Manchin supports taking up debate on For the People Act, the voting rights bill being considered in Senate

WASHINGTON – Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., will vote in favor of advancing the For the People Act as Democrats seek a unified vote to proceed on the voting rights legislation Tuesday.

But his decision isn’t expected to change the outcome. The vote is expected to be blocked from a final vote because Senate Republicans stand opposed to it. 

The For the People Act is largely hailed by Democrats as being necessary because Republican-led states have introduced a slew of new voting restrictions that civil rights groups fear could suppress the vote for marginalized groups and make it harder to vote overall.

The legislation aims to counter regulations that make it difficult to vote –especially for people of color. It includes provisions Democrats say would make it easier for people to vote and register to vote. These include expanding early voting and allowing for same-day voter registration.

Manchin had remained the lone Democrat who was on the fence regarding the legislation, and Democrats had been seeking a unified message, and vote, on it.

Until Tuesday afternoon, questions swirled around Manchin and whether he would join Democrats in voting to advance the bill. He had previously criticized the legislation as being too partisan, and released a list of provisions in the bill he opposed and supported, saying then he would not rule out voting for a modified piece of legislation. 

One of the provision Manchin called for included “allowable alternatives” for voter identification. Democrats had been seeking to loosen identification requirements. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday he and Manchin had come to an agreement, and they would take up Manchin’s changes first if they get to a debate. 

In a statement, Manchin said he has “worked to eliminate the far reaching provisions of” the legislation and has “found common ground with my Democratic colleagues on a new version of the bill that ensures our elections are fair, accessible, and secure.” 

Manchin had been meeting with Senate leaders on the bill, including Senate Rules Committee Chair Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. 

Klobuchar told reporters Tuesday Democrats would emerge “united behind getting votes” on the legislation. She said Republicans “are wanting to stop the debate, just like they tried their hardest to stop people from voting in Texas” and other states.

It remains unlikely that the Senate is going to pass the legislation. In March, it passed the House largely along party lines, with one Democrat and all Republicans voting against it. It has never had any Republican support in the Senate — where it needs the support of at least 10 Republicans to overcome a filibuster. 

Speaking from the Senate floor Tuesday morning,Schumer slammed Republicans ahead of the vote, saying former President Donald Trump’s lies about election fraud in the 2020 elections has “spread like a cancer and threatens to envelop one of America’s major political parties.” He continued that “it became the match that lit a wildfire of Republican voter suppression laws sweeping across the country.”

“Whatever voting changes Republicans think are good for Republicans, they’ll make them—even if it means resorting to the awful, un-American act of voter suppression,” Schumer said.

However, Republicans argued that the legislation was overreaching for the federal government, and elections should be left up to the states.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called the legislation a “transparently partisan plan to tilt every election in America permanently” in the Democrats’ favor when speaking from the Senate floor.

“But whichever label Democrats slap on their bill, the substance remains the same. It’s always been a plan to rewrite the ground rules of American politics,” McConnell said.

Early voting, redistricting: What’s in the Democrats’ voting rights bill going up for a vote in the Senate?

Democrats on Tuesday continued to argue they should at least be able to debate the legislation on the floor.

Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., asked, “Why can’t we debate it on the floor and look at how to improve it?”

“I think that’s what frustrates progressives, moderates and many Republicans, if we’re honest,” he continued. 

Schumer said he challenges his “Republican colleagues to come to the floor and defend these policies. Let us have a debate, a real debate.” 

The legislation’s expected failure in the Senate would be a blow to Democrats, voting rights groups, and the White House — though progressives have expressed anger he did not advocate more for the legislation. 

Prior to the vote, President Joe Biden tweeted, “We can’t sit idly by while democracy is in peril – here, in America. We need to protect the sacred right to vote and ensure “We the People” choose our ldrs, the very foundation on which our democracy rests. We urgently need the For The People Act. Send it to my desk.”

For weeks, progressives have said Biden hasn’t pushed the issue enough. 

“He’s not absent, but he needs to be a lot more vocal and a lot more out front,” Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D., N.Y., told CNN Tuesday morning. 

The White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki responded when asked about Bowman’s criticism that “those words are a fight against the wrong opponent.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, who’s been tapped to lead the administration’s voting rights effort, spoke with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer about the For The People Act over the weekend, according to a White House official who provided details on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the vice president’s outreach.

Harris will preside over the Senate today when they take up the For the People Act, the official said. 

She’s also spoken to several voting rights advocates including Stacey Abrams, the NAACP’s Derrick Johnson, Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, John Yang of Asian Americans Advancing Justice and John Echohawk of the Native American Rights Fund, the official said.

The vice president has focused a number of recent events – including meeting advocates in Atlanta, Georgia, Greenville, S.C. and a roundtable with labor leaders in Pittsburgh on Monday – on building a national coalition to push back against state bills aimed at restricting voting rights cropping up across the country. She’ll continue to meet with advocate groups, lawmakers and business leaders in the coming days, the official added.

There are other measures Congress can pursue on the issue, and Schumer stressed Tuesday “we will have the vote, and then we will discuss our future. I’m not going to put the cart before the horse.”

Another piece of the voting rights legislation is the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act — which has not yet made it through the House.

However, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has stressed that legislation would not be ready until the fall as it undergoes vetting this summer in preparation of expected legal challenges.

Voting rights: Where do the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and For the People Act stand?

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