Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) sounds unmoved from his filibuster positioning of months past, telling reporters Tuesday that the nuclear option would be a “heavy lift” and that rule changes with Republican buy-in are his “absolute preference.”
I’d like some Republican buy-in. Buy-in to making voting easier, to forestalling the currently seeming inevitably of catastrophic climate change, to making redress for past and ongoing racial injustice a main focus – so much for which I’d like to see Republican buy-in.
But absent that, we’ve got to work with what we’ve got. This is not impossible if all Democrats pull together. Still hoping…
Correspondence sent to my home state US Senator…
Senator Sinema:
I have written to you several times in the past year on the subject of that great bulwark AGAINST democracy in the United States which is the unreformed U.S. Senate filibuster rule.
… and the risks against enacting the major civil rights legislation passed in the U.S. House and held up by the filibuster in the U.S. Senate get ever higher and the downsides get ever more threatening to the well-being of the American people and to the very sustenance of American democracy.
Your unbending and unrepresentative support of the U.S. Senate filibuster impedes genuine and vitally necessary voting rights reform that you have publicly supported. How can the substance of voting rights - the essential sine qua non of genuine democracy - be subordinated to a rule obsoleted by history whose entire effect is to allow minoritarian intransigence to subvert the pro-democracy majoritarian will of the American people?
You are taking your present stand at the EXPENSE of American democracy. This is the kind of stand that history will remember and NOT to the enhancement of your good name.
Best regards.
Can we please just ignore Joe Manchin? He’s eventually gonna do whatever he’s eventually gonna do, but that doesn’t mean we have to feed his media thirst in the meantime.
Gimme five minutes with him and I will convince him…
Mr. Manchin, you see in the long we are all dead, lets think about now, then next 10 months. If you take away the Republicans power to block legislation, then all that power belongs to you, you will be the one who decides if a bill goes through or not…you could freaking auction your votes and who cares what happens in November.
I agree. Manchin saying the same thing, yet again, is not a news story, in my opinion.
I’m ignoring him until some deal gets officially signed. This is the last second of my time he gets until that happens. I get the feeling he’s reveling in his role a bit too much, as is Sinema.
Demonstrating what the stakes are for this fall.
“Manchin Calls Filibuster Reform A ‘Heavy Lift,’ Describes Meetings With Fellow Democrats”
Of course Manchin says that, since he’s the one gleefully adding more weight to the barbells.
A back-room deal … one that is absent Performance Art.
Sen Manchin shows how Negotiating in Bad Faith is done.
Exactly. And it’s demoralizing, as well as adding nothing to what we already know.
Yeah, filibuster reform is a heavy lift, he said. But letting fascists take over the United States is a breeze.
For Christ’s sake, it is an even heavier lift to resurrect democracy once it’s lost. Dumb shit!!
Perhaps Manchin should quit lounging around on his yacht and racing around in his Maserati and go to the gym so he could actually do some of that heavy lifting.
Bum.
True, but if all the decisions rest with him, he can’t hide behind the filibuster and will have to answer for some of his votes and/or change his party affiliation for real. Does he have the backbone to actually go it alone on whatever his “principles” are at the moment? Prolly not…
A prerequisite to Republican by-in is for Republicans to agree that one person one vote is a real thing. Until they agree to democracy being more important than absolute Republican control forever, you are never going to get any Republican by-in.
Too many multi-syllable words for Crackhead-AZ to read and comprehend. She just doesn’t care.
But very well written.
I would like a few minutes with this man and that woman. No, honestly I’d out right ask them “What the Fuck are you tow doing in the Democratic Party, if you won’t support a Democratic President and House?”.
Well that’s how I’d start off our little confab.
It’s like they forgot that McConnell changed the rules on the filibuster when he wanted something (extreme right wing SC justices that would never get through with Democratic votes) and will do so again the moment Republicans want to pass a bill that Democrats are blocking. It would really be enough just to make the blockers own the filibuster and have to work actively to keep it going…by itself it would be a massive change and allow some things to go through simply because Republican Senators are too lazy to stay up for days on end, as well as worried about the optics.
Manchin and Sinema know the score, they know the consequences, and they should realize that protecting the filibuster for future Democratic use is a fool’s errand.