As for bluffs, two of them will be called. Will enough Senate Republicans be willing to do business with Biden to make negotiations worthwhile? And will Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III’s resolute opposition to altering the Senate’s filibuster rule persist in the face of Republican obstruction, especially on issues affecting democracy itself?
Thus, the showdown. In a letter to colleagues last Friday, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) made clear that he would test the Senate’s capacity to legislate by bringing up a series of bills — on gender pay equity, gun violence, LGBTQ rights and, at the end of June, a vote on the For the People Act, the omnibus political reform and voter-protection bill.
Schumer’s language was revealing. The Republican filibuster of a bill to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, he wrote, was part of a pattern revealing “the limits of bipartisanship and the resurgence of Republican obstructionism.”
“Senate Democrats are doing everything we can to move legislation in a bipartisan way when and where the opportunity exists. But we will not wait for months and months to pass meaningful legislation that delivers real results.” He concluded: “The American people gave us a Democratic Senate to produce big and bold action on the major issues confronting us. And that is what we will do.”
In just a few days, pressure to upend the filibuster and pass voting rights and clean government bills took a quantum leap. The GOP’s minority blockade of the commission bill last Friday enraged Manchin and, his colleagues hoped, might soften his views on filibuster reform.
Then, on Sunday, a walkout of Democratic state legislators derailed a Texas Republican bill to roll back voting access and politicize the process of deciding election outcomes. The Texas rebels used their temporary victory to challenge Washington Democrats to match their determination. “We did our part,” tweeted state Rep. Erin Zwiener. “Now we need Congress to do their part.”
Two days later, Biden issued his strongest words to date in support of the For the People Act. He did so in a remarkable speech marking the 100th anniversary of what the president pointedly called a “massacre” of as many as 300 Black people in Tulsa by a White mob that destroyed a prosperous African American neighborhood.
Declaring that the “sacred right” to vote was “under assault with an incredible intensity like I’ve never seen,” Biden denounced GOP voter suppression efforts that have spread to 14 states. He labeled them a “truly unprecedented assault on our democracy, an effort to replace nonpartisan election administrators and to intimidate those charged with tallying and reporting the election results.”
Without mentioning them by name, Biden called out Manchin (W.Va.) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), the two most stubborn Democratic supporters of the filibuster.
“I hear all the folks on TV saying, ‘Why doesn’t Biden get this done?’ ” the president said. “Well, because Biden only has a majority of, effectively, four votes in the House and a tie in the Senate, with two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends.”
The statement was all the more noteworthy because Biden himself has expressed reluctance to upend the filibuster.
Biden was clearly responding to calls from democracy advocates to speak out more forcefully for reform, and to underscore his resolve, the president tasked Vice President Harris to take the lead on the voting-rights effort.
That Biden rebuked GOP attacks on democracy even as he continued to negotiate with Senate Republicans on an infrastructure bill speaks to the inescapable tension inherent in his desire to marry far-reaching change with his conciliatory habits and image.
He desperately wants to keep his popular promise to cooperate with Republicans where he can, and even impatient Democrats acknowledge the political benefits of his efforts.
But how can there be authentic common ground if Washington Republicans resist federal action to undo what Biden called “un-American” assaults on voting rights, thereby making themselves complicit with the anti-democratic schemes of states their party controls?
It’s not Biden’s fault that Republicans have made democracy a partisan issue. But it is his problem if he hopes to continue preaching his gospel of amiable collaboration.
Read more:
"Opinion" - Google News
June 03, 2021 at 03:57AM
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Can Biden’s conciliatory side survive the GOP’s assault on democracy? - The Washington Post
"Opinion" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2FkSo6m
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