Senate To Take Up Voting Rights Packages, But Still Short of Votes Needed
The focus of the returning U.S. Senate will be on voting rights starting today, but Majority Leader Schumer is still publicly without the votes need to pass any of the several piece of legislation under consideration.
From the excellent Punchbowl News:
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer – with strong backing from President Joe Biden – is moving toward a showdown with Republicans over voting rights and the future of the filibuster. Here’s what we know so far about the floor schedule:
The Senate will come in at noon today and no roll call votes are expected. Following some remarks by the two leaders, Schumer will move forward with the motion to proceed to the House voting rights package, which includes the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Leadership expects this motion will be done under a unanimous consent agreement, which is why there are no votes scheduled.
The earliest a vote is expected on voting rights is Wednesday, but Schumer will update senators on timing later in the day. Senators will be on the floor today and tomorrow to debate the voting-rights proposal.
The Senate Democratic Caucus will meet in person at 5 p.m. in the Hart Senate Office Buildings. We expect some news after that session.
Beyond that, it’s unclear what Schumer is planning. He’s promised a cloture vote on the voting-rights bill, and if that fails – it will thanks to unified GOP opposition to the legislation – then Schumer has vowed to hold a vote on changing Senate rules on the filibuster. What changes he will suggest are unclear. Schumer could move to eliminate the filibuster outright or modify the process to make filibustering more difficult. Schumer has options.
However, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have already announced they won’t agree to get rid of the filibuster or the 60-vote threshold to cut off debate. With those two lining up with the 50 Senate Republicans, it’s a fight that Schumer can’t win.
What’s at stake: We understand why Schumer is going in this direction. We get that the base is itching to bash Manchin and Sinema for their stance on the filibuster. But the Democratic leadership is setting up a week during which the main storyline ends up being the split inside the Democratic Caucus. How does another week of Democrat-on-Democrat infighting help … Democrats? Senate Republicans are unified in opposing voting rights legislation.They’re the ones blocking it. Fighting among Democrats over the filibuster isn’t making the GOP pay a political price at all.
So we’re very interested to see how Schumer and Biden get out of the situation they now find themselves in. We know you are too.
Dems *embrace* Disarray. 🙂
I’ve been reading rumblings about a near 60-vote consensus on legislating a new Electoral Count Act? Do we know how this fits or is this just running up the HR1 hill for twitter?Report
Its running up the Hill for Twitter. There’s been no legislation introduced to do this, and frankly the Republicans won’t back it because it would prevent them from sending a mob to Capitol Hill – or forged slates of electors – when their candidates looses. After they believe they have secured permanent rule then they may take it up.Report
Yeah, might be, but not for the reasons you say.
McConnel is the one floating the idea, so my guess is that it would be more like Infrastructure to derail BBB.
I keep looking for Political Selling points for the Dem Voting bill, and I’m always a little surprised that Dem Comms is always existential Take-it-or-leave-it pass this bill or the end is nigh.
Politifact (shrug) says the bill encompasses:
Online and same-day registration
Election Day as a holiday
Voters with disabilities and older voters
Early voting
Voting by mail
Signature verification
Drop boxes
Voter ID
Felon re-enfranchisement
Food and water
Voting on American Indian lands
There are things there that could get broad support: NATIONAL HOLIDAY! But most of these things are *not* existential threats or key to keeping our Democracy. Some items I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m not convinced they are good for Democracy or Voting… so there’s legitimate arguments to be had over Early Voting or Voter ID or Signature Verification or Same Day Registration (combined with automatic Registration? Is this de-coupled from Jury Pools?) and even Mail-in Voting (which I did). I’ve heard that Gerrymander reform is also part of the bill? But unless you say HOW we’re reforming Districting, it’s not a sellable point — and that’s another thing that I’m in favor of in a broad sense.
As I read the summaries, this really *isn’t* a good bill that we should back as Good Americans… it might become a good bill, but I’m not persuaded by the Existential Threat nonsense that the Dem Comms seem to be focused on.
None of this addresses the Existential Loophole that is the ECA.
I’d like to see a functional Congress update lots of Voting processes… so I sympathize with the sentiment that its a pity that Congress is such a wreck — but I’m not moved that this is a bill we need as it stands — even if I’d like to see better and easier Secure Voting with 21st century technology speeding, not lengthening the process. I’m sure we could find a way to improve the process even if my ideals aren’t yours… but I’m not going to lament the failure of this particular draft.Report
I have never seen anyone address seriously how the national holiday thing is supposed to work. Will it be mandatory for schools and non-essential businesses to close? Police off duty? Hospitals? Airlines? Hotels? What if I have a business meeting on the other side of the country on Wednesday? Do you still get the day off if your state has early vote by mail and you’ve done that? Will some portion of the employees at any given Burger King get paid to not flip hamburgers that Tuesday?
Or is it a national holiday in the sense that federal offices will be closed, and there’s no mail delivery?Report
Maybe move elections to Veteran’s Day?Report
I haven’t had Columbus, Veterans, MLK, or Presidents day off since I was briefly a federal employee/worked at a fed contractor. It isn’t the norm for a lot of people.Report
Fun fact – Mississippi and Alabama still celebrate Robert E. Lee’s Birthday on MLK day.Report
My old firm (for which I was the California lawyer) had a holiday on Columbus Day. Every other firm I worked for has given MLK and President’s Day off. I think the last time I had Veterans Day off was in high school.Report
When I worked for my state legislature, all of Veterans Day, MLK Day, and Presidents Day fall during the part of the year when the schedule was insane. Our office was officially “closed” for all three, but all the staff were there for most of the day anyway. In jeans, though, as the mandatory costuming only applied on days when the office was open.Report
Lucky! Unfortunately for me raw unfettered capitalism never sleeps.Report
As the nearest federal holiday, it seemed like the best choice. I think I can speak for Marchmaine that All Saints’ Day and all other holy days of obligation should be federal holidays, but that wouldn’t work for a voting day due to the number of polling places located in churches (is that still a practice?). Actually, I think a voting day is probably an obsolete idea, at least on our current trajectory.Report
For me personally it’s obsolete. I always do early in person.
On the holy days of obligation I’d take that in a heartbeat. Pretty sure it’s like that and then some in Austria.Report
Sure, you might have to work… but the Marchmaine bill would legislate 1.5x compensation for essential workers (plus comp time) and 3x compensation for non-essential workers.
So, sure, stay open if you want but it’ll cost you.
The people will praise my name forever!
(And duh, of course Holy Days)Report
I find it amusing that there’s all this horribly complicated stuff, when the answer is staring them in the face. When experts evaluate state voting systems for security, accuracy, and ease of use, the top five spots are dominated by the western vote by mail states. Pick one of them: Utah, to make Republicans happy. Dictate their automatic registration, vote by mail, and vote centers to handle the special cases as the national standard, and be done with it.Report
“I find it amusing that there’s all this horribly complicated stuff, when the answer is staring them in the face.”
You are right. But our current politics are not set up to solve problems. They are set up to keep problems alive and well in the public imagination.Report
All these things are currently hated by the majority of the GOP. The Texas GOP recently issued a trolling tweet about it which did not make much sense but most trolling does not.Report
For which religions?Report
Any of them with a food tradition we can appropriate.Report
I’ve always figured it’d end up being basically a bank holiday that most people in the private sector (outside of banks of course) don’t get. With the majority of states offering early in person days and often weeks before an election I don’t see the point in it.Report
Sure, not *everyone* gets a day-off… just mostly. As part of the law making process we haggle over who’s considered essential, what accommodations they are entitled to… and set-up the expectations that Election day is minimally encumbered.
This is a good thing to do politically, no? Make the other guys argue that the service class has to stay open to provide them lates while they have the day off?
If I recall correctly the constitution itself sets the election day, so can’t just switch it up to make a long weekend… but if we could, we should.
I’d think of it as a rhetorical win to help drive support.Report
Election day was set by Congress by statute in 1845. In 1844 different states held presidential elections on different days ranging from Nov 1 through Dec 4, and Congress decided to regularize it.Report
Thanks again.
Election Friday to kick-off the long weekend!
I also noticed that Inauguration could be moved as well… as part of the ECA reform, I’d pull it up to DEC 5 or DEC 15.
Sure, there’s a transition period, but I’m not sure we really require almost 3 months.Report
In Eastern Europe, the most popular day for elections was Saturday.
…
That was because Jews wouldn’t vote on a Saturday.
Friday is Jummah, the Islamic holy day. That makes it an exceptionally bad idea for a “day to vote.”
Israel, who has all the religions, votes on Tuesdays.Report
You do these things as all or nothings because some issues are worth it and need it. There are fifty state legislatures. Not all of them are trying to limit voting but each one that is trying to do so, does it in a different matter. Also I don’t trust McConnell on anything and think he is the ringleader of bad-faith trolling.
The reason all of these are covered is because it is all part of something that a legislature (all GOP controlled) has tried to do something on to suppress the vote even when it directly contradicts their own citizens. See Florida and felon re-enfranchisement.Report
I think this principle gets it all wrong. You don’t waste time on efforts where you don’t have the votes.
Maybe the GOP is full of it on the ECA but if not I’d say it needs to be a top priority. All these state level voting rules pale in comparison against the need to prevent a constitutional crisis.Report
I disagree. There is a thing about making people take a stance on the record even if it is in your own party. Make Manchin and Sinema own this. Make the Republicans own it. These things are important to keep the base happy and send signalsReport
When I researched the items above, it’s pretty clear to me that push-come-to-shove it’s not that hard to say that many of them aren’t existential needs *and* some of them might be good ideas, but the particular proposal in question *isn’t* the best way to address it.
So, all in all, not that much pressure being applied. It’s not a good bill and not that hard to go on record opposing.Report
What gets me is we aren’t even voting on passage – we’re just voting to talk about it. Republicans don’t even want to do that. Sinema and Manchin don’t even want to do that. And I don’t have any faith in any plan McConnel might be talking about for the ECA – especially since he’s not offering to allow debate on these measures in exchange for that one.Report
If it’s BS from the Republicans then I agree not worth the time. But based on the same principle I wouldn’t be messing around with this other voting stuff either. I’d be full speed ahead trying to salvage whatever I can from BBB.Report
They don’t have Manchin and Sinema for that one either, and absolutely no room for a filibuster carve out since its a reconciliation bill.Report
The bill that was sitting there is dead but there’s still plenty of chatter about being able to pass core pieces of it.Report
“I keep looking for Political Selling points for the Dem Voting bill, and I’m always a little surprised that Dem Comms is always existential Take-it-or-leave-it pass this bill or the end is nigh.”
This is par for the course in politics today. Politicians take an issue like state-level voter suppression laws, which is an actual problem, but then completely overblow the threat by telling us it’s Jim Crow 2.0. (It’s not.) Over-selling the threat is not enough to get the problem solved but it plays well in media narratives.
My working model for contemporary politics is that politicians have become unable to fix things in the real world, and so instead, have turned to waging campaigns meant for the virtual world.Report
Here’s where the opposition party is at:
https://apnews.com/article/business-florida-lawsuits-ron-desantis-racial-injustice-3ec10492b7421543315acf4491813c1b
A bill that would outlaw teaching anything that makes people feel discomfort over past racism.
Not “want to curb some excess” but to create a Soviet style Potemkin past where white people are never challenged by truth.
Yeah, it really is Jim Crow 2.0 in both the intent and effect.Report
I’m sorry, but I thought we were talking about voting rights.Report
Suppressing voting rights makes creating that sort of white washed past easier.
YeashReport
It was difficult before?Report
We are.
Jim Crow has always been a seamless garment comprised of various pieces all working to create an impenetrable cloak of oppression.
Voting restrictions combined with police oppression combined with exclusionary zoning with historical revisionism with economic injustice with outright violence when necessary.Report
So, we’re not talking about a discreet piece of federal legislation intended to undo the damage of the voting restrictions enacted in state laws?
I think that you’ve made my point here. Politicians can’t enact fixes, so they give us high minded talk about vague, intractable social ills.
Personally, I’d rather just have a voting rights bill.Report
Time and time again I’ve debunked media mischaracterizations of these laws by pointing to the actual text, and time and time again you credulously repeat the same journactivist lies about the exact same boilerplate text that’s in bills in at least a dozen different states.
At this point, the conclusion that you just don’t care about the facts is inescapable. You can’t cheat an honest man.
For those who do care about facts, the actual text of the bill is available here.Report
Something new in this particular law that I haven’t seen in any of the others is that it prebuts the “They’re banning teaching about the history of slavery and racism” talking point by a) mandating teaching about the history of slavery and African American contributions to society, and b) explicitly stating that teachers may teach about racism, sexism, etc.
Again, none of the CRT bills actually ban the teaching of the history of slavery and Jim Crow. This is a lie. Anyone who tells you this is either knowingly lying or speaking with reckless disregard for the truth. No one could read the text of any of these bills in good faith and come away believing that they do this. But this is the first bill I’ve seen that makes that so explicit.Report
You sure do like to fish with big nets I guess.
That section means we can’t discuss systemic racism, no matter what the facts on the ground are – and there are many.
That means we can’t discuss making past wrong right as a moral foundation for fighting racism, and it means we can’t discuss, much less act on reparations.
That means no more affirmative action hires, diversity expanding recruiting or minority set-asides in government contracting.
All of those are swipes at CRT indirectly, and all of them require diluting, whitewashing or dumbing down actual history.Report
The real bite of such laws is that no one can tell in advance what is or isn’t permissible to teach, which is almost certainly the point.Report
Agreed – its all about making people stop doing because they don’t know what to do. Things like:
Are all about shutting down dissent and truth – because dissent and the truth will make people uncomfortable.Report
You’re conflating a few different things here:
1. Historical fact.
2. Sociological hypotheses.
3. Political advocacy.
To give an example of the difference, that black people were enslaved in the United States prior to 1865, primarily by white people, is a historical fact. That this explains current black-white gaps in socioeconomic outcomes is an unproven sociological hypothesis, as is the claim that practicing affirmative action or redistributing wealth will close these gaps. To say that we should practice affirmative action or wealth redistribution in an attempt to close these gaps is political advocacy.
The bill explicitly mandates the first, gives some latitude for the second, and prohibits the third.
You’re free to believe that this is a bad thing. But sociological hypotheses and political advocacy are not historical fact, and you can do an excellent job of teaching history—both fact and analysis—without these. In fact, one of the major problems with CRT is that it is in fact based on a dumbed-down, rigor-free analysis of the issues.Report
Good point. I suspect they are getting what they want out of being politicians (which I assume is a path to wealth) but yes, they are not playing the game of congress as if the goal was legislation.Report
Unable, or unwilling? Seems like a decent number of congresspeople have decided that rather than risk getting associated with all the inevitable flaws and downsides of an actually-enacted piece of legislation, it’s much more politically advantageous to be seen as a warrior for a bill that thrills the partisans but never gets the grime of the real world on it.Report
Exactly. Republicans have done it for 40 years with Roe V Wade, which makes the Texas law all the more stunning.Report
Worst Kate Bush follow up song ever.Report
And once again, 100% of Republicans are steadfastly opposed to voting rights.Report
The John Lewis Act reinstitutes federal regulations from 60 years ago that seem punitive today. The Freedom to Vote Act covers a lot of things including campaign finance reform and redistricting. Republicans don’t oppose voting rights; they don’t oppose voting rights reforms; they oppose these two pieces of legislation.Report
Punitive how, and what legislation are Republicans proposing to make voting easier and more accessible?Report
The kind of legislation aimed squarely at using the threat of voter fraud to institutionalize election fraud.Report
Republicans in 5 states now stand credibly accused – and under investigation – for forging documents with bogus “alternate” slates of Presidential electors. And not just forging, but forging from the same template with the same words and arguments. They did so because their guy didn’t win a free and fair election. And had they succeeded they would, in fact, have significantly infringed the voting rights of a great many Americans. On Purpose. To retain political power.Report
When I look at the Lewis Act, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the ECA or has it been amended?
Which is to say, what problem are we trying to solve?… we can’t fill an existential square hole with an existential circle legislation.Report
Some form of the Lewis Act has been introduced as HR1 each year since 2019, when the Democrats gained the majority. It was always intended to address the most egregious state voter suppression behavior. (Not just in red states, some blue states had horrible practices in statute if they enforced them.) In 2019 and 2020, the bill was passed as introduced, since it was DOA in the Senate and the details didn’t matter.
In 2021, the details mattered so the bills went to committee for markup and something became obvious: the bill(s) had been written by members and staff and lobbyists from the eastern half of the country, to address elections as conducted in the East, and there were some serious problems for the western Democrats necessary to pass it when it might matter. Two of the obvious committee changes were that “precinct” was removed everywhere and replaced with “voting center”, and “absentee ballot” was replaced with “mail ballot”. The changes took time. Enough so that voting rights had to go on a back burner while everyone argued over infrastructure and reconciliation and keeping the government open. Now, here we are.
I assert that the most recent version of S1 I’ve read still hasn’t fixed all of the problems in the old versions. Sinema is the one currently taking the heat. I suspect that there are other western Democrats who are uncomfortable with what the bill will do to their states.Report
Thanks for the clarification… that was my basic understanding, that it addresses voting questions but not state level slate/delegate questions… so in this thread it wouldn’t be the thing we’d bring up to address those types of ECA issues.Report
If that’s the case then they are as cowardly as she is and as Republicans are. Whatever the issues are, they pale in comparison to the havoc that will be unleashed later this year if this is passed.Report
The only thing I can add (besides what Chip wrote) is that I have no idea what is going through Manchin or Sinema’s thought process on recent matters especially this one. There was some speculation from Amy Siskind on twitter that Sinema has deluded herself that she thinks she is being a brave and maverick like politician (TM) and is going to run for President in 2024 on her current view. The twittetr thread stated that she is largely isolated from everyone except a few donors who feed her delusions.Report
Every political party throughout time has had the small number of defectors cranks and contrarians who prevent 100% compliance.
So however infuriating Manchinema are, their behavior is within the political norm.
What is NOT in the political norm is the major political party, the Republicans, to become hostile to democracy.
This is why I am forever turning the conversation away from the two Democratic cranks to the 50 Republicans.
Even the so-called “moderate” and “reasonable” Republicans like Romney and Collins have shown utter indifference to defending democracy.Report
I don’t know if it is completely unprecedented. Orban seems to have made a hard turn against democracy after starting off as a conventional center-right, post USSR politician. Center-right parties in politics also made a hard-right turn.
That being said, this is one area where I think we need to agree to disagree a bit. I get what you are stating and it has a lot of merit and should be done but those two have gone beyond normal crankery and contrarians and in a saner political system would be non-entity back benchers.Report
A vision from November 9th, 2022: “We would have won, if only they hadn’t cheated. We certainly wouldn’t have done as poorly as we did among the demographics we usually rely on.”Report
Now this is how you send multiple messages:
https://twitter.com/burgessev/status/1483560374817509376?s=20Report
As if we really need any more reminders of WHY this is so critical:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/poll-closures-rural-lincoln-county-georgia/index.htmlReport
I hesitate to write anything about this, because I’m not really following the libs’ train of thought on this one.
On the one hand, libs are obviously butthurt over January 6. But, if libs can’t get real Americans to care about that, I don’t see why anybody else has to. But more than that, the things they want to do don’t address that anyway. As I understand it, they _are_ being addressed by the bipartisan Senate group working on a narrow fix to the Electoral Count Act, but libs are opposing them.
The things they do want, they are calling voting rights, but like March pointed out above it’s a bill about voting _policy_ not voting rights (and bad voting policy at that for the most part). I can’t see how the libs agitation is supposed to help themselves, either in terms of policy _or_ politics.Report
So, you now plainly assert that we liberals are NOT “real Americans.” Noted, thanks.Report
of course, you are at least being consistent with Mitch McConnell:
https://twitter.com/bse229/status/1484007688866566150?s=20Report
Philip, the fact that it even occurs to you to bytch about this, both this little video and the larger issue of “voting rights” just means you and the other libs have no understanding or appreciation for the scale of the reckoning that’s coming your way.Report
I recall you saying that Trump was a shoe in for reelection as well . . . HOw’d that go for you?Report
No Philip, I never said that. I’m pretty confident of that because because I never thought that. You must be confusing me with someone else.
(In fact, I didn’t even vote for Trump in 2020, something I’ve noted here more than once IIRC)Report
FWIW while Koz was quite certain Romney would be elected in 2012 (and I was certain HRC would romp to victory in 2016), I distinctly recall him doubting that Trump would win in 2020.Report
Then I sit corrected.Report
As a liberal and a real American, I cannot be bothered to care about January 6th.
We have real issues, and then we have faked issues.
And then we have faked issues that fell on their face due to absolute incompetence, that they are still trying to make an issue of.
Do you believe that the people who lied to congress about the dead capital policeman, who was not killed during the riot, should be punished? (See Glenn Greenwald’s takedown). If so, why aren’t we hearing about them on the stand?
Making things up and publishing them in the media is becoming a calling card of certain governmental factions…Report
Greenwald’s “takedown” is now over a year old, and it hasn’t aged well. To begin with all the major media outlets corrected the story to indicate Ofcr. Sicknick wasn’t killed that day, nor did he die of sustained injuries. Testimony before the January 6th Committee has reinforced that there is tragic overlap, but no causation.
it it also true that Capitol and DC Metro Police were physically attacked with a variety of things, including video of what appears to be fire extinguisher being swung at an officer that was trying to keep the mob from entering the building.
January 6th is a real issue. Mobs storming the Capitol to try and prevent the peaceful transfer of power following a free and fair election is something we can’t tolerate if we want to remain a democracy. Convicting the perpetrators (which is thankfully underway) is a must, as is the Committee’s investigation of what politicians knew what when.Report
Mobs storming the capital would be a better tale if these weren’t clearly Tourists taking an Unscheduled Tour.
No buildings were set on fire, so we can call this one “mostly peaceful.”
This is yet another instance of the Brandon Administration’s sheer incompetence and refusal to move on from plans that they screwed up from the beginning.
“What politicians knew what when” — this is sheer stupidity. If you want to criticize the Pentagon for decision making, throw some staff officers up on the stand. They’ll read you the riot act for being panicking idiots, but, go on and do it. (Gen. Clark’s takedown of the Katrina Evacuation will give you some idea of what it looks like when a military officer says “what went wrong here.”)Report