WASHINGTON – Sen. Joe Manchin is pushing a plan to revise the Democrats’ election and voter rights bill.
Manchin, a conservative Democrat, wields considerable power in Washington right now. His party need his vote to ensure passage of any such measure, but he already has said he wouldn’t vote for S1, also known as the For The People Act, in its current form.
In short, it seems likely that any voter rights bill passed into law will require Manchin’s vote.
Cuccinelli
Manchin’s has been discussing his plan with other lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, civil rights groups and others in the last few days. And on June 16, he released a memo of what he wants to see in any voter reform bill. His list includes of lot of measures from the For The People Act as well as a companion John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
Manchin’s memo mentions banning partisan gerrymandering, a national voter ID law to show some sort of identification before voting and the ability for states to maintain voter rolls by purging names from lists of registered voters. He also wants to make Election Day a national holiday, require 15 days of early voting, allow automatic voter registration through state DMVs, require states to notify voters if a polling place is moved close to an election, wants more disclosures regarding campaign finance and election ads and wants all presidential and vice presidential candidates to disclose their tax forms.
Manchin’s memo also would propose “preclearance” of new election rules in any jurisdiction with 15 or more voting rights violations in the previous 25 years. It also would give more power to the courts rather than the Department of Justice regarding decisions on voting rights violations.
Manchin’s plan doesn’t require no-excuse absentee voting.
A former Democratic nominee for Georgia governor who founded a group to fight voter suppression says she “absolutely” could get behind Manchin’s idea that was outlined in his memo to Senate colleagues
“What Sen. Manchin is putting forward are some basic building blocks that we need to ensure that democracy is accessible no matter your geography,” Stacey Abrams told CNN during a June 17 interview, calling components of Manchin’s plan “strong ones that will create a level playing field, will create standards that do not vary from state to state, and I think will ensure that every American has improved access to the right to vote.”
Abrams called Manchin’s proposal the “first and important step to preserving our democracy,” mentioning GOP-back state election laws she says create disenfranchisement and restrict access.
“Those should be untenable to any American,” Abrams said on CNN. “And if Joe Manchin and the U.S. senators who support this legislation are willing to come together on a compromise, then we will make progress. We will help to continue to ensure access to our democracy for as many Americans as possible. And that is always a native good.”
Still, Manchin’s proposal stands little chance because, even with the entire Democratic bloc behind it, it still would require at least 10 Republican senators to vote for it. And Manchin repeatedly has said he opposed the idea of ending the legislative filibuster that would allow a voting rights bill – and other key Democratic measures – to pass with a simple majority vote.
West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner, a Republican, said Manchin has been on point in his opposition to S1 and eliminating the filibuster.
“But, his nature is the walk the fence,” Warner said of the former governor and Secretary of State. “He tries to find that middle ground. I hope he understands the impact of this. We can’t have the federal government overstepping its bounds against state’s rights.
“Who should be making these judgment calls?” Warner told The West Virginia Record. “I think it should be locally with the state legislatures.
“Listen, West Virginia is in the top five in voter confidence in elections. Let’s not change something that isn’t broken.
“And, we need Manchin to follow in footsteps of Senator (Robert) Byrd, the strict constitutionalist, to understand role of filibuster.”
A former Virginia Attorney General calls S1 a “federal takeover of elections.”
Ken Cuccinelli says aspects of the bill “implicitly suggest that racist voter suppression is worse today than it was since 1965.”
“And that’s just ludicrous,” Cuccinelli, who now leads the Election Transparency Initiative, recently told The Record. “That’s just nuts. Fifty years ago, some of this might have made sense. It doesn’t make sense anymore.”
Cuccinelli also calls H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, “nothing but a power grab by Democrats to take election powers away from states.”
He said a “dramatically amended and more reasonable” bill for voter protection would have a chance.
“They (Democrats) can’t really say we don’t have a way to go after discrimination,” Cuccinelli said. “But, they don’t want to police discrimination. They want to use discrimination as an excuse for how elections are run.”