Democrats failed to secure enough support from within their party to establish a new precedent in the Senate rules for a one-time talking filibuster, amounting to their second loss on Wednesday night shortly after Republicans again blocked the party’s voting rights legislation.
For weeks, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York vowed to take up and vote on a rules change in the face of another GOP filibuster on elections reforms even if the entire Democratic Party wasn’t behind his effort. As anticipated, the push to use the nuclear option – a simple-majority vote to change the rules – fell short by two votes.
In a late-night vote for a talking filibuster specifically targeted at the voting rights bill, Democratic senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona joined all 50 Republicans in opposing the rules reform. The remaining 48 Democrats backed a proposal that would require senators against the legislation to be physically present in the chamber and debate.
After senators used up their two-speech limit with unlimited speaking time, the Senate would then move to final passage at a simple majority vote and circumvent the filibuster’s 60-vote requirement. But Manchin and Sinema didn’t budge on their commitments to preserving the filibuster or wanting any change to emanate from both sides of the aisle. If senators don’t go the nuclear route, two-thirds of the Senate needs to agree to changing the way it operates.
The rules change vote came about a couple of hours after Senate Republicans filibustered the Democrats’ bill on new federal election standards and a restoration of parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Every Democrat supported the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act, but they failed to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to end debate and move to final passage.
“My colleagues, history is watching us. Let us choose in favor of our democracy. Let us stand up and defend the precious right to vote,” Schumer said minutes before the Senate vote on the talking filibuster.
The rules of the Senate have been altered and added to a number of times in the past century. Both parties used the nuclear option in the last decade to end the 60-vote threshold: Democrats in 2013 for executive branch and judicial nominees followed by Republicans in 2017 for Supreme Court nominations.
Political Cartoons
But Manchin and Sinema didn’t budge on Wednesday. They’re committed to the supermajority requirement to end debate on legislation, and they don’t believe rules changes should happen through a party-line vote. From the Senate floor on Wednesday, Manchin reiterated that he couldn’t support “such a perilous course,” referring to the establishment of a new rule through party lines.
“We all talked about how many times the rules have changed. We changed them. But we changed them with the rules. We didn’t break the rules to change the rules,” Manchin said. “Now, my colleagues propose to sidestep this process. They would use the nuclear option to override a rule that we have used ourselves but now seem to find unacceptable.”
“It’s time we do the hard work to forge a difficult compromise that can stand the test of time,” he added.
After putting their Build Back Better economic agenda on the back burner, Democrats suffered another blow after prioritizing legislation combining a pair of bills that would expand early and mail-in voting, ease voter registration efforts, bar partisan gerrymandering, require dark-money groups to disclose donors and restore the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Democrats and voting rights activists argue federal election standards are needed before the November midterm elections to counteract new state voting laws enacted by GOP-controlled legislatures that could restrict voter access and disproportionately hurt voters of color, disabled voters and seniors. Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, dispute that notion and liken Democrats’ legislation to a federal power grab.
Republicans were vehemently opposed to changing how the Senate functions for a bill they called a “federal takeover” of state and local elections. In his speech before the vote, McConnell accused Democrats of a “plot to break the Senate.”
“This very day … is in all likelihood the most important day of the Senate as an institution,” McConnell said. “Senate minorities can pump the brakes on small majorities. This institution, that makes major changes, must receive major buy-in.”
“This radicalism will have been stopped and it’s a good day for America,” he added.