The Guardian: ‘A ticking timebomb’: Democrats’ push for voting rights law faces tortuous path

After six months of aggressive Republican efforts to restrict voting access, Democrats are facing new questions about how they will actually pass voting rights reforms through Congress.

The most recent hand-wringing comes as Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democratic senator, made clear earlier this month he still is not on board with the For the People Act, which would require early voting, automatic and same-day registration, and prevent the severe manipulation of district boundaries for partisan gain.

Senate Democrats, including Manchin, met privately on Wednesday to map out a path forward on the bill, which has already passed the US House. They were mostly mum about the discussions of that meeting but overall resolute that some kind of voting rights bill has to pass. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said: “It was a really productive meeting.”

Voting groups say it would be a mistake to only pass a voting rights reauthorization. While current proposals would only require certain places with documented evidence of voting discrimination to be subject to preclearance, Manchin told ABC he thinks every state should have to get its voting changes preapproved. Republicans are unlikely to support such an idea. “

“It’s a false choice. It has to be both,” said Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel for public policy and government affairs at Common Cause, a government watchdog group. “They’re both critically important pieces of legislation and it’s a false choice to say I’m for the other and not for this. Because only together will we fully rebalance the state of voting in America to favor access.”

Four House Democrats sent a letter to colleagues last week making a similar argument.

Advocates are heartened by polling that shows the measure is extremely popular and the fact that Democrats have held together so far and brought the bill to the verge of a Senate floor vote despite some grumbling from their own caucus.

“What you’re seeing is a commitment to a floor vote and getting people on record,” Spaulding said.

If Democrats went into the 2022 midterms without doing anything to protect voting rights, it would be disastrous, advocates said.

“Voters showed up in record numbers to choose new leadership. There were commitments made across multiple Congresses on both bills and so saying ‘we tried’ isn’t going to work,” Spaulding said.

“If these bills weren’t to go to President Biden’s desk, they’d have … to articulate why they did nothing when they had the power to do so.”