As everyone knows, the Democrats don’t have a Senate majority without Joe Manchin, and he’s no rubber-stamp. He doesn’t like their voting rights bill, and if he votes against it, it loses 51-49. This doesn’t mean he can dictate its terms, but it does mean he can limit what it contains.
Manchin is signaling he favors “a pared-down bill that focuses solely on protecting the right to vote and the procedure of voting” (read story here). In other words, he wants to strip out the provisions about gerrymandering, etc.
He laid out his position this way: “We work with the Voting Rights Act that we had, started in 1965, and what we’ve evolved into, and basically make a piece of legislation, one piece of legislation that protects the rights of voting, the procedure of voting, democracy, the guardrails on democracy, that’s all. And there shouldn’t be a Republican or Democrat should oppose it.”
It’s nice that Manchin is willing to protect “the guardrails on democracy.” That’s an important point, and a big one.
But there’s still a problem. Manchin doesn’t just oppose broader legislation, he also opposes messing the filibuster to pass it. His response? Do it his way, he says, and all 100 senators “should” vote for it.
Should. Not will. This is where other Democrats get frustrated with him: He can’t deliver GOP votes. They think he’s naive in paring back the bill, even making concessions to Republicans, will get their votes in return. I don’t think Manchin is naive, but I don’t see what his Plan B is. (The way I see it, the only voting bill that 10 GOP senators would vote for is one they wrote themselves which says, “blacks can’t vote.” See my previous posting here.)
If you’re Pelosi and Schumer, what do you do? The Democrats could give Manchin everything he wants and still end up with nothing. Trying to wait out Manchin and Sinema, another Democrat who opposes setting aside the filibuster, in hopes of picking up 2 more senators in 2022 in order to side-step them, isn’t much of an option, and no option at all if they lose the House.
It’s a jigsaw puzzle. I’m not saying Manchin is right. I think the problem facing our democracy is broader than he’s willing to addressed. But based on the principle that something is more than nothing, I think they should give Manchin what he wants; then, when Republicans blockade it, confront him and Sinema with the stark reality that nothing is possible without taking the filibuster weapon out of Republicans’ hands, even if for only this one time.
They can argument this bill is different from other legislation. They can remind them that Republican legislatures are now passing laws to take the right to choose our presidents away from citizens, which is dictatorship, and the dictator they’re rallying behind is a madman.
What Manchin wants is reasonable, as far as it goes. Many Democrats want more, but they should take this. His approach is reasonable, too: Present Republicans with a bill they should vote for, then see what they do. If they blockade it, then Plan B is laying it on the line to Manchin and Sinema: They’re either for saving our democracy or they aren’t, and state it in those terms. Then ask them what they’re going to do.