Statement of D21 On The Senate Voting Down A Filibuster Rules Change That Would Have Allowed Voting Rights To Pass By Majority Vote

 

“The Fight Goes On.”

 Statement of Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer

American democracy suffered a major defeat last night.

Last night, 52 Senators voted down a filibuster rules change that would have allowed the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act to pass the Senate by majority vote.

Those Senators – 50 Republicans and two Democrats – joined together to take away the ability to vote from potentially millions of Black, brown, and other minority voters, as well as urban residents, the disabled, and the elderly.

People of color are once again being disenfranchised, as they were by Jim Crow laws in the past. Partisan Republican election officials are being empowered to rig federal elections to defeat Democrats.

The civil rights icons, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and Representative John R. Lewis, always moved forward and kept fighting. John Lewis told us: “Never give up, never give in, never give out.”

Voting rights supporters are not giving up and we are not going away.

Last night, Senate Republicans and two Democrats voted to protect the state laws that flowed directly from Trump’s Big Lie, perhaps the biggest and most dangerous con job ever perpetrated on the American people. They marched lockstep with Trump and the GOP-controlled state legislatures which in 2021 enacted a wave of voter suppression laws and election sabotage laws.

Senate Republicans sold out American democracy for purely political gain.

As for Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), it is harder to know why they voted to support Jim Crow voter discrimination laws designed to defeat members of their own party.

From the beginning, Senators Manchin and Sinema created a false narrative that the legislation had to be bipartisan when everyone, including Manchin and Sinema, knew that was impossible.

Senators Manchin and Sinema argued they could not support changing the filibuster rules to allow the voting rights legislation to pass with only Democratic votes. Yet, that it is precisely what they did last month when they voted for an exception to the filibuster rules that allowed debt ceiling legislation to pass with only Democratic votes.

Senators Manchin and Sinema purported to support voting rights and cosponsored the voting rights legislation, but last night they voted to kill the legislation they sponsored. In doing so, they supported every state voter suppression law and every state election sabotage law enacted last year that would have been overridden by their own legislation.

Senator Manchin is on record supporting filibuster changes and was all for the “talking filibuster” when he voted for it in the Senate in 2011. The effort failed and he explained his reasons for supporting filibuster changes, stating, “Unfortunately, the legislative process in Washington has gotten so dysfunctional that it doesn’t even make much sense at all anymore. … We have become paralyzed by the filibuster and an unwillingness to work together at all.”

Eleven years later, the Senate is far more dysfunctional and paralyzed as a result of the weaponizing of the filibuster for partisan political purposes by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and his Republican colleagues.

Yet when Senator Manchin had the opportunity last night to finally pass a “talking filibuster” rules revision, he voted against it. Just as he voted to block the voting rights legislation he played a key role in writing.

Senator Manchin said “inaction is not an option” on voting rights legislation. Then Manchin voted in favor of inaction.

With their votes last night, Senators Manchin and Sinema have joined the Trump Big Lie crusade to suppress the vote and undermine the fairness, honesty, and credibility of our elections.

But, no one should underestimate the dedication, commitment, and stamina of civil rights and voting rights advocates and of citizens who care about our democracy. The battle to preserve our democracy will now continue for voting rights and for fair and honest elections – in Congress, in the Justice Department, in the states, and in the courts.

We have a powerful ally in the battles ahead: we are right and on the right side of history.

The fight goes on.