Responding to questions about an upcoming vote on voting rights and election reforms in the Senate, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki suggested on Monday that Democratic lawmakers may reexamine rules on the Senate filibuster if Republicans block any bill from even being considered or debated upon this week.
“As it relates to the filibuster, I don’t think you have to take it from us, that would be Congress moving forward — or making a decision,” Psaki said.
An unsuccessful vote to begin debating a voting rights bill, she added, will likely “prompt a new conversation about the path forward.”
“And we’ll see where that goes,” Psaki said.
The ambiguous message from Psaki is that the White House is not taking a formal stance on whether the filibuster should remain, be changed, or be thrown out completely, but that Democrats within that legislative chamber need to decide what to do. Democrats are frustrated by the fact that a slew of their legislative priorities — including the For the People Act, a bill that would expand voting rights and reform a number of election rules — are likely to be blocked by filibusters from Republicans.
The Senate is set to vote on Tuesday over starting a debate on the For the People Act, as well as amendments to that bill that may draw support from centrists like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia). Although Manchin has voiced opposition to the bill, he has also said he likes certain aspects of it, and offered a compromise version this week that would include reforms, such as banning partisan gerrymandering in the states, requiring at least 15 days of early voting in federal elections throughout the U.S., and tightening ethics and campaign finance rules.
Progressives who have pushed for the For the People Act appeared open to those changes Manchin said he wanted to see.
“What Senator Manchin is putting forward are some basic building blocks that we need to ensure that democracy is accessible, no matter your geography,” said Stacey Abrams, a former Georgia candidate for governor and voting rights advocate.
The vote set to happen on Tuesday is a procedural one, as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer noted.
“It’s not a vote on any particular policy,” he said. “It’s not a vote on this bill or that bill. It’s a vote on whether the Senate should simply debate the issue about voting rights, the crucial issue of voting rights in this country.”
But that procedural hurdle seems doomed to fail, as no member of the Republican Senate caucus appears open to these reforms, or receptive to the compromise version being offered by Manchin. The GOP is expected to block the procedural vote using the filibuster.
The 50-50 split within the Senate chamber between the two parties means that at least 10 Republicans would have to vote in favor of cloture (the formal ending of a filibuster) in order to allow any version of an elections reform bill to be considered.
Although Manchin and a handful of other centrist Democrats in the Senate oppose doing so, many lawmakers have called for changes to the filibuster rule or tossing out the rule entirely in order to pass much of the legislation that the American people voted in favor of in the November elections. Indeed, most Americans themselves seem open to amending or ending the filibuster rule, as a Vox/Data for Progress poll in March demonstrated.
Within that survey, 52 percent of respondents said that they would support changes to the filibuster if it meant that the For the People Act would get passed. Just 37 percent of those taking part in the poll said they’d oppose changing rules for that purpose.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy