Voting Rights Bill Set To Be Considered

Congressional Democrats vow to press ahead with legislation despite setbacks

By Eliza Collins and Alan Cullison, WSJ, January 17-18

The nation’s capital marked Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a march for voting rights led by the late civil-rights leader’s family, as congressional Democrats vowed to press ahead on voting-rights legislation despite its expected failure.

The leaders of the march, which police estimated had about 2,000 participants at its peak before dwindling on a frigid day, urged people to call on Congress to enact changes to elections law nationwide in lieu of celebrations on the federal holiday dedicated to Dr. King’s birthday.

The Senate is scheduled to begin debate on voting legislation this week, but Republicans are expected to block passage despite all Democrats being united in favor. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) will then likely attempt a parallel effort to change the Senate rules to allow Democrats to enact the legislation with a simple majority rather than a 60-vote threshold known as the legislative filibuster. The march’s leaders support the move.

However, that effort is also likely to fail after Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) reiterated last week that they wouldn’t support nixing the 60-vote threshold. Without their votes, Democrats cannot make any alterations to the filibuster. “The honest-to-God answer is I don’t know if we can get this done,” President Biden said after meeting with Democrats Thursday. He vowed to keep fighting.

The party needs 50 senators to agree to change the Senate rules, which would allow Vice President Kamala Harris to cast the tiebreaking vote.

Mr. Biden said in a video marking the commemorative day: “In his time, through his courage, his conviction and his commitment, Dr. King held a mirror up to America and forced us to answer the question: Where do we stand? Whose side are we on?”

The president added, “I know where I stand. And it’s time for every elected official in America to make it clear where they stand.”

Melvin Foote, 70 years old, one of Monday’s marchers and founder and president of the Constituency for Africa, a Washington, D.C.-based network that specializes in African issues, said he doesn’t expect the legislation to pass, but felt obliged to voice his support anyway.

“Right now I’m not optimistic. I think we can win eventually, but I’m not expecting anything good soon,” he said.

“This is a fight for the long haul,” added Reuben Vassar, 44, an intelligence technician for the U.S. Army, who marched with about 20 fraternity brothers from Alpha Phi Alpha, the first African-American fraternity founded in the U.S.

Democrats have long pushed the voting measures, which include making Election Day a national holiday and expansive new mail-in voting requirements. However, a string of voting measures passed in GOP-controlled state legislatures have given Democrats a new drive to act. Republicans call the Democratic measures an effort to grab power from states and unfairly malign requirements, such as voter ID, designed to strengthen election integrity.

Rep. James Clyburn (D., S.C.), the highest-ranking Black lawmaker in Congress and a key ally of Mr. Biden’s, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he had spent a lot of time this weekend reflecting on Dr. King’s 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

“He said to us in that letter something that is very, very, I would call it consequential today. And that is this: Silence is consent. We have too much silence in the face of what’s going on around us today,” Mr. Clyburn said. Later, he said Ms. Sinema’s argument to keep the filibuster was wrong. He vowed to keep fighting, if the legislation fails this week.

“They may be on life support, but, you know, John Lewis and others did not give up after the ’64 Civil Rights Act. That’s why he got the ’65 Voting Rights Act. So, I want to tell everybody, we’re not giving up,” he said, referring to the late congressman of Georgia and civil-rights icon.

Ms. Sinema has said she supports the legislation. “But I will not support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country,” the Democrat said on the Senate floor Thursday.

Despite the setback, the King family, along with other civil-rights leaders and voting-rights advocates, will continue with their plans.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R., Utah), one of a handful of centrists open to working with Democrats, said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that he had never gotten a call from the White House on voting legislation but was open to a more limited overhaul. Still, he criticized Democrats’ current bills as a federal overreach.

“They want a real dramatic change,” he said. “They feel that instead of elections being run at the state level, they should really be managed and run at the federal level.” He added, “The founders didn’t have that vision in mind.”

Mr. Romney said there could be an opportunity for bipartisanship in reforming the Electoral Count Act, an 1887 law on how Congress deals with disputes over election results. He said a bipartisan group of senators discussing reforms now includes about 12 people.

The push comes as part of an effort to stop a repeat of what happened following the 2020 election when 147 Republicans voted against certifying the election results. Then President Donald Trump and his allies had urged then Vice President Mike Pence to reject the electoral votes, which he declined to do. That same day the Capitol was overrun by a pro-Trump mob seeking to stop the certification.

While Democrats generally are open to changes to the Electoral Count Act, they say it is a completely separate track from the election bills they are pursuing.

Mr. Clyburn said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that he would support changing the Electoral Count Act but noted such reforms would be focused on the presidential election and doesn’t have to do with going to the polls. “Let’s stop trying to change the subject here.”