Chuck to push vote rights bill by MLK Day, looks to have Dems alter filibuster

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) vowed to jump-start the push for new voting rights protections by Martin Luther King Day on Jan. 17.

Despite the objection of virtually every Republican senator plus at least two Democratic holdouts, Schumer said in a New Year’s “Dear Colleague” letter on Monday that he would push his fellow lawmakers to tweak the filibuster rule to allow passage of voting rights legislation with a simple majority vote.

“We hope our Republican colleagues change course and work with us. But if they do not, the Senate will debate and consider changes to Senate rules ... to protect the foundation of our democracy: free and fair elections.”

All 50 Democratic senators and at least one Republican support new voting rights laws, which would make it much more difficult for GOP-run states to put up barriers to voting.

But Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) oppose changing the filibuster rule that effectively requires a 60-vote supermajority to pass most legislation.

Schumer noted that the Senate has already changed its rules to allow simple majorities to pass budgets and to confirm federal court and cabinet appointments.

“We must adapt. The Senate must evolve, like it has many times before,” Schumer wrote. “The Senate was designed to evolve and has evolved many times in our history.”

In a new twist on the argument, Schumer noted the discrepancy whereby GOP states are able to passing voting restrictions with simple majorities in state legislatures while the Senate is effectively barred from acting on voting rules without a virtually unattainable 60-vote supermajority.

Schumer pointed to the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol as a justification for the need to push new voting protections through a divided Congress.

He said former President Donald Trump’s “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen from him has only become more potent in the 12 months since his extremist supporters stormed the Capitol.

Schumer blamed GOP leaders for abusing their power to enact new restrictions on voting and to replace nonpartisan election officials with Trump loyalists.

“The true aim couldn’t be more clear,” he wrote. “They want to unwind the progress of our Union, restrict access to the ballot, silence the voices of millions of voters and undermine free and fair elections.”