I think everyone needs to understand that Joe Manchin cares about bipartisanship over everything else. Therefore,nothing is going to get done because he has said this out loud repeatedly and there are not 10 Republicans who agree with him. If he gets 6 Republican Senators to sign on to any legislation but the minority filibusters as everyone know they will, he wil considr it a success. He got 6 Republicans! The republic is saved!
That’s where we are. Unless they can change Manchin’s mind on the filibuster it’s done:
Senate Democrats acknowledge they have to rework their signature voting and elections bill if it’s going to become law. The problem is: they don’t know what changes are needed, and they may have stumbled into a catch-22 that would make changes futile anyway.
The legislation—titled the “For The People Act” but better known by its bill number, S.1—is finally getting a full vote in the Senate later this month. It almost certainly, however, won’t earn any Republican support. But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has promised to get lawmakers on the record, and many liberals hope the event will generate momentum toward ending the filibuster, the 60-vote threshold in the way of most of the remaining Democratic agenda.
That can only happen if Democrats are unified. And while most are onboard, there’s one familiar exception: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV).
Manchin is the only Democrat not to cosponsor the legislation. In a recent op-ed, Manchin said he wouldn’t vote for S.1 on the basis that he cannot support an election bill without GOP buy-in.“We’re not going to get 50 written as-is, we’re having to shave and massage it. Joe has a set of concerns that he wants us to address, and we’re going to address them.”— Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA)
Senate Democrats are desperate to draw up a bill that could get Manchin’s support and are talking daily—“hourly,” said one member—about how to make it happen. But Manchin’s logic sets up a nearly unsolvable paradox for his colleagues: if his support remains conditional on Republicans seeing the light, there’s likely no change that will be sufficient for Republicans.
The GOP has fully dug in against S.1, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) describing the bill as a Democratic “power grab” and an attempt to “rewrite the ground rules of American politics for partisan benefit.”
What’s more, it’s unclear how fully Manchin has expressed any substantive concerns he has with the bill to his colleagues and to others who are engaged in the process, according to more than a half-dozen sources who spoke with The Daily Beast.