In a last-ditch but ultimately unsuccessful effort to pass national voting rights legislation, most Democrats in the U.S. Senate, including Vermont’s Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders, voted late Wednesday to kneecap the filibuster.
The parliamentary rule dictated that to move the Freedom to Vote: John R Lewis Act to a full vote (in what’s known as a cloture motion) would require 60 votes instead of a simple majority. With the Senate divided 50-50 and Republicans united against the bill, Democrats’ last hope was to change the rules to get it across the finish line.
Leahy, the fifth-longest-serving senator in U.S. history, has long been skeptical of changing Senate rules. But in a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday, he attempted to appeal to his colleagues’ sense of duty, saying that senators should at the very least allow the bill to be debated in full and come to a final vote.
“Were we elected by our constituents to flatly obstruct any action in this body simply because our party is not in the majority? Or were we elected to tacitly agree with a prescribed agenda?” the Democrat asked his colleagues. “The Senate, those who stand in it, owe more to our constituents and to this nation than blind party loyalty. We owe it to the nation to do what is right. We owe it to our conscience to do what’s right.”
If there were ever a time to push through major voting reforms, Leahy said, it’s now, when the country is seeing “a scourge of laws making their way through partisan legislatures” targeting the voting rights of certain Americans. Leahy was the original sponsor of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which was rolled into the bill considered this week.
“Do we really want to make it more difficult for Americans to vote legally and safely?” he asked. “Is that what democracy means to you? To me? Do we really want to allow states to make it more difficult for blue collar workers or the poor or the disadvantaged to vote?”
Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, said in a floor speech that the proposed action would not have been the first time the Senate has seen a change in the filibuster rules. He pointed to recent exceptions made in order to raise the debt ceiling and confirm former President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominees. (“Oh, my goodness, how shocking,” he quipped.)
“Rules get changed around here all of the time,” Sanders said. “And maybe, just maybe, we might want to change the rules in order to save American democracy.”
Two moderate Democratic senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, refused to vote for the change. The vote and hours of debate leading up to it were the culmination of intense party infighting that has spanned months due to the two senators’ refusal to coalesce around Democrats’ and President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda.
Over the past few months, Sanders has often led that public fight. In floor remarks Wednesday night, he said was not surprised by Republicans’ stance on the bill and rule change, but could not understand Manchin and Sinema’s refusal.
“If you think this bill makes sense, and if you’re worried about the future of American democracy, and if you’re prepared to vote for the bill, then why are you wasting everybody’s time and not voting for the rule change that allows us to pass the bill?” he asked. “You know, it’s like inviting somebody to lunch, putting out a great spread and saying you can’t eat. If you’re gonna vote for the bill, vote to change the rules.”
Earlier Wednesday, according to the Guardian, Sanders suggested that he would throw his political weight behind Democratic primary challengers to Manchin and Sinema.
