Democrats are bracing for defeat on their sweeping elections bill being brought for a procedural vote Tuesday — after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell slammed the bill as a “disastrous proposal” and a “power grab,” and key Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has come out in opposition to abolishing the filibuster.
The For the People Act, which passed the House in March, is arguably the most hot-button piece of legislation dividing Washington.
Republicans have warned the bill would create distrust by turning over the election process to the federal government’s control.
The package was pushed by Democrats earlier this year in an effort to undo some states’ attempts to tighten voting laws following the 2020 election.
“We can argue what should be done to protect voting rights and safeguard our democracy, but don’t you think we should be able to debate the issue?” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Monday while justifying moving forward without the necessary votes.
The House-passed package aims to “expand access” to the polls, put an end to gerrymandering and set up public funding for congressional races.
It will also require states to offer mail-in ballots, same-day voter registration and a minimum of 15 days of early voting.
While there have been bipartisan concerns over voter ID requirements, the package reverses states’ more stringent voter ID laws for the new federal standards, which allow voting with no ID.
All of these rules, if the package passed, would be at odds with newly established laws.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who opposed the House version of the bill, released a compromise option that he said he would support.
Given that there is not enough time to make the changes before Tuesday’s vote, which would start debate on the bill, it was not immediately clear how Manchin intended to vote.
Asked on Capitol Hill Tuesday morning, the West Virginia moderate said he did not know and could not give a definitive answer.
Even if Democrats secure Manchin’s backing, that compromise bill will not have a single GOP vote when the matter is brought to the floor, McConnell (R-Ky.) warned.
McConnell, currently the nation’s highest-ranking elected Republican, called the bill a “radical proposal” designed to “rig the rules of American elections permanently, permanently in Democrats’ favor.”
“That’s why the Senate will give this disastrous proposal no quarter.”
The bill’s inevitable failure is expected to reignite a debate within the Democratic Party over whether to eliminate the filibuster, a move that progressives have heavily advocated.
The Senate is split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, though Vice President Kamala Harris, as Senate president, has a tie-breaking vote.
Still, 51 votes is not enough under current rules to break through the filibuster, the Senate rule requiring 60 members to end debate on most topics and move forward to a vote.
“As it relates to the filibuster, I don’t think you have to take it from us, that would be Congress moving forward — or making a decision. If the vote is unsuccessful tomorrow, we suspect it will prompt a new conversation about the path forward,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday.
“We’ll see where that goes.”
Former President Barack Obama also lent his voice to the cause, calling on Senate Democrats to bypass the 60-vote threshold for this specific bill this week ahead of the vote.
Speaking at a town hall over the weekend on voting rights, Obama addressed the bill while taking a swipe at Republicans for their handling of matters relating to the 2020 election.
“Unfortunately, right now at least, Republicans in the Senate are right now lining up to try to use the filibuster to stop the For the People Act from even being debated,” he said.
“Think about this: In the aftermath of an insurrection, with our democracy on the line, and many of these same Republican senators going along with the notion that somehow there were irregularities and problems with legitimacy in our most recent election — they’re suddenly afraid to even talk about these issues and figure out solutions on the floor of the Senate. They don’t even want to talk about voting.”
While the majority of the Democratic caucus in the Senate supports abolishing the filibuster to end the GOP blockade on their legislative agenda, they lack two critical “yes” votes from their own side.
Both Manchin and Sinema (D-Ariz.) oppose nuking the filibuster, a position for which they face repeated attacks from their own side.
Sinema defended her pro-filibuster stance ahead of this week’s vote on the original voting rights legislation, of which she is a co-sponsor, in an op-ed Monday in the Washington Post.
“My support for retaining the 60-vote threshold is not based on the importance of any particular policy. It is based on what is best for our democracy,” the Arizona Democrat wrote.
“The filibuster compels moderation and helps protect the country from wild swings between opposing policy poles.”
Addressing the possibility of passing voting rights legislation by nuking the filibuster, Sinema asked, “Would it be good for our country if we did, only to see that legislation rescinded a few years from now and replaced by a nationwide voter ID law or restrictions on voting by mail in federal elections, over the objections of the minority?”
“Instability, partisanship and tribalism continue to infect our politics. The solution, however, is not to continue weakening our democracy’s guardrails. If we eliminate the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, we will lose much more than we gain.”
President Biden has tapped Harris to run point on the administration’s voting rights efforts.
“Today, I’m asking Vice President Harris to help these efforts, and lead them, among her many other responsibilities,” Biden said during a speech this month in Tulsa, Okla., to mark the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre.
“With her leadership, and your support, we’re gonna overcome again, I promise you,” Biden said of his veep. “But it’s gonna take a hell of a lot of work.”
Harris’ voting reform responsibilities add another critical and highly fraught issue the president has tasked her with.
Along with her appointment as voting rights point person, Harris has been tapped to oversee illegal immigration, and has also been named to lead small business outreach in the coronavirus rescue package.
