Democratic voters, activists, and at least a few elected leaders are mad at Joe Manchin (though senators are treading lightly) because he has expressed opposition to the For the People Act (H.R.1/S.1) and vowed "I will not vote to weaken or eliminate the filibuster" (which, because of lockstep GOP opposition, threatens much of Biden's agenda, not just voting rights).
I regard the senator's reasoning in favor of the filibuster in the McConnell era as obtuse and incoherent. When virtually everything is subject to a 60-vote majority (as it is today), this hardly makes bipartisanship, compromise, or finding middle ground possible; more often it is a death sentence for significant legislative accomplishments. I agree with Manchin that, "The right to vote is fundamental to our American democracy and protecting that right should not be about party or politics," but -- since it is the Republicans who are in a mad rush to restrict the right to vote -- I am baffled by his insistence that "congressional action on federal voting rights legislation must be the result of both Democrats and Republicans coming together to find a pathway forward or we risk further dividing and destroying the republic we swore to protect and defend as elected officials."
Nonetheless I can't get enthusiastic about demonizing Joe Manchin. Because after the November election there was a 52-48 Republican majority in the Senate. I was elated when two Democrats won in Georgia in January (and I had no illusions that this was a reliable working majority). And when I think about the first five months of the Biden administration, with a 50-50 Senate and Kamala Harris presiding, compared with even a 51-49 GOP edge -- with Mitch McConnell in charge -- I realize how fortunate Democrats are that West Virgina's Joe Manchin in on the Democratic team.
Manchin's recent op-ed has riled up Democrats, as Hans Noel noted yesterday, "But it should be possible for Democrats to hold two thoughts at once about the West Virginia politician: First, what he is doing is lamentable, damaging to the party’s goals. But second, his presence in the Senate is a gift to the Democratic Party. Having a Democratic senator in 2021 in a state like West Virginia — where neither Hillary Clinton nor Biden could crack 30 percent of the vote — is a remarkable bit of good fortune."
I'll note as well that Joe Biden's casual remark about "two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends," is flatly false. While Manchin is the most conservative Democratic senator, he votes more often with his party, than with the Republicans.
Other Democratic senators back the filibuster (silently)
Furthermore, although the focus is on him, Senator Manchin is not the only Democrat in the caucus on board with the filibuster. Add Kyrsten Sinema. Or add Sinema and Dianne Feinstein. We still haven't identified all the filibuster fans in the party. Most are in the shadows.
Ed Kilgore reminds us of a letter released by Susan Collins and Chris Coons in 2017 (after McConnell and Republicans nuked the filibuster to confirm Neil Gorsuch) urging Senate leaders to preserve the 60-vote filibuster for legislation. As Kilgore notes:
Altogether, 32 of the signatories were Democrats. Their numbers included now–Vice-President Kamala Harris, now–President Pro Tem Pat Leahy, future presidential candidates Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Amy Klobuchar, and liberal icons Sherrod Brown, Mazie Hirono, and Brian Schatz. Of those 32 filibuster-loving Democrats, 28 (counting Harris as Senate president) are still in the Senate, where they were joined by the filibuster-loving Arizonan Kyrsten Sinema in 2019.
Some Democrats have changed their minds (in particular regarding voting rights, even Senator Feinstein), while others may not have budged, but are shunning the limelight. Sam Brodey estimates that as many as seven or eight Democrats may wish to preserve the filibuster, though most silent supporters could cave when the pressure is on to address the Republican war against voting rights, especially if the West Virginian flips.
H.R.1 is not the answer
The Republican war on democratic institutions is a critical threat. The rule of law, free and fair elections, not messing with the vote count, abiding by the results, and a commitment to peaceful transitions of power are under siege. But relying on passage of the For the People Act is a fool's errand.
First of all, H.R.1 was written in 2019, long before the extravaganza of anti-democratic legislation taken up by Republican-controlled legislatures following Trump's November 2020 defeat. It was not crafted as a remedy for the crisis we face.
In the words of the First Read briefing (at NBC), it was "designed as a message bill." That's fine, as a message (or implicit promise of what's to come if we keep the House and win the White House and the Senate in 2020), but that doesn't represent a thoughtfully written piece of legislation. That requires a more complicated and deliberative process -- long before the bill reaches the floor.
H.R.1 has, in A.B. Stoddard's words, "incredible flaws," as she described on MSNBC's "The 11th Hour" on June 8 (the day the presidents of the Urban League and the NAACP, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and other civil rights leaders met with Manchin):
And the problem is that, while everyone wants to focus on Joe Manchin, this never should have gotten to the point where civil rights leaders are going to Joe Manchin in June to ask him to change his mind.
The party leaders, the president, his administration, his top people took it upon themselves to think that wooing him privately over these months was more effective than actually changing the bill. It’s an open secret in Washington that HR1 had no chance of passing through the Senate as S1 and being signed into law; that it has incredible flaws, was drafted in 2019 without consulting key stakeholders in the electoral process – the people around the country who have to run elections and know that these mandates included in the bill without permanent streams of funding could not be met on time for 2022 or 2024.
I'll give "party leaders, the president, his administration, his top people" some slack: they've had their hands full. The failure to craft a viable piece of voting rights legislation is not an oversight or a miscalculation. Like it or not, there are severe limits to what Congress can accomplish in a short time. Add to this that H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, is in the wings. And Joe Manchin (and Lisa Murkowski) are on board with the bill. That's promising (though the filibuster threatens this promise). As a practical mater, H.R.4 is a better place for progressives (and other small-d democrats) to focus their attention.
H.R.4, though, doesn't address the laws Republican-controlled legislatures are passing to pry authority away from impartial election officials and give to GOP partisans, permitting interference in counting votes and in declaring winners. What can be done about that problem (a more pernicious threat than obstacles to casting votes, which highly motivated voters might overcome)?
Bill Scher recently asked in a tweet whether there was any proposed legislation to address the possibility of election subversion. Nate Cohn replied: "There is not. And not only is there no legislation, there's not even a white paper, a journal article, a think tank policy brief, or anything else."
Since then Scher has offered some ideas. It's past time for Democratic leaders in Congress to focus on crafting practical solutions -- and making sure to keep Joe Manchin in the loop.