Another attempt by President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats to protect and support positive changes to voting rights in America has failed. The effort to toughen voting rights in the run-up to this November’s midterm elections has taken a huge blowback as many are concerned about the fate of Congress in 2023.
In back-to-back votes late last Wednesday, Senate Republicans first blocked Democrats’ move to advance the voting rights legislation toward passage. It was the fifth time in less than a year that they did so. This marks the continuation of the decades-old “filibuster” rule to stop the forward progress of the legislation, which requires the cooperation of at least 60 of the Senate’s 100 members to keep bills alive.
The Senate is currently split 50-50.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, has moved swiftly to revamp the filibuster rule by lowering the 60-vote threshold to 50. But on this go around, Schumer’s own Democrats — conservatives Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema — put the kibosh on the whole plan by voting against the rules change.
With another year-long initiative stifled, experts express that Republican-controlled states enacted bills that have been designed to suppress voting in federal elections, especially among Black, Hispanic, and poor voters. Republican Senator Mitt Romney even told a group of reporters that senators have planned to meet soon to discuss launching a bipartisan effort.