CHARLESTON -- West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner is urging Senator Joe Manchin to oppose the Freedom to Vote Act, which he calls "nothing more than a watered-down version of H.R. 1, the so-called ‘For the People Act.’"
Warner, a Republican, sent a letter to Manchin, a Democrat, September 15 after Manchin had requested feedback on the proposed bill released September 14 by Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota).
"The ‘Freedom to Vote Act’ is a solution in search of a problem," Warner said. "It is nothing more than an attempt to circumvent the authority placed on state legislatures by the U.S. Constitution.”
Warner
On September 14, Manchin joined a group of Democrat senators in introducing the Freedom to Vote Act. It hits on voting rights, campaign finance and government ethics. It retains some, but not all, of the For the People Act.
In his letter, Warner also called the new legislation another attempt by bureaucrats to take control of state and local election administration.
"You can fix a bad bill," Warner opened his letter to Manchin. "A bill that is premised on false assumptions, and designed to counter the clear language of the U.S. Constitution and the 10th Amendment, is a bill not worthy of construction or compromise."
He went on to call the bill and similar ones "disingenuous and a troublesome effort." He also reminded Manchin, who also once served as West Virginia's Secretary of State, that 54 of West Virginia's 55 county clerks are against most of the provisions mentioned in the bill.
"The inappropriate provisions contained in the 592 pages of this bill are too numerous to address in this letter," Warner wrote. "The gist is that this bill amounts to an overreach by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., to direct how elections will be run in the United States."
Other voting measures proposed by Klobuchar and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) have failed to move forward in Congress due to a lack of bi-partisan support. The provisions of this newly re-worded version of H.R. 1 differ so slightly from its previous forms, Warner has urged Senator Manchin to reject this repeat attempt at removing local control over state elections.
"This bill is addressing the wrong aspect of the election problems in the United States," Warner wrote. "The main focus of the election discussion should be to ensure only votes cast consistent with individual state laws, "legal votes," are counted. state legislatures should be left to address state-specific processes based on decades of solving the unique issues facing each local jurisdiction.
Warner also urged Manchin and other senators to look at "single shot approaches" rather than an omnibus bill.
"For example, if Congress wants to make Election Day a federal holiday, that is clearly in the purview of Congress," he wrote. "But that can be done with a single bill.
"Otherwise, the language of the U.S. Constitution is clear that the time, place and manner of elections shall be left to state legislators."
Meanwhile, other groups continue to push Manchin to side with them on voting rights issues and the continuation of the filibuster process.
A group called The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival issued a statement telling Manchin the new voting rights bill is meaningless as long as the filibuster survives.
“Manchin knows that his Republican friends aren’t going to support federal protection of voting rights,” Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II of the group said. “His cooperation on a bill that would expand the right to vote and protect against voter suppression in the states is important, but it’s a cynical performance of concern about the crisis we face if Manchin isn’t willing to vote with his fellow Democrats to override the Republicans’ interposition of any debate on voting rights through the coward’s filibuster.”
To pass the Senate under its current rules, the Freedom to Vote Act would need the support of at least 10 Republican senators to override the filibuster. The Poor People's Campaign has pushed for Manchin to end the filibuster and support the For the People Act.
"Joe Manchin claimed to support the For the People Act when John Lewis was alive but there was no chance of it passing. Now, his narcissism has demanded the photo op that he ‘supports’ the ‘Freedom to Vote’ Act, which cannot pass the Senate without filibuster reform, which Manchin himself is blocking,” Rev. Liz Theoharis said. “This is a cynical exercise of image polishing as Manchin stands in the way of For the People Act, fully restoring the 1965 Voting Rights Act, ending the filibuster, and raising minimum wage to $15/an hour -- all of which are widely supported by the people of West Virginia and the nation.
“This campaign has continued to ask Sen. Manchin, which side are you on -- the side of the people, especially poor and low-income West Virginians, or the side of those standing in the way of democracy and justice? We are unmoved by symbolic victories and will keep organizing, defending our democracy and fighting for economic justice.”
Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona) have said they will not support ending the so-called coward's filibuster, which requires only that senators say they will filibuster a bill rather than stand and talk for hours.
Last week, two conservatives said Manchin shouldn’t support the latest version of the For the People Act because his fellow Democrats have turned the election legislation into a power grab.
The op-ed, first printed September 8 by The Exponent Telegram in Clarksburg, is headlined “Dems make it impossible for Sen. Manchin to support H.R. 4.” It is co-written by former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.
In June, the Senate voted 50-50 along party lines on the For the People Act, also known as H.R. 1. Democrats were fully behind the measure, but Republicans blocked it with a filibuster because it lacked the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture.
H.R. 4, also known as the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021, has been labeled as an amendment to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Last month, the House passed the bill on a 219-212 party-line vote. It still needs approval by the Senate.
In June, Manchin said he wouldn’t support that version of H.R. 4. Some Republicans have said the version of H.R. 4 passed last month in the House varies greatly from the compromised Manchin offered earlier this summer.
“Congressional action on federal voting rights legislation must be the result of both Democrats and Republicans coming together to find a pathway forward or we risk further dividing and destroying the republic we swore to protect and defend as elected officials,” Manchin wrote in a June opinion piece. “The truth, I would argue, is that voting and election reform that is done in a partisan manner will all but ensure partisan divisions continue to deepen.”
In their commentary, Cuccinelli and Blackwell call a three-page list of policy demands Manchin (D-W.Va.) issued in June just before the Senate was to vote on the measure his “red line in the sand.” They said Manchin outlined his willingness to support key provisions of the legislation, and Bloomburg called Manchin’s proposal “a bid for a compromise on an issue that has put him at odds with the rest of his party.”
“The legislation ultimately failed in the Senate, so when House Democrats recently circumvented the committee review process to abruptly force a vote on new election legislation known as H.R. 4, observers naturally expected it to incorporate Manchin’s proposals,” they wrote. “Instead, Democrats ran in the complete opposite direction.”
They said the previous version of H.R. 4 morphed into a “grab-bag of liberal policies completely contrary to Manchin’s proposals and pre-requisites that election reform be bi-partisan and adhere to regular order. …
“In reality, H.R. 4 is a politically driven takeover of state elections designed to rig the system in Democrats’ favor. It’s so unpopular and obviously partisan Nancy Pelosi had to force it through the House while the nation was focused on thousands of Americans stranded in Afghanistan. … In 2021, H.R. 4 is a mere shadow of the bill Manchin once supported.”
Cuccinelli and Blackwell also say the current version of H.R. 4 directly override previous Supreme Court rulings.
“As the Senate moves to consider H.R. 4, the eyes of West Virginia and the nation will be on Manchin,” they wrote. “He will face intense pressure from the left, but if he remains true to his principles and his word — rejecting partisan voting bills and preserving the filibuster — he will stick with the people of West Virginia and reject H.R. 4 as the radical, hyper-partisan bill that it is.”
And last month, U.S. Representative Rodney Davis (R-Illinois) detailed Manchin’s “compromise” wish list against the passed version.
Davis says Manchin wanted a voter identification requirement, but the current version of H.R. 4 doesn’t provide that.
“The legislation ignores Sen. Manchin’s request for compromise and attacks voter ID at nearly every turn,” Davis wrote in a memo. “It would require any state with a ‘strict’ voter ID law to submit its existing statute to the DOJ for clearance and would prohibit any state from strengthening or enacting a voter ID statute without preclearance.”
Davis said the current bill also makes the Attorney General essentially an Elections Czar, which is something Manchin didn’t want. He wanted to see the AG’s authority of elections reduced.
“This bill would do the opposite, handing the Attorney General multiple new authorities and options to find that a state or locality has ‘violated’ voting rights through administrative functions within the AG’s sole purview.”
Manchin also wanted the removal of consent decrees from the definition of voting rights violations, but Davis said H.R. 4 currently “doubles down” on it, noting that it “specifically reiterates consent decrees, settlements or other agreements as triggers that could be included to invoke preclearance.”
Davis says Manchin also wanted “objective measures for voting discrimination,” but H.R. 4 is “intentionally vague.”
“The new version of H.R. 4 has multiple sections with extremely vague definitions of what constitutes a violation, making it nearly impossible for states and localities to understand when they might be violating the act, whether intentionally or unintentionally.”
Finally, Davis said Manchin was concerned the preliminary relief standard already was too low. But, he says the new bill lowers that even further.
Democrats have pushed a companion bill known as the For the People Act, but Republicans oppose the measure and Democrats disagree on key parts of that legislation. Still, Democrats say both bills are needed.
Manchin’s office has not return repeated messages from The West Virginia Record seeking comment. But in an analysis posted on CNN.com, editor-at-large Chris Cillizza said H.R. 4 is doomed in the Senate because of Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
Cillizza predicts the bill won’t become law “or even come up for debate in the Senate.”
“See, Manchin and Sinema both oppose the elimination of the legislative filibuster,” Cillizza wrote. “Which means that the measure would need to secure 60 votes in order to end unlimited debate in the Senate and come up for a final vote. And that just isn't going to happen.”
In June, Manchin said he opposed the For the People Act and said he would not vote to end the filibuster for voting rights legislation.
“Democrats can't change the Senate rules to abolish the legislative filibuster unless all 50 of their senators (and the two independents who caucus with them) support such a rule change,” Cillizza wrote. “And, for the foreseeable future, they have only 48 votes.”