Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) on Sunday suggested that there could still be alternatives to a filibuster carveout for voting rights legislation now that Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) last week reiterated their loyalty to the filibuster. Democrats appear to lack the votes needed for rules changes.
After saying that senators need to be on the record about where they stand in protecting voting rights, Kaine told CBS that he acknowledges that Democrats currently do not have the votes to pass both the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights bill, but that the Senate is canceling its Martin Luther King Day recess because of the importance of pushing both bills through.
“And we will be voting, both on the bills,” Kaine said. “But also if we can’t get Republican support for the bills — we have uniform Democratic support, could we find a path to make some rules, adjustments to pass them.”
Kaine went on to suggest “other paths” to push voting rights legislation through the Senate after Sinema and Manchin re-stated their opposition to a filibuster carveout.
“There’s other paths that we could take where we just — the 60-vote threshold is only if you want to limit debate, we could do longer debate and then end the debate and have a simple majority,” Kaine said. “But we will have a vote on the bills, and we will have a vote on a rules path to get there because it’s so important for the country.”
Kaine’s comments come on the heels of Sinema and Manchin making clear that they will not budge on reforming the filibuster — even for the voting rights bills they support.
On Sunday, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) said that voting rights legislation on the Hill “may be on life support” with Democrats lacking the 50 votes needed for the rules changes — such as a filibuster carveout — needed to push their election reform legislation through the evenly-split chamber.
Clyburn has expressed openness to changing the Electoral Count Act, which outlines how Congress tallies the Electoral College vote and which President Trump sought to exploit on Jan. 6.
That proposal appears to have supporters in both parties. Earlier this month, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that changes to the Electoral Count Act was “worth discussing.” However, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called McConnell’s plan — ECA reform without accompanying voting legislation — “unacceptably insufficient and even offensive,” arguing that it doesn’t “deal with the problem” and would be “doing the bare minimum.”
Schumer signaled that the Senate will take up voting rights legislation on Tuesday.
Watch Kaine’s remarks below:
How about this? Enough with what you could do, just do it. I don’t need to see the sausage get made, I’m just hungry and want to eat. And if you can’t do it, just put it aside already. I think I speak for many when I say I just don’t want to hear this anymore. It really isn’t helpful.
What’s in the sausage is important. There’s always pork, even when you don’t know it’s there.
There was a time when that pork greased the skids enough that the nation’s business was attended to.
Getting rid of earmarks has contributed to the decline in comity
Myself, I would like there to be more work and less Performance Art for the 2 Prima Donnas. They both have tap-danced around being able work changes in the filibuster.
Their Performance Art is for the GOP.
The Dems (not being a tenth as skilled in lying and misdirection as the GOPPERs) have been toyed with to a great extent…and I do not blame them as much as most people seem to get a kick out of.
And by the way:
With respect to Voting Rights, whatever the 2 Prima Donnas do, Voting Rights as an issue will not go away this month. Or the next. Or the next…Or the…