The Battle for S. 1 Must Be Fought on the Senate Floor

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FRED WERTHEIMER’S WEEKLY NOTE | April 8, 2021

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“This battle must be fought out on the Senate floor.”

In an op-ed in The Washington Post yesterday, Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) proposed a Catch-22 solution to enacting voting rights and campaign finance reforms.

Manchin said: “There is no circumstance in which I will vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster,” on S. 1, the For the People Act, or on other bills. He wrote that he wants only bipartisan legislation to address these issues.

But there is no evidence that one single Republican, let alone the 10 Republicans necessary to break a filibuster, will agree to support the voting rights and campaign finance reforms necessary to repair our democracy.

Furthermore, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the king of obstructionist filibusters, has made clear that he is adamantly opposed to S. 1 and will filibuster to kill the legislation, just as he has done to kill campaign finance and other political reforms for decades.

S. 1 is scheduled to be marked up in the Senate Rules Committee in April. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has indicated it will reach the Senate floor in May.

This battle must be fought out on the Senate floor.

There is far too much at stake here for protecting the sacred right to vote, for attacking Washington political money corruption, for preventing partisan gerrymandering, and for repairing our democracy to do anything other than to increase the pressure, increase the intensity, and go into full political battle mode with everything we have.

S. 1 has very strong and widespread support in the country. As Jane Mayer wrote in The New Yorker, political operatives have found that conservatives don’t like billionaires buying elections, either.

Senator Manchin will soon face a choice:

Vote for a bill that is cosponsored by 49 of his colleagues, that prevents voter suppression, fixes our political system, and has the strong support of the American people.

Or, side with the self-described “Grim Reaper” and “Darth Vader” of the Senate, Republican Leader McConnell, to filibuster and kill S. 1.

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