As Congress Recesses, Democratic Successes Do Not Include Voting Rights

Democratic leaders vow to make voting legislation the “first matter of legislative business” in September. But their path remains cluttered with obstacles.

I don’t know, I think the future of American democracy is more important than American infrastructure.

With deadlines looming ahead of next year’s midterm elections, the Senate adjourned on Wednesday for a monthlong recess with only the slimmest of paths left for passing federal voting rights legislation that Democrats hope can stop a wave of Republican state laws clamping down on ballot access.

Before dawn on Wednesday, Senate Republicans blocked last-minute attempts to debate a trio of elections bills, but Democratic leaders vowed that more votes would be the “first matter of legislative business” when they return in mid-September. First up is likely to be a scaled-back version of the party’s far-reaching Senate Bill 1, the For the People Act, or S. 1, that Democrats believe will unite all 50 senators who caucus with them.

“We have reached a point in this chamber where Republicans appear to oppose any measure — no matter how common sense — to protect voting rights and strengthen our democracy.”-Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader

But such outrage did little to clarify how the party plans to get around a wall of Republican opposition in the Senate that has blocked progress since June. Nor did it quiet some of the outspoken and well-financed activists demanding that President Biden and his congressional majorities do everything possible — including scrapping the Senate’s planned vacation and its legislative filibuster rule — to get the job done.

Oh yes, we did try that but Sinema and Manchin and a solid Phalangist Wall prevented it. Maybe the thinking was go bipartisan on what we can and hope the good feelings carry over on a revisit of voting rights? Maybe. Were we to lose voting rights AND infrastructure?

Pressed by reporters later on Wednesday to outline how exactly Democrats would reverse their fortunes, Mr. Schumer said he was making progress by “showing very clearly to every one of our 50 senators that Republicans won’t join us.”

Okay, that was the game plan, I remember now. A series of lightning-quick votes, bipartisan infrastructure bills were the result, a last-before-recess series of votes on voting rights, even debate stymied by Phalangists like the senator from Cancun, a month recess to let that stew in Manchin’s mind and then a grand push when they come back to eliminate the filibuster.

Advocates of voting rights legislation believe fleshing out Republicans’ opposition will help build a rationale for centrist Democratic senators like Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona to reverse course and support either changing the entire filibuster rule or creating an exemption for elections-related changes to pass with a simple majority, rather than 60 votes.

Democratic leaders insist they are making progress and can pass elections legislation even as they try to sew up two vast infrastructure and social program bills in the fall.

Mr. Manchin, the only Democratic senator who does not support the original For the People Act, appears to be on the cusp of endorsing a somewhat narrower alternative that he has spent weeks negotiating with fellow Democrats. The new bill is likely to maintain many of the pillars of the original legislation, but include for the first time a national voter identification requirement and lop off new ethics requirements and a public campaign financing program for senators.

Mr. Manchin said this week that he was still trying to win Republican votes for the plan, an unlikely outcome. But his colleagues have another motivation: They believe that Mr. Manchin will be more determined to fight for — and potentially change Senate rules for — a bill he helped write and watched Republicans tank.

It is unlikely, as is, I believe, Manchin changing his mind on the filibuster since he put his opposition in writing to his hometown newspaper but my proud fellow gold flag bearers, do we have an alternative? Sue? Sure! Let's file a bunch of lawsuits, it's practically an American right. Some have already been filed. Let's all march down Lawsuit Street. Talk to a constitutional law scholar (which I am not) first. What does (s)he think the chances of success would be given that like the Constitution vests nearly unchallengeable power in the states to determine the particulars of elections so long as a "republican" form of government is the result? Federal judges had been implacably hostile to invalidating absurdly gerrymandered districts, the folks in black robes not cottoning to redraw congressional district lines, but in a few instances recently they have gotten their robes and fingers stained. Second, consult a calendar. We all know the timetable for lawsuits and any of these are going to go all the way to the Supremes, after all remedy in the lower courts is exhausted. We have a window beginning September 15, lasting "the fall", technically until December 20. We can proceed on down Lawsuit Street but really, practically, we should be gathering outside the shack in Delverance of Joe. Manchin. No, is the answer.
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“They are going to try to use the redistricting process to draw themselves into the majority, not only in the House of Representatives but the state legislatures,” said Eric H. Holder Jr., the former attorney general who leads the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

Mr. Holder said that as long as Congress passed legislation outlawing the practice by the fall, Democrats could probably use the courts to stop the new maps. If not, he suggested Republicans might be correct when they spoke of locking in “a decade of power.”

“That’s what’s at stake,” he said.

Well, General, I think it's not just "a decade of power" that is at stake. In my view, it's Democracy in America that's at stake. We have a little, little time--enough!--if we can get Phalangist support or if Manchin and Sinema change their minds.