Manchin’s Method Fails

On 10/20/2021, Republicans officially blocked the voting rights bill introduced by Senator Joe Manchin. As National Public Radio reported that same day:

The procedural vote to move forward with the Freedom to Vote Act failed despite Democrats’ effort to craft a compromise bill led in part by Sen. Joe Manchin. The West Virginia Democrat had hoped to get enough GOP votes to overcome a filibuster, but in the end no Republicans voted to advance the legislation.

Of course, Manchin’s “Freedom to Vote Act” was made to be nothing more than a moderate version of the “For The People Act” Democrats were trying to pass earlier in the year and which Manchin vocally opposed. In an op-ed Manchin wrote for The Charleston Gazette-Mail that was published on 6/6/2021, the Senator expressed why he would vote against the voting rights bill by saying:

I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy, and for that reason, I will vote against the For the People Act.

To be fair to Manchin, even the strongest supporter of the For The People Act has to admit that it is a very large overhaul of our election system. If Manchin supported the bill personally but felt the Democratic majority was too small to justify passing such a major piece of legislation — it is only fifty Republicans and fifty Democrats…