Voting Rights Scheduled For Cloture Vote Next Week To Begin Debate
FRED WERTHEIMER’S WEEKLY NOTE | October 14, 2021
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced today that he will file cloture next Monday, October 18, on a motion to proceed on the Freedom to Vote Act. This is the compromise legislation engineered by Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), who had opposed an earlier version of the voting rights legislation.
The vote to proceed on the legislation, supported by 50 Democratic and Independent Senators, is expected on Wednesday.
The Act would override the wave of voter suppression laws enacted this year by Republican-controlled state legislatures and provide protections against the laws these states have enacted that open the door to sabotaging federal election results.
Senate Republicans, to date, have refused to allow even a debate on voting rights legislation despite the fact that it is essential to protecting millions of eligible Americans from losing their ability to vote in federal elections.
Senator Manchin has spent the last few weeks making a serious effort to obtain support for his bill from Republican Senators, who apparently have failed to respond to his efforts.
Under the leadership of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Republican Senators in bloc are expected once again to oppose cloture and prevent even opening debate on voting rights legislation. Sixty votes are needed to invoke cloture to end a filibuster and begin debate and consideration of the bill.
Led by McConnell, Senate Republicans in recent years have repeatedly used the filibuster rules to block legislation, control the majority, and paralyze the Senate.
At this point, all avenues to obtain Republican support for voting rights legislation will have been exhausted. A Senate showdown will then occur in the coming weeks and the focus will turn to Senators Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ).
Senators Manchin and Sinema have been the holdouts so far on making a change to the filibuster rules that would allow the legislation to move forward without needing 60 votes.
Senator Manchin also has said, however, that “inaction is not an option,” on voting rights legislation.
The stakes involved here go to the heart of our democracy and to protecting the most fundamental right in our political system, the right to vote.
Senators Manchin and Sinema will face a choice of historical consequence.
They can support a way to enact the Freedom to Vote Act without it being blocked by the filibuster rules. Or, they can join with Senate Republicans to block the legislation and prevent millions of Americans, in particular Black, brown, and other minority voters, from exercising their sacred right to vote.
Hopefully, Senators Manchin and Sinema will make the right choice and protect our democracy and the ability of every eligible citizen to vote.
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Fred’s Weekly Note appears each Thursday in Wertheimer’s Political Report, a Democracy 21 newsletter. Read this week’s newsletter here. Or, subscribe for free here and receive your copy each week via email.
