MANCHIN BENDS ON FILIBUSTER
Says he’d consider altering rules to pass voting rights bill
Sen. Joe Manchin might consider tweaking Senate rules to allow passage of a Democratic voting rights measure.
Even as he repeated his “absolute preference” not to change the filibuster at all, Manchin did not rule out supporting modifying the rule that requires 60 votes to pass most legislation if Republicans refuse to negotiate.
“I’m talking, I’m not agreeing to anything of this,” Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Tuesday. “I want to talk and see all the options.”
The moderate deciding vote in the evenly split Senate called changing the filibuster “a heavy lift,” a description that indicates he is not ruling it out.
“To be open to a rules change that would create a nuclear option, it’s very, very difficult,” Manchin said.
He also criticized Democrats for allowing exemptions to the filibuster permitting confirmation of federal judges with a simple majority vote. Republicans countered by extending the exception to Supreme Court justices.
“Anytime there’s a ‘carveout,’ you eat the whole turkey because it comes back,” the West Virginia lawmaker said.
Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have tried to warn their party off changes to the Senate rules, arguing that if and when Republicans take majority control of the chamber they would use the lower voting threshold to advance bills Democrats strongly oppose.
“We’re trying to convince both of them to give us a fair-chance deal with voting rights,” said Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.).
But despite their reluctance on major filibuster changes, Manchin and Sinema both support the election legislation. In fact, Manchin helped craft the latest package in an unsuccessful effort to win Republican support. Now the two Democrats’ colleagues are working on ways to change the filibuster so at least this legislation could pass.
President Biden has made few comments about the debate; he’s a former longtime senator who largely stands by existing rules but is also under enormous political pressure to break the logjam on the voting legislation.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has said he will push to change the rules before Martin Luther King Day on Jan. 17, a timing that spotlights the fact Democrats view voting rights reforms as essential to protecting civil rights.
Senate Democrats held a caucus lunch meeting Tuesday at which the maneuver was set to be discussed along with Biden’s Build Back Better spending plan. Manchin said there have been no talks on possibly reviving Build Back Better since he effectively torpedoed it before Christmas.
Some Democrats floated alternatives to scrapping the filibuster, including forcing senators to stay on the floor talking to block legislation or possibly prohibiting it from being used to block debate. Another possibility would be to require at least one vote from the opposing party to pass laws.
One Republican, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, argued Monday that ending the filibuster would turn the Senate into a “Lord of the Flies”-style institution where the majority rules, no matter what.
“It is absurd and dangerous to the institution itself,” Lee said. He said Schumer and his “disastrous plan” must be stopped.