A new voting rights bill, designed by Democrats to protect the right to vote by every American, has hit a Republican roadblock in the US Senate.
Politics
Bill H.R. 1, or the For the People Act, has been called the most ambitious voting rights bill to come before Congress in a generation. It was created to improve fairness in elections by introducing the largest federally mandated expansion of voting rights since the 1960s, banning partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, forcing super PACs to disclose big donor lists, creating a new public campaign financing system, and preventing states from making it harder for people of color and young people to vote — all improvements any elected official would want, right? WRONG!!
On Tuesday, Republican senators used the filibuster to defeat the new voting rights bill and prevent Democrats from reaching the 60-votes required for passage. In fact, the GOP refused to even hear arguments related to the bill. As expected, the vote went along party lines with all 50 Democratic senators in favor of the bill and all 50 Republican senators opposed to it.
Now, the Democrats’ only chance of reviving the voting rights bill and enacting an elections overhaul will be to eliminate the legislative filibuster, a move that could help Democrats in the short term but come back to haunt them in the long run.
Since Donald Trump’s huge electoral loss in November of 2020, Republicans have actively and brazenly done everything within their power to make it harder (for mostly Black and Brown people) to vote, while tilting the scales to make it easier for them to win.
In Georgia, Republicans have removed Democrats of color from local boards. In Arkansas, they’ve stripped election control from county authorities. Across the country, Republicans have stripped secretaries of state of their power, asserted more control over state election boards, restricted early voting, approved measures to limit the number of available ballot boxes, made it easier to overturn election results, and attempted partisan audits in the hopes of overturning the 2020 election results.
President Biden has compared these ongoing GOP stunts to “Jim Crow” racing through Republican-led states.
Moderate Democrats, including Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have each expressed a desire to maintain the filibuster in hopes of establishing an era of bipartisanship with Republicans. However, progressive Democrats have recognized that Republicans have no desire to ever work with liberals and moderates across the aisle. They believe Democrats should seize this moment of controlling the White House, House of Representatives, and Senate to get things done on their own.
“The people did not give Democrats the House, Senate and White House to compromise with insurrectionists. Abolish the filibuster so we can do the people’s work.” – Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Democrat of Massachusetts
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“There is a rot — a rot at the center of the modern Republican Party,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday. “There is no principle behind these laws: not fraud, not election integrity, not security, not better election administration. The only principle is blatant partisan electoral advantage.”
CNN:
If the expansive voting rights bill suffocated in the Senate on Tuesday was the most critical defense of American democracy in decades, it seems odd that a President who put that very goal at the core of his administration didn’t do more to pass it.
The bill was seen by Democrats as one of their highest priorities — a pushback against scores of ballot suppression bills by Republican-led state legislatures that threaten their ability to win future power, built on Donald Trump’s vote fraud lies.
It’s the kind of scenario that calls for the vote-moving muscle of a first-term president at the apex of his power. But in the bleak political math of contemporary Washington, such a jolt of energy from the commander in chief didn’t materialize. And it wouldn’t have mattered if it did.
Republicans crushed the effort at the first attempt, wielding the Senate’s filibuster rules — which require a 60-vote majority to advance the bill — to stop legislation with existential implications for the US democratic system, before it could even be debated.
The vote on Tuesday was the most tangible illustration yet of how having such a minuscule congressional majority will thwart liberal dreams of a presidency chock full of radical change, and how President Joe Biden’s power in such a scenario is clipped. The fact that Biden wasn’t leading the charge in such a critical fight reveals everything about the stark realities of power that define Washington in mid-2021 and offers insights into how he sees his presidency.
Instead of taking on Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Republicans, who showed the capacity to throttle Biden’s legislative plans at any time, the President decided to prioritize other goals, like a bipartisan infrastructure deal and other policy aims he views as closer to the American people. It’s a gamble that puts him in the position of needing a big win on infrastructure to justify his decisions.
The events on Tuesday will add to the growing angst of progressives increasingly frustrated that Biden isn’t doing more for their cause. Despite the fury on the left, moderate Democrats like Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia or Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona showed they were no closer to voting to abolish the filibuster. And a day of political theater also showed how in tightly divided Washington, it’s often only those whose goal is to achieve nothing — in this case, the GOP — that get what they want.
Wil made a good point. I wonder why Biden did not fight more for this? He is already moving on today talking about gun control and infrastructure. Did he set Repubs up for something later or what is up? Something is odd here.