In December, Sen. Chuck Schumer promised that in January, Democrats were going to get back to work on Biden’s Build Back Better agenda and pass some kind of federal takeover of local and state elections under the guise of expanding voting rights. Despite consistent promises from Sen. Joe Manchin that he won’t vote for BBB and doesn’t support nuking the filibuster to pass an election reform law, Democrats have kept hope alive.
It’s looking more and more that the only one keeping hope alive, however, is Chuck Schumer. His own party seems to have moved on behind him with Senate Dems now working with Republicans on other pieces of legislation leaving BBB and voting rights in the dust:
Democrats appear to be moving on: This isn’t getting nearly enough attention. A group of several Democrats have already teamed up with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and other Republicans to discuss changes to the Electoral Count Act. In other words, while Schumer is pushing an aggressive Democratic response to what he sees as a crisis threatening democracy, some of his own Democrats are working with Republicans on a different bill already.
Is BBB over? So is the $1.7 trillion Build Back Better Act done? There was no movement on this issue at all this week after Manchin bashed it once again. Manchin and Schumer can’t even agree if they’re still negotiating. The issue that has dominated Washington for the last six months has suddenly disappeared from the legislative radar screen.
Beyond the hardcore progressive base of the Democratic Party, no one else seems to think nuking the filibuster to allow the federal government to steal control of elections from state and local governments is a good idea. Furthermore, Democrats still haven’t learned that running against Donald Trump in 2022 will yield them nothing but continued losses.
Even back in Georgia, with newly elected Sen. Raphael Warnock, who repeatedly pledged to support Democrats’ voting rights legislation, there is no appetite and no path forward:
Traveling to Georgia, the home of Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), one of the leading scrap-the-filibuster-for-voting-rights voices and a vulnerable 2022 incumbent, could give the impression that Democrats have a good chance at changing the Senate’s rules and passing an election overhaul. They don’t. They’re making progressive activists think they do, but it’s a longshot at best. The most likely outcome of this gambit is another few weeks of maniacal coverage of Manchin, with reporters hanging on his every will-he-or-won’t-he flinch. And here’s a spoiler alert: he won’t. He has said it countless times.
What this all means is that Biden’s domestic legislative agenda is now dead beyond recovery. Democrats haven’t been able to unify their own party, which means anything Schumer promises to accomplish in the Senate without the blessing and support of all 50 of his members is meaningless.
Manchin has said time and time again, he will not support altering filibuster rules to pass voting rights legislation or any legislation. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has said basically the same thing. Without those two votes, the topic is dead, Democrats should move on.
Democrats made a lot of empty noise on January 6 with President Biden pledging in his speech that the federal government needs to take over election laws at every level. This would mean nuking the filibuster, something that Biden himself is on record opposing many times during his Senate career.
It would be better for Dems to drop the nonsense, put away the reckless spending plans, and focus on areas of common ground with Republicans to get on with the people’s business. All reasonable observers understand that there is no seriousness in massively expanding the welfare state which will cripple the country economically for years to come.
There are clear and immediate things for Congress to address. Democrats risk ignoring voter concerns in favor of unpopular progressive agenda items that threaten to send them into minority party status for a decade.
