January 17, 2022
The Voting rights bill has been getting a lot of attention on this Martin Luther King Jr Holiday especially because of the big moves coming to the Senate this week.
I’m going to give you the short, short version of what’s about to go down in the Senate…and then the slightly longer version.
First the short, short story is – the house passed voting rights legislation is going to fail in the Senate. Maybe not forever. But probably for this week.
For the slightly longer story….
Starting tomorrow, the Senate leadership is going to try and pass the voting rights legislation that already passed the house last week straight along party lines. The Democrats don’t have the 60 votes needed to overcome the Senate filibuster and pass the bill. So the Senate Majority Leader says he’s going to offer a motion to change the rules of the Senate. Doing that may allow the voting rights legislation to pass with just Democrat support. But – Democrats don’t have the votes to do that either.
Why would they even bring up this vote if they know it’s going to fail? Well, the Senate Majority Leader says voting rights is a priority and he wants to get everyone’s vote on the record. It’s so important to him that he canceled the senate’s planned recess this week to get this bill on the floor.
Here are four things you should know.
One – the Senate leadership has *not* yet disclosed exactly what Senate rules they want to change or how they want to change them. Those negotiations are ongoing.
Two – the bill that’s going to fail is a combination bill that passed the house on party lines last week. It includes both the “John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act” that would restore federal oversight provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act *combined with* the “Freedom to Vote Act” which would create new federal mandates for early voting, vote-by-mail, and more.
Three – the President went to Capitol Hill last week to convince his own party to get on board with this whole senate rule change plan to get voting rights passed. No dice. …when he left that meeting said “I don’t know whether we can get this done.”
Four — since then, Democrats have vowed to keep fighting and yes – some Republicans have also voiced their support for some electoral count changes. They just aren’t on board with this particular bill.
