House OKs ‘debate’ workaround

The House of Representatives voted along party lines Thursday to approve a bill that will serve as a vehicle for Senate Democrats to start debate on sweeping election-reform measures — and potentially lead to a doomed bid to alter or eliminate the 60-vote legislative filibuster.

Democrats merged the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act into a single text and crammed the new bill into previously passed legislation extending NASA’s authority to lease its facilities.

Because the so-called “shell” NASA bill already cleared the House and Senate, Democrats can kick-start debate on the Senate floor without Republican support.

“We will have the ability to proceed to the legislation and debate it on a simple majority basis, something that’s been denied to us four times in the last several months because Republicans didn’t want to move forward,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Thursday morning.

“Then the Senate will finally hold a debate on the voting-rights legislation for the first time in this Congress,” Schumer added, “and every senator will be faced with a choice of whether or not to pass this legislation to protect our democracy.”

Any attempt by Democrats to actually pass the election-reform bill will fail in the 50-50 Senate, with no Republicans expected to support attempts to end debate.

Schumer could then bring forward a rules change that would allow Democrats to bypass the filibuster, but that would also likely fail due to opposition from moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who argue the filibuster is a fundamental tool of the Senate.

Top Democrats, including President Biden and Schumer, have pressured Manchin and Sinema to support a carve-out to the filibuster rule in order to pass the election legislation.