The Fight for Voting Rights and Anti-Corruption Legislation Goes On

To paraphrase Mark Twain, the reports of the For the People Act’s death have been greatly exaggerated.

Following Senator Joe Manchin’s June 6 op-ed stating he would not vote for S. 1, the For the People Act, pundits and prognosticators told us the legislation to protect the right to vote, to attack Washington political money corruption, to stop partisan redistricting, and to address government ethics abuses was dead.

They paid no attention to Senator Manchin’s May 17 statement that “inaction is not an option.”

So, when Senator Manchin on June 6 issued a list of provisions in S. 1 that were acceptable to him, the naysayers turned out to be wrong.

This week, Senator Manchin joined with 49 Democratic and Independent Senators and voted to begin debate on the For the People Act. All 50 Republican Senators voted against debating the bill.

The unanimous Republican vote against even debating the legislation made clear that protecting the right to vote against massive voter suppression will have to be done by the votes of 50 Democratic and Independent Senators plus Vice President Kamala Harris.

Back came the pundits and prognosticators, telling us again that the legislation was dead. Without the votes of 10 Republican Senators, they said, we cannot end a filibuster.

But, the strategy for passing this legislation was never based on getting 10 Republican Senators to vote to end a filibuster.

The Republicans in Congress are collaborating with Republican state legislators who are passing unprecedented voter suppression laws around the country. Senate Republicans are not about to protect the right of every eligible citizen to vote by supporting laws that would override these state efforts.

Instead, the strategy to protect voting rights has been to find a way around the filibuster rules to pass the legislation with 50 Senate votes plus the vote of Vice President Harris.

How is this possible? Because exceptions to the filibuster rules have been more the rule than the exception over the decades.

There have been 161 exceptions made to the Senate filibuster rules’ supermajority requirement in statutes passed between 1969 and 2014.

Senator Manchin himself has supported changes to the filibuster rules and has joined in using exceptions to the filibuster rules to take Senate action by a simple majority vote.

Manchin did so most recently in voting for the American Rescue Plan, which passed using the reconciliation process, a massive exception to the filibuster rule that is used repeatedly in Congress. This exception to the filibuster rule was created under the leadership of Senator Robert C. Byrd, Manchin’s mentor and predecessor.

President Biden, House Speaker Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Schumer have all said, in essence, full speed ahead in this battle to enact legislation that will override the voter suppression laws being enacted around the country.

The legislative process is complex and unwinds slowly. It requires patience, not prognostications, to determine whether legislation ultimately will pass.

There are no guarantees that this fight will be won, but we are alive, kicking, and heading in the right direction to win the battle in Congress, with 50 Senators believing that “inaction is not an option.”

The late voting rights icon Rep. John Lewis told us, “Never give up. Never give in.”

The fight goes on.