like exposing dark money and adopting clean elections systems ‘are not controversial anywhere except in the corridors of power in Washington. It’s certainly not a partisan issue, either, because Americans from all political parties are patriots who simply want government to work the way it was designed by our Founders.’…
“S.1 — the For the People Act — has overwhelming bipartisan support across the United States… [A recent poll] found that 79 percent of West Virginians support the For the People Act. And they support it because not only would it guarantee access to the ballot (making it the most important civil rights bill in a generation), but it would also rid the political system of the corrupting influence of big money. A reform that is wildly popular because Americans want government that is responsive to the people.”
Matt Keller, The Hill
“Manchin is working to find 10 Republicans to support key voting-rights protections, overcoming this filibuster without abolishing the filibuster generally. As he wrote in The Post in April, he believes there is ‘bipartisan support for voting reform and many of the initiatives outlined in the For the People Act.’ His Democratic colleagues ought to put that to the test. After the For the People Act fails, the Senate should bring up its popular and unobjectionable provisions, one at a time…
“[The bill] requires that 100 percent of votes in U.S. elections be backed up by paper ballots, to combat hacking and fraud. Will Republicans filibuster this?… The bill ends political ‘dark money’ by requiring such secretive organizations to disclose their biggest donors. Will Republicans filibuster this? The bill requires states to alert each other when voters apply for a driver’s license in a new state, to avoid duplicate voter registrations. Will Republicans filibuster this?… If so, they will have proved themselves beyond all doubt to be acting in bad faith.”
Dana Milbank, Washington Post
“Bipartisanship remains a rhetorical proxy for getting things done, when, in reality, it’s a proxy for getting nothing done at all. Moderates such as Senator Susan Collins engage in performative negotiations with Democrats and the White House, knowing full well that working with the other side of the aisle is a nonstarter with their base, not to mention their leadership…
“This is not new. I was a health-care staffer for a Democratic senator during the Affordable Care Act debates. We were repeatedly told that if we just waited and conceded and then waited and conceded some more, a few Republicans would eventually come around and support the bill, which was, after all, rooted in their ideas. Not a single one did… At some point, people like Sinema will have to choose. You can be either for institutions that fail to serve democracy, or for democracy itself. You cannot be for both.”
Sarada Peri, The Atlantic
The right argues that the voting rights bill is unnecessary and much too broad, and praises Manchin’s consistency.
The right argues that the voting rights bill is unnecessary and much too broad, and praises Manchin’s consistency.
“The bill is a laundry list of progressive wishes that often bear little relation to the ‘voting rights’ label affixed to it. Taxpayer funding of campaigns and a code of ethics for the Supreme Court, both in the bill, have nothing to do with the ease of voting. And the provisions that actually deal with voting are also too sweeping: There is no reason that every state should be forced to discard voter-ID laws. But Manchin has put his finger on what would be wrong with passing even a slimmed-down version of the bill. ‘How in the world could you, with the tension we have right now, allow a voting bill to restructure the voting of America on a partisan line?’ he asked in April. Trust in the system, already dangerously low, would fall further.”
Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg
“H.R.1’s supporters claim the bill provides such a check against a supposed rash of ‘voter suppression’ measures. That claim is flimsy given historic turnout and diversity in recent elections, as well as data showing that voter-ID laws don’t depress turnout. H.R.1 features provisions Democrats have long favored—further evidence that it isn’t a response to a new crisis…
“H.R.1’s extreme federal election takeover raises the question of how far Congress can go to oust states from the entire field. Federalist 59 describes Congress’s role as regulating elections ‘in the last resort’; H.R.1 does so as the first resort. The Supreme Court has never had to address the outer limits of Congress’s power because nothing like H.R.1 has ever passed. But if it does, its comprehensiveness should be its undoing.”
David B. Rivkin Jr. and Jason Snead, Wall Street Journal
“Manchin’s consistency is encouraging, especially since the rest of his party abandoned it as soon as Biden took office. Just a few years ago, in 2017, dozens of Manchin’s colleagues signed a letter in 2017 urging Senate GOP leadership not to cave to former President Donald Trump’s demands to toss [the filibuster]. They argued the filibuster was vital, that compromise would not be possible without it, and that abolishing it would set a horrible precedent. Apparently, Manchin was the only one who actually believed that…
“‘It has been said by much wiser people than me that absolute power corrupts absolutely,’ Manchin wrote. ‘Well, what I’ve seen during my time in Washington is that every party in power will always want to exercise absolute power, absolutely.’ Manchin is right. The only reason Democrats want to get rid of the filibuster now is because it’s the only thing standing in their way. It’s an obvious power grab, and they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. Thankfully, Manchin won’t let them.”
Kaylee McGhee White, Washington Examiner
“The way Sinema and Manchin are portrayed by the press bears little resemblance to the coverage of, say, Susan Collins, who often held up Republican-agenda items. She was a plucky maverick ready to stand up for her beliefs. And Mitch McConnell was not, as far as I recall, asked daily whether he was willing to destroy the republican norms of the Senate to ram through his legislative agenda with a razor-thin majority. And even if he had been, reporters wouldn’t be referring to it as ‘filibuster reform.’ Yet, the filibuster is the obsession of political media. Sinema and Manchin are the obsession of the political media. All of it geared to help one party realize its goals.”
David Harsanyi, National Review
Some note that “The House of Representatives will flip to the GOP next year… In 2024, the GOP has massive odds of retaking the Senate. The Democrats will have to defend the most seats, and many of them are in states Trump won. Right now, the Democrats have a 50-50 Senate. Even without the filibuster, Democrats are having trouble passing key legislation. They have failed to repeal most of Trump's last-minute regulations -- a maneuver that bypasses the filibuster…
“With Republicans restored to the House next year and Sen. Mitch McConnell on the cusp of regaining power, why on earth would Democrats want to scrap the filibuster? They will need it against McConnell and House Republicans. Unfortunately, Democrats cannot be honest. They must instead, with help from friends in the press, go through the ritualistic and stylized dance of defeat that signals to the base they care and are fighters while privately knowing defeat was always the only outcome.”
Erick Erickson, Townhall
A libertarian's take
“The pretentiously named ‘For The People Act’ fairly bristles with provisions at odds with our nation’s founding document. There are free-speech violations, about which ACLU officials have expressed alarm. There are separation-of-powers problems. There’s plenty of federalism-mangling. For those who prefer the more arcane, there are likely Electors Clause and Qualifications Clause violations…
“It would oblige larger online platforms to keep public logs of ads on political topics. When my own state of Maryland actually tried to enact such a law, the federal courts proceeded without hesitation to strike it down. Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson’s opinion for the Fourth Circuit called it ‘a content‐based law that targets political speech and compels newspapers, among other platforms, to carry certain messages on their websites. In other words, Maryland’s law is a compendium of traditional First Amendment infirmities.’ To put it differently… the bill’s sponsors aren’t willing to drop parts of their bill that courts have already declared unconstitutional.”
Walter Olson, National Review
