Tag: Joe Manchin

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Congress U.S. Senate

New Senate Composition Means Manchin And Sinema Are About To ‘Lose Power’

Next Tuesday, if Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) defeats GOP challenger Herschel Walker (and every metric suggests he will), Democrats will have a 51-49 advantage in the U.S. Senate, a gain of one seat in the recent midterm elections.

And if Warnock wins, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) will no longer be able to stand in the way of progress being made by their Democratic colleagues in the upper chamber of Congress.

Nick Reynolds of Newsweek explains:

Depending on the result of next week’s runoff election between Georgia Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker, Democrats stand to control 51 seats in the U.S. Senate as well as the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris, requiring both senators to break with their party to sink a piece of legislation.

Bottom line: Manchin and Sinema are about to lose what power they have.

“I don’t expect Manchin or Sinema to have much influence to be quite honest,” Joshua Huder, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute, told Newsweek.

[…]

“To the degree that they do have influence, it’ll be much more in the vein of the infrastructure bill-type influence,” Huder said in reference to concessions they received for fossil fuel permitting and corporate tax carveouts in a recent infrastructure package.

“They’re not going to be able to kill Democratic initiatives like they did,” he added. “They’re not going to be able to threaten not to go along with the filibuster.

“They’re not going to be able to do any of the stuff that really gave them a lot of veto power. They can be a positive influence in the sense that they can negotiate with Republicans, but that’s really the limit of what they can do.”

Gregory Magarian, a professor at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, concurs, noting:

“Republicans will need to pass legislation that Democrats will accept, while what we’ve seen Manchin and Sinema do over the last couple of years is pull the legislation sufficiently far to the right to be acceptable to those pivotal House Republicans.

“So at that point, if we’re thinking about this in fairly linear ideological terms, there really shouldn’t be anything left for Manchin and Sinema to do.”

Good! All they’ve done is obstruct, so it’s time they became powerless and irrelevant.

 

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U.S. Senate

Joe Manchin Gets Caught In A ‘Trumpian Lie’ About The Senate Filibuster

As he continues to obstruct major portions of President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is now lying about the history of the Senate filibuster in a desperate attempt to make it appear that he’s on the side of the angels.

According to Chad Pergram of Fox News, Manchin had this to say Monday when asked about whether or not he would support changes in the filibuster rule so that voting rights legislation could be passed:

“The tradition of the Senate here in 232 years now..we need to be very cautious what we do..That’s what we’ve always had for 232 years. That’s what makes us different than any place else in the world.”

But that’s simply not true, according to attorney Max Kennerly:

“232 years ago, in 1790, a simple majority could end any debate. The current form of filibuster that Manchin is protecting—in which votes can’t happen until 60 Senators agree—didn’t exist until 1975. Hundreds of exceptions have been made to it, including one last month.”

Kennerly then added this painful reminder about the filibuster:

Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine also weighed in, noting:

“The Founders considered, and rejected, a routine supermajority requirement.

“The filibuster is actually not in the Constitution.”

And Mehdi Hasan of MSNBC branded Manchin’s comments a “Trumpian lie.”

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich also called Manchin out on Twitter:

Joe Manchin needs to be forced to explain why he wants to allow Republicans to keep people of color from voting. And he also needs to be called out for his endless lies.

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Congress U.S. Senate

Chuck Schumer May Have Found A Way To Change Joe Manchin’s Mind About Nixing The Filibuster: Report

Thanks in large part to the massive stubbornness of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), major portions of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda — voting rights, expanding access to affordable health care, and repairing the nation’s crumbling infrastructure — remain on the shelf, unrealized and threatening to bring progress to a grinding halt just five months into Biden’s term.

Could there be a way to convince Manchin and his Arizona counterpart, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, to finally give in and agree to major reform of the Senate filibuster?

According to a report from the New York Times, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) may have found an antidote to Manchin’s recalcitrance:

“Democrats are about to embark on a strategy to try to demonstrate to those reluctant colleagues — and to the public at large — that the filibuster is being abused by Senate Republicans intent on depriving them and President Biden of crucial legislation.”

How will this be accomplished? By bringing extremely popular legislation to the Senate floor and letting reluctant Democratic senators see just how complete Republican obstruction is and how it must be overcome:

“Mr. Schumer said he intended to bring the filibuster showdown to a head beginning next week, by forcing votes on a series of measures that Republicans oppose, including one that was blocked by a Republican filibuster in 2014 that seeks to ensure that women and men receive the same pay for equal work. Mr. Schumer hinted that he could also bring forward legislation on gay rights and gun safety. Most immediately, he promised a vote before the end of June on a sweeping voting rights bill that Democrats say is needed to counter new Republican-led voting restrictions being enacted in states around the nation.”

With that strategy, Schumer and other Senate Democrats believe it will soon become clear that only by nixing the filibuster can anything be accomplished in the upper chamber of Congress:

“The idea is to show Democrats refusing to change the filibuster rules that Republicans led by Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, are going to stand in the way of legislation that has widespread support, and that the only way to win their adoption is by overturning the rules.”

It’s the very same strategy former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used when faced Democratic resistance to amending and update filibuster rules:

“It is replicating a strategy that Harry Reid, then the Senate majority leader, employed in 2013 to persuade fellow Democrats to blow up the filibuster for judicial and executive branch nominees. He purposefully lined up a series of votes on highly regarded nominees to the influential United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. When Republicans repeatedly blocked them, Mr. Reid gathered enough Democratic support to change the rules by a majority vote.”

June, it seems, could be the make or break month when it comes to implementing the Biden agenda, with Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) noting:

“It is all building toward a showdown on voting rights, and voting rights are the precondition to every other issue being considered fairly in our country. I do believe a historical moment is about to arrive by the end of June on the Senate floor.”

The bottom line is this: If Manchin and Sinema don’t want to actually accomplish something for their constituents and the nation, they should forego running for reelection.