Theodoric Meyer and Jacqueline Alemany
December 15, 2021
(Washington Post) – Some Democrats are turning their attention to passing voting rights.
Don’t book your flights yet: Democrats’ urgency to score a win before Washington closes shop for the holidays may be helping to drive a renewed push on Capitol Hill to pass voting rights legislation.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has insisted he can garner a big victory for President Biden by pushing through Democrats’ massive social spending package known as the Build Back Better Act before Christmas. But the hour is getting late, the Senate parliamentarian has yet to rule on all of the bill’s components and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) hasn’t gotten to yes yet. Also, there’s no bill text.
So some Democrats are pushing to make voting rights the party’s No. 1 priority instead.
“Voting rights should be the very next thing we do,” Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) told reporters after a lunch in which Senate Democrats discussed the issue. “We’ve got to get Medicaid expansion, we’ve got to get child care, we’ve got to get relief to farmers. All of those things matter. But the point I’m making in this moment is: we have to have a democratic framework to continue to push for those things.”
And Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), one of the most moderate Democrats in the chamber, reiterated Tuesday that he’d support changing the chamber’s rules to pass voting rights legislation. (He made similar comments over the summer.)
Yet there’s scant Republican support for any kind of voting rights legislation, as next year’s midterms — in which they have a good chance to recapture their congressional majorities — loom. That means Democrats would have to seek a Senate rules change to prevent the GOP from filibustering the effort.
A person familiar with the discussions told The Early that part of the thinking inside the Senate Democratic caucus is that it might actually be easier to try to change Senate rules and pass a voting rights bill than to pass BBB before Christmas. Manchin has warmed to the idea of various rules changes in recent weeks, the person added, and conversations are progressing that could help break a stalemate.
“We have to have some sort of victory,” the person said. Schumer “will want something and the only thing that’s raring and ready to go is voting rights.”
After announcing in June he couldn’t support Democrats’ signature voting bill, Manchin spent months working on legislation he hoped would secure bipartisan support. He managed to convince Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to co-sponsor a scaled-down bill with him and two other Democrats.
But Republicans filibustered the bill last month, forcing Democrats to change tactics. Now Democratic senators are pushing to create a carveout in the chamber’s rules allowing the bill to pass with only their votes.
That’s where they lost Manchin.
The West Virginia Democrat, who’s repeatedly ruled out scrapping the filibuster, is open to changing the rules on a more limited basis — but only if Republicans support the change, which seems very unlikely.
Both parties should “have input in this rules change, because we’ll have to live with them,” Manchin told reporters Tuesday. “Because we’ll be in the minority sometime.”
Democrats and voting rights advocates are working to win over Manchin, but it’s unclear how they might succeed. One advocate working on the issue, granted anonymity to discuss the dynamics candidly, said that while there’s a chance Democrats could pass a voting rights bill before Christmas, it’s more likely that it slips into next year.
Democrats are hustling to pass the bill as soon as possible in part because one of the provisions would restrict partisan gerrymandering — and the redistricting process is already well underway in ways that favor Republicans.
Adam Bozzi, a spokesperson for End Citizens United, which is lobbying on voting rights, said Democrats must pass the bill soon in order for it to take effect before redistricting is completed, taking into account the expected lawsuits over the legislation.
“We really, really have to get it done by January to be able to get through litigation and get it implemented as soon as possible,” Bozzi wrote in an email to The Early.