politicnewsbusterinsiderpostreview: The next front in the voting wars

January 3, 2022

Good afternoon and happy 2022! With a new year comes a new Democratic agenda. Next up: filibuster reform. In a letter released today, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that Democrats would hold a vote to change the filibuster by January 17, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This is virtually the only way Democrats will be able to pass crucial voting rights legislation at a time when Republican state legislatures have used Donald Trump's election lies as an excuse to enact an anti-democracy program founded on voter suppression, gerrymandering, and the takeover of election boards.

It's unclear how exactly Democrats intend to modify the filibuster. Possible changes include reestablishing the "talking filibuster," which requires a filibustering minority to hold the floor as long as a filibuster is in effect, or a temporary carve-out for voting rights legislation. But to do any of this, Democrats will have to bring on board—you guessed it—Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

Sinema already seems like a hard no. In mid-December, she publicly stated that she opposes filibuster reform to protect the right to vote. Manchin, who co-wrote the Freedom to Vote Act, has made it clear that he won't consider abolishing the filibuster under any circumstances, but he's dropped some enigmatic hints that he might support less aggressive changes to the rules. Democrats will most likely need both of them on board for any rules change, or one of them and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the only Republican to vote for the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

What we'll likely see over the next few days is Democrats attempting to use the first anniversary of the January 6 Capitol riot to pressure Manchin and Sinema to support their agenda. But it's unclear how effective such a lobbying campaign will be. Fierce criticism from Manchin's own party failed to persuade him to support Biden's Build Back Better bill, and it's unlikely that voting rights will be any different. Simply put, the odds aren't high.

—Noah Y. Kim