Senate Democrats Press Ahead With Debate on Voting Rights Bill

[brooklynite]

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats plan to press ahead this week with an effort to push new voting rights protections through Congress, in an all but doomed attempt to enact a key piece of President Biden’s agenda that has been undercut by members of his own party.

The Senate on Tuesday will begin to debate legislation that combines two separate bills already passed by the House — the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act — and folds them into an unrelated measure. The move would allow the Senate to bring the bill directly to the floor, avoiding an initial filibuster.

But that strategy would still allow Republicans to block it from coming to a final vote, and Democrats lack the unanimous support needed in their party to change Senate rules to muscle through the legislation themselves. Still, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said late last week that Democrats would forge ahead anyway, forcing Republicans to publicly declare their opposition to the bill.

“We all have to be recorded at this moment in time about where are we in protecting the right to vote,” Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “Right now, it doesn’t look like it has the votes to pass, but we’re going to cancel our Martin Luther King Day recess and be there this week because we think it’s so important for the country.”

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/17/us/politics/senate-voting-rights-bill.html

[kimbutgar]

1. I wish MLK 3 would ask for a meeting for Manchin and einema and then ask them on camera

Why they are against voting rights? Could you imagine the nervousness of both of them on camera?

[brooklynite]

2. And they'll say they're not; they just oppose getting rid of the filibuster...

...which previous Democratic Senate Leaders and Presidents never expressed opposition to.

Next question?

[kimbutgar]

3. Just get them on tape with MLK 3 saying they support voting rights and then prove them the liars

And charlatans they are!

[PoliticAverse]

4. So are Sinema and Manchin the only 2 Democrats that will be voting No? n/t

[Calista241]

5. We don't know, but i suspect many more might not vote to remove the filibuster.

The logic being if the vote is doomed to failure, why should they take the hit, and the blame with / if the Republicans do it.

[brooklynite]

6. Neither of them will be voting "no"...

...because a vote to eliminate the filibuster isn't being held. This is a vote of the legislation itself and both of them support it.

[ColinC]

7. Won't there first be a vote to end debate?

And if that fails, then there will likely be a vote for an exception to the 60 votes required to end debate?

[brooklynite]

8. Yes, but they don't object to ending debate; they object to only requiring 51 votes to do it.

[PoliticAverse]

9. Yes, I was referring to the vote on bypassing the filibuster and I had it backwards...

A "NO" vote allowed bypassing the filibuster, a "YES" vote prevented bypassing the filibuster. And Manchin and Sienma were the only 2 Democrats to vote YES in the end...