Democrats Fail in Push to Change Senate Filibuster, Sinking Elections Bill

President Biden and party leaders had called voting access their top policy priority

By Siobhan Hughes and Eliza Collins, WSJ, January 19-20

WASHINGTON—Democrats failed in their effort to change the Senate’s filibuster procedures to muscle through blocked elections legislation, dealing a setback to President Biden and party leaders on what they have termed their top domestic policy priority.

With Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona siding with all Republicans in the evenly split Senate, 52 lawmakers opposed the rule change, while 48 were in favor, shy of the majority required.

The Democrats’ gambit was a last-ditch effort to salvage a sweeping elections bill that unified the progressive and moderate wings of the Democratic Party. Earlier, Republicans had blocked the elections bill from advancing, with 49 votes in support and 51 against, short of the 60 needed. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) voted “no” to preserve the right to bring the bill back up for a vote.

Democrats had made the elections bill and changes to the filibuster two parts of a single campaign, arguing that Republicans are trampling on voting rights, particularly for lower income and minority voters, by tolerating restrictive new state laws and then using Senate procedures to stop Congress from intervening.

Urging passage of the bill and a change to the filibuster if needed, Mr. Schumer asked: “Are we going to let our democracy backslide in the 21st century? Are we going to be dragged back into the abyss of voter suppression?”

Republicans say that Democrats are mischaracterizing the states’ changes in a bid to grab power and that the legislation would weaken steps meant to bolster election integrity.

“I certainly hope my colleagues today will not pass this federal takeover of election laws and will also resist the temptation to change the rules of the Senate,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R., Mo.), the top Republican on the Rules Committee.

In a statement, Mr. Biden said he was “profoundly disappointed that the United States Senate has failed to stand up for our democracy.” Before the vote, Mr. Biden had played down hopes for passage, while expressing hope that a narrower proposal centered on changing the Electoral Count Act could draw bipartisan support. That effort would try to firm up the procedures for electing the president.

“I think we can get things done,” Mr. Biden said at a press conference when asked about an effort to change the law. “I predict that we’ll get something done on the electoral reform side of this,” he added.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R., Utah) has said a bipartisan group of senators discussing changes now includes about a dozen people.

The elections package that failed consolidates two bills that Republicans blocked last year: the Freedom to Vote Act and one named after the late civil-rights leader Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, whose 1965 beating by Alabama troopers helped spur the passage of the original Voting Rights Act. The package expands mail-in voting nationwide and makes other changes designed to create a federal standard for access to the polls.

Under the proposed change to the filibuster, Democrats would shift to a so-called talking filibuster, in which opponents could stop the bill from advancing only by actively speaking on the floor until their allotted two speeches for each issue on each legislative day had been used up.

That would replace the current 60-vote threshold for ending debate and apply only to the elections legislation, narrowly tailored in a bid to win support from Democratic holdouts. After a talking filibuster ended, the Senate could proceed to a straight up-or-down vote on passing the bill.

“Our Republican colleagues don’t even acknowledge that we have a crisis,” said Mr. Schumer, citing new restrictions in states like Montana, Texas and Florida. He cited past voter suppression efforts against Black Americans, calling the GOP stance today “particularly disgraceful, particularly abhorrent, particularly obnoxious.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) unleashed a torrent of criticism at Democrats, saying that they were effectively trying to mount a takeover of the nation’s elections system. He said Mr. Biden had promised to unite the country, but “today the president and his party will try to use fear and panic to smash the Senate.”

Others expressed relief that the Democrats’ push would fail.

“This is the biggest relief I’ve had as a member of the Senate,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.). “It is a pivotal day.”

Mr. Manchin again defended the filibuster, saying it forces compromise and that changing it unilaterally would damage the Senate. He also noted that some colleagues had previously opposed partisan changes to the rule.

“I respect that you have changed your position on this. I would hope that you would respect that I have not, and I have never, wavered on this,” Mr. Manchin said. “Allowing one party to exert complete control in the Senate with only a simple majority will only pour fuel on the fire of political whiplash and dysfunction,” he said.

The debate had the hallmarks of a freewheeling conversation, with senators rushing to sign up for speaking slots to rebut assertions by their colleagues.

“How many Americans understand what Jim Crow was?” asked Sen. Tim Scott (R., S.C.), after Democrats repeatedly invoked the segregationist era in arguing why new voter protections were needed. Mr. Scott, the only Black Republican senator and one of only three Black senators overall, cited Jim Crow’s literacy tests and threats of job losses and lynching used to deter an earlier generation of Black Americans from voting.

“If we’re going to have an honest conversation about the right to vote, let’s engage in that on the facts of the laws that are being passed, not the rhetoric surrounding those laws.”

Sen. Cory Booker, a Black Democrat who worked with Mr. Scott last year on trying to overhaul policing practices, rushed to the floor to respond. “Don’t lecture me about Jim Crow,” the New Jersey senator said. “I know this is not 1965. That’s what makes me so outraged. It’s 2022, and they’re blatantly removing more polling places from the counties where Black and Latinos are overrepresented.”

The fight over voting access and election integrity was fueled in part by fallout from the 2020 election, in which states authorized mail-in ballots, installed drop boxes, and took other measures to ease voting because of the Covid-19 pandemic. While officials with the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency said that the election was the most secure in history, former President Donald Trump has blamed election fraud for his loss. There is no evidence of widespread fraud, and audits of millions of ballots in key states affirmed the presidential result.

Democrats have tied Mr. Trump’s continuing false fraud claims and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot by Trump supporters at the Capitol to the need for federal election laws.

“Republican lawmakers are using the Big Lie to pass partisan election laws to reduce voter turnout,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.). “Their target: Democratic voters. And their goal: sow the seeds of doubt in our democracy.”

Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.) said that Democrats were going too far in their drive to pass legislation and risked destroying the country. “What you’re talking about doing today is turning the United States Senate into a majoritarian body,” he said, raising his voice. “The essence of the Senate is a check and balance on the passions of the other body.”

The Freedom to Vote Act would make Election Day a national holiday, require states to allow voters to register on the day of an election starting in November 2022, mandate 15 days of early voting, restore voting rights to felons who have completed their prison sentences, and force all states to allow mail-in voting, among other provisions. In states that require voter identification, it would require more than a dozen different kinds to be accepted, banning types like student ID forms or utility bills from being excluded. It would create a formula for providing a minimum number of drop boxes in each region.

The measure named after Mr. Lewis responds to a pair of Supreme Court decisions that weakened the ability of the Justice Department to challenge state election laws. A 2013 Supreme Court decision effectively eliminated requirements that states which historically discriminated against minority voters obtain federal clearance before changing election practices.

The voting-rules battle is already starting to spread into the 2022 midterm elections. After Sen. Mark Kelly (D., Ariz.) on Wednesday said that he would vote to support the filibuster change, the campaign of a possible Republican contender, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, released a statement calling him “a puppet of the progressive left, wrapped up in the grandeur of the Senate.”

Some senators have said there could be an opportunity for bipartisanship on a narrower election-related issue: reforming the Electoral Count Act, an 1887 law on how Congress deals with disputes over presidential election results.

Some Republicans on Tuesday called for accelerating those conversations.

“If this fails today, it’s not the end of the discussion of progress that we need to make,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) said.

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.) said he supported changing the Electoral Count Act but added that Congress also needed to protect voters’ access to the polls.

“It doesn’t matter if your votes are properly counted if you cannot cast your vote in the first place,” he said.