U.S. Democrats’ voting rights bill appears doomed as Manchin rejects rules change – Reuters

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WASHINGTON, Jan 19 (Reuters) – An effort by U.S. Senate Democrats to pass a voting-rights bill that faces rock-solid Republican opposition looked set to fail on Wednesday after Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said he would block a move to change the chamber’s filibuster rule.

Despite President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urging fellow Democrats to support suspending or easing the filibuster rule to circumvent the Republican blockade, Manchin took to the Senate floor to proclaim that he would not vote for such a rule change.

That left Republicans with the muscle to use the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold to block an election reform bill Democrats insist is necessary to preserve the right to vote in the United States. The procedural vote is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. EST (2330 GMT).

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Manchin, a conservative Democrat, spoke as Biden, who has called the bill critical to preserving democracy, was giving his first news conference in months.

“Let this change happen in this way and the Senate will be a body without rules,” Manchin said in an afternoon speech on the Senate floor. “We don’t have to change the rules to make our case to the American people for voting rights.”

The bill that is set to fail is one that Manchin himself helped cobble together while trying — and failing — to win any Republican support.

Biden told reporters on Wednesday that he had not given up hope of advancing voting-rights.

“We’ve not run out of options yet,” Biden said.

ROCK-HARD OPPOSITION

With the Senate split 50-50, Democrats would need support from all of their caucus members plus a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Kamala Harris to change the chamber’s rules. Manchin joined fellow conservative Democrat Kyrsten Sinema in announcing their opposition to the rules change in Senate floor speeches.

While dashing his party’s hopes, possibly for years to come, for sweeping changes that would set minimum standards in all 50 states on elections for U.S. president and members of Congress, Manchin did open the door for backing narrower election legislation.

The U.S. Capitol is seen at sunset on the eve of the first anniversary of the January 6, 2021 attack on the building, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 5, 2022. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

He pointed to the need to reform the 19th-century Electoral Count Act to make it harder for members of Congress to challenge state certifications of winners of presidential elections every four years. Several Republican lawmakers challenged the results of 2020 presidential election after former President Donald Trump falsely claimed there was widespread fraud.

Thousands of Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2016, launched a deadly attack on the Capitol in an effort to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s election.

Manchin also said: “We can protect (state) election workers from harassment by making it a national crime.” Some Republicans have shown interest in legislating on both of those matters and a bipartisan group to work on a potential bill was showing early signs of life.

If the Senate’sWednesday vote fails, as is widely expected, Schumer has said he will move to alter the filibuster rule by vote. It was unclear when that vote would occur.

“There are some in our caucus who believe (the filibuster) helps bring us together. I don’t see that evidence,” Schumer said.

Democrats say the election bill is crucial to protecting the American political system as Republican-led states pass a wave of new voting restrictions, driven by Trump’s false claims of widespread election fraud. Republicans dismiss the bill as a partisan power grab and accused Democrats of trying to usurp states’ rights to administer elections.

Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock said the Republican arguments “have sounded uncannily familiar” to segregationists’ opposition to civil rights legislation of the 1960s, which ultimately succeeded.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the chamber’s top Republican, warned of a legislative “nuclear winter” if Democrats succeeded in upending the 60-vote threshold.

“The fear is false, the rage is misplaced and today factional fevers will not carry the day,” said McConnell.

Among the practices Democrats want to turn into minimum federal voting standards are the opportunity for any registered voter to request a mail-in ballot, at least two weeks of early voting and ballot drop boxes that make voting more convenient in many areas.

The Democrats’ legislation also would attempt to remove partisanship from the way congressional districts are redrawn every decade. Currently, “gerrymandering” regularly tilts the field to whichever party is in power in the various states.

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Reporting by Richard Cowan and David Morgan, additional reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Scott Malone, Leslie Adler, Mark Porter and Aurora Ellis

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