The Play
The “play” has been clear for a long time. Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, developed his own “Voting Rights Act” for the Senate. It’s basically the lesser of two sent from the House of Representatives, the “John Lewis Voting Rights Act”, with some further modifications (the “For the People Act” was the other).
It’s not that modification was needed to get the rest of Democratic Senators signed onto the bill. But Manchin believed that with his changes, he could entice ten Republicans to join in and vote to allow, for the purpose of debate, the bill to go forward. After all, it isn’t really much more than an updated version of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a law the Senate reaffirmed in 2006 by a 98-0 vote. It requires sixty votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster.
Profiles in Fear
But those were the days before the advent of “Trumpism” and the “Stop the Steal” lie. The former President and the leadership of the Republicans in the Senate, led by McConnell of Kentucky, have made it clear. Vote for voting rights, even a simple update of the 1965 law, and you are flying in the face of Trump’s rhetoric. A huge majority of the Republican voters still support the 45th President. A wayward Republican who in any way supports Manchin’s bill is likely to find a primary opponent backed with the full force of the man from Mara Lago.
We used to talk about Senators who were “Profiles in Courage”, willing to risk their political careers for principle. But those “profiles” now seem to only exist in John F. Kennedy’s book. Time and time again, today’s Republican Senators are willing to accept almost any lie, any position, as long as it keeps them in good stead with the former President. Even the “courageous” Senators; Romney, Cassidy and Sasse, are unwilling to risk the opprobrium of the masses led by Trump.
So they don’t. The Manchin bill was “filibustered”, unable to even come to the floor of the Senate for debate. It was a straight party-line vote, fifty Democrats for, fifty Republicans against. And since the magic number was sixty – the motion failed and with it, Manchin’s compromise.
Existential Threat
For Democrats, passage of the Voting Rights Act is an existential struggle. In twenty-six states, Republican state legislatures have already passed restrictive voting laws. All the nonsense about “securing elections” aside, those laws make it more difficult for folks who tend to vote Democratic to actually cast their ballot. “Stop the Steal” really means restrict voting access. If Democrats can’t vote, they can’t win. Ask Republicans in Georgia, whose 2020 elections laws made voting easier. Not only did Biden win the Presidential election, but two Democrats won the Senate races. The Republican Georgia legislature has fixed that – it won’t happen again if their laws stand.
In the “Schoolhouse Rock” version of America, we are a nation where every vote counts. The phrase “one-person, one-vote” is a fundamental principle. But in reality, that has never been true. The voting process was slanted against “them”, whoever “they” were. European immigrants in the 1800’s, the formerly enslaved after the Civil War, Asian Immigrants in the 1920’s, all were denied the vote.
Stop the Vote
There were overt attacks by groups like the Ku Klux Klan, and more “subtle” attacks through restrictions on voter registration. Today, the modern day equivalent of the poll tax or literacy test, is to make the polling place far away, or so crowded that several hours are required to cast a vote.
More restrictive voter identification, gerrymandered electoral districts, and reduced mail in balloting all serve to disenfranchise voters. And since many of those are likely to vote for Democrats, it is a “legal” way of stacking the vote in the Republican favor.
But “legal” is a subjective term. And that is the issue that the John Lewis Act would define: what is legal in terms of voter access and identification and what is punitive. So it’s simple, either Democrats protect the right to vote by passing Federal law, or states will restrict the right to vote in order to for Republicans to control the outcome of elections.
End of the Line
Majority Leader Schumer might be fly fishing in the high meadows of the Appalachians. He gave Senator Manchin all “the line” he could. Manchin believed in bipartisanship, believed he could bring ten Republicans into the fold, believed that the Senate could be 2006 instead of 2021. And Schumer let him run out the line. But now the man in the middle, the Democratic Senator from the most Trump supporting state in the Nation, has failed. What happens next?
Joe (and Kristin), it’s really all up to you. It’s your turn to be a Profile in Courage. The Republican “stonewall” is not cracking, regardless of how much “almost heaven, West Virginia” common sense is applied. The political courage you expect of your Republican colleagues is sorely lacking. Even Toomey, Portman, Burr, Shelby and Blunt, all retiring from the Senate, are unwilling to buck McConnell. And even if they did, that still would only be half of the ten needed to overcome the filibuster.
Carve Out
There is another way. The filibuster is just a rule of the Senate. It was agreed to by a simple majority vote when the Senate was organized in January, it can be removed or restricted by a simple majority vote as well. And the Democrats technically already have that majority, with the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Harris. Schumer can “reel in” Manchin; it’s a simple deal.
The Senate doesn’t have to completely give up the filibuster. There already are “carve outs” for executive appointments and budget reconciliation. It would require one additional carve out for the most important function of American government – protecting the right to vote. And it would require that the “traditionalist” Democratic Senators led by Manchin, the others invisible behind his back, accept that voting rights are so important the ultimate weapon must be used to protect it: majority rule.
It’s what McConnell would do.
