U.S. Senate rejects filibuster change, preventing federal takeover of elections

By Andrew Trunsky

The Senate late Thursday rejected a Democratic effort to alter the filibuster in order to pass their long-sought voting bills over unanimous Republican opposition, capping one of the most consequential days in the history of the chamber.

The vote failed 48-52 after Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema voted as they said they would for months, joining a unanimous Republican caucus in opposition and denying their party the necessary support for the change to take effect. The change, had it been adopted, would have established a “talking filibuster” pertaining to the voting bills only, allowing any senator to speak for or against them for as long as they wanted but lowering the 60-vote threshold for passage to a simple majority.

“What we have now … is not a filibuster,” Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said ahead of the vote. “It doesn’t require any effort. It doesn’t require any speeches. It doesn’t require to hold the floor.”

“Strom Thurmond would have loved this filibuster,” King added, invoking the late segregationist senator who set the record for the longest filibuster speech ever while speaking against the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

Democrats’ attempt to change Senate rules concluded a marathon day of debating in the chamber that saw nearly half of the body speak either for the John Lewis Voting Rights Reauthorization Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, the twin bills that passed the House Thursday with a quirk that prevented Senate Republicans from blocking debate on them as they had in the past.

The voting bills failed to garner 60 Senate votes earlier Wednesday night even though Manchin and Sinema voted in favor, sparking Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s motion to change Senate rules to allow them to pass without GOP support.

“For those who believe bipartisanship is possible, we have proven them wrong,” Manchin said ahead of the vote. “Ending the filibuster would be the easy way out. I cannot support such a perilous course for this nation when elected leaders are sent to Washington to unite our country by putting politics and party aside.”

Democrats have said the bills are necessary to counter election reform laws that Republican state legislatures across the country have passed in the wake of the 2020 election that allegedly suppress people’s ability to vote. As a result, nearly all have endorsed altering the filibuster to ensure their passage even if done on a partisan basis.

“I share with many of you … a vision of the Senate that collaborates and negotiates the most important issue of our time,” Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock said. “I believe in bipartisanship. But at what cost? Who is being asked to foot the bill for this bipartisanship and is liberty itself the cost?”

Republicans, however, have countered that the federal legislation, which sets uniform voting standards and outlaws partisan gerrymandering, will invite voter fraud and infringe on states’ rights to oversee their own elections.

“The president and his party will try to use fear and panic to smash the Senate, silence millions of Americans and size control of our democracy,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday.

McConnell said hours later that while the day was one of the most consequential in the history of the Senate, it really boiled down to a simple question: “Will it take 60 votes to pass massive changes or a simple majority to ram them through? That’s what’s at stake here.”

Though senators engaged in genuine debate throughout the day, most expressed disdain for how deliberation seemed to have faded from the world’s greatest deliberative body. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the only Republican who backed the John Lewis voting bill, said Wednesday that the rhetoric surrounding voting has become very concerning.

“I was part of a very troubling conversation last evening,” she said. “It was shared depending on which side you’re on in this body today on this issue, you’re either a racist or a hypocrite. Really, is that where we are?”

Manchin echoed her hours later in his speech, criticizing the lack of bipartisanship as he has time and time again throughout his filibuster defenses.

“I don’t know what happened to the good old days,” he said, “but I can’t tell you they aren’t here now.”

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5 thoughts on “U.S. Senate rejects filibuster change, preventing federal takeover of elections

  1. Dont forget gov. Scott has already said anything short of mail in ballots for everyone and then some is racist and voter suppression. Time to go back to excavation and thunder road phil, you will learn something.

  2. In the past, Dem/Progs, including Schumer, loved the filibuster.
    C-SPAN videos show leading Democrats, including Schumer, PRAISING the filibuster in the US Senate
    Just google it, and you will see the videos.

    Dem/Progs have used the filibuster on numerous occasions, when it was to THEIR advantage.

    Dem/Progs HATE the filibuster, when it is INCONVENIENT

    The US would be a much stronger country, if it did not have such fickle, self-serving, extremist, political folks.

    If Dem/Progs had proposed a BALANCED election reform bill, some RINO Republicans likely would have voted for it as well.

    But, oh no, extremist Dem/Progs cannot help themselves.

    If it had not been for two very courageous DEMOCRAT Senators, the Republican party would have been rendered irrelevant FOREVER

    Dem/Progs would have grabbed centralized command/control of all facets of the US, and of the US people FOREVER

    All of us would have to march IN LOCKSTEP to their idiotic socialistic follies, such the extreme-leftist BBB bill, cooked up by Sanders and Wyden.

    See URL to get an education.
    https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/build-back-better-would-cost-3-95-trillion-overt-the-next-decade

    Vermonters must turn out EN MASSE to overwhelm any election shenanigans in November 2022, to oust the Dem/Prog-GWSA legislators, and the GWSA career bureaucrats

    Otherwise, they will centrally command/control all of us, and will tax-fee-surcharge all of us to DEATH, for decades, supposedly to “fight climate change”, a totally futile endeavor, that would be similar to Vermonters fighting the sun.

    • Last night Democrats were unable to change the rules of the US Senate in order to pass the “Freedom to Cheat bill”.

      Their proposed legislation would have:

      – Eliminated voter ID,
      – Prevented states from cleaning voter rolls,
      – Allowed for ballots to be turned in days after the election,
      – Allowed for illegal ballot harvesting.

      BTW, All of this is already allowed in Vermont

      It would have destroyed elections in the US and Democrats knew this.
      That’s why they wanted it, and why the fake-news US and VT media promoted it.

      The vote failed 52-48, with very courageous Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema joining 50 Republicans.

      The US people would have been totally screwed, FOREVER

      You will find Manchin’s statement only on True North Reports, not on any other VT Media outfit.
      A perfect example of how Vermonters are being brainwashed by DENYING information, and feeding fake information, 24/7/365

      SENATOR MANCHIN:

      “I cannot support such a perilous course for this nation when elected leaders are sent to Washington to unite our country, not to divide our country,” he argued.

      “Let this change happen in this way, and the Senate will be a body without rules,” Manchin warned.

      “We’ve changed the rules,” in the past, Manchin said. “But we changed them with the rules. We didn’t break the rules to change the rules. But all of a sudden now we just can’t do it anymore. Just got to blow it up.”

      “The rule book means that the rules changes are done on the basis of broad, bipartisan consensus, not imposed on the minority by raw majority power,” he went on. “No matter who is in power.”

      https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/01/epic-joe-manchin-shames-democrats-attempt-nuke-filibuster-order-pass-freedom-cheat-bill-video/

      • The leftist’s always say “count every vote”

        The constitutional saying would be Count Every LEGAL Vote…

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