Manchin Makes His Voting Rights Offer, But GOP Filibuster Dooms It From The Start

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?? Hello readers! This week’s Franchise is a collaboration, and a hand-off. Tierney Sneed, TPM investigative and longtime voting rights beat reporter, has accepted a position at CNN covering the DOJ. After six-plus years at TPM, we bid her a fond farewell.

But never fear. Matt Shuham, who’s covered right-wing extremism for TPM — including Donald Trump’s attacks on the democratic process and GOP efforts to restrict voting rights — is taking over The Franchise. Please keep sending us your voting rights-related tips, observations and questions by replying to this email.

Alright, let’s dig in.

After announcing his opposition to Democrats’ headline “For The People” voting rights package, also known as S.1, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has offered his own compromise list of voting priorities. Here’s a quick rundown:

• Manchin backs S.1’s positions on early in-person voting, automatic voter registration and banning partisan gerrymandering.
• But he rejected the bill’s requirement that states offer no-excuse absentee voting.
• He also pushed for tougher voter ID laws than the rest of the caucus appears interested in, but hedged that things like utility bills could work to confirm a voter’s identity.
• Additionally, Manchin wants to water down another voting bill, the "John Lewis Voting Rights Act," which Democrats have proposed to fill in the gaps created when the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013.

The Manchin proposal earned praise from the likes of Stacey Abrams, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) — and was promptly met with obstinacy from Republicans. When “Stacey Abrams immediately endorsed Sen. Manchin’s proposal, it became the Stacey Abram’s substitute, not the Joe Manchin substitute,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) said Thursday. New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie called that sentiment the “one drop rule for legislation.”

No matter what, Manchin’s counteroffer doesn’t address the elephant in the room when it comes to voting rights: Manchin’s still not willing to change filibuster rules — despite his continued flirtation with the idea of “reform,” as captured by a leaked conversation with the centrist group No Labels. And, so far, he doesn’t have the support of the 10 Republicans he would need to get his list of priorities, in whatever form they take, to Joe Biden’s desk.

Filibuster or not, Democrats want at least 50 votes on a voting measure this week. Manchin, ever the belle of the intra-party ball, even got some state-level attention recently: A group of Texas Democrats, after meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss voting rights, made their way to the next most important office in D.C., that of the senator from West Virginia.

Someone, or someones, was recently knocking on doors in Yavapai County, Arizona, asking people who they voted for and claiming to work for the county recorder’s office. It’s unclear if the posers’ “canvassing” is tied to the sketchy “audit” in the state. But with Yavapai County just north of Maricopa, where “audit” leadership was dissuaded from a similar canvassing effort by a stern DOJ letter, the door-knocking has the county sheriff and recorder’s office on high alert.

The Maricopa County audit has itself done some traveling: Voting information has found its way to a cabin in the woods in… Montana.

The audit remains, literally, incredible: Audit leader Doug Logan, the CEO of “Cyber Ninjas,” didn’t have election experience prior to Trump’s 2020 loss, and friends of his recently told CNN they were flummoxed by his position in the Trumpian spotlight. Logan and other audit leaders have so far ignored a check-your-work challenge from a bipartisan group of election experts who’ve already completed an election recount of sorts -- without opening a box, using entirely public records. (Yes, they found that Trump lost Arizona.)

The House Oversight Committee has released emails showing the former administration’s behind-the-scenes effort to pressure the Justice Department into laying the groundwork for a stolen Trump second term. They show then-White House chief of Staff Mark Meadows pressuring the DOJ to, among other things, check out a theory that Italian intelligence operatives somehow flipped the results of the election via satellite.

Separately, public records obtained by the group American Oversight and shared exclusively with TPM show the template that Trump allies used to bring their case to the Supreme Court. Surprise: Kris Kobach is deeply involved.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in Michigan has ordered every attorney who participated in a lawsuit there to overturn the election results, including Sidney Powell, to appear in court for a sanctions hearing on July 6. In California, a federal judge dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit from California Republicans, including several losing congressional candidates, asking to decertify the November results because of the purported potential for fraud.

Trump attacks against election officials are making their way into law in many states, where legislators are moving to take over management roles for themselves: A tally from the group States United Democracy Center this month identified 216 proposals in 41 states to interfere with election administration. At least 24 had been signed into law in 14 GOP-controlled states as of June 10.

The Washington Post: The GOP’s increasingly blunt argument: It needs voting restrictions to win

The New York Times: G.O.P. Bills Rattle Disabled Voters: ‘We Don’t Have a Voice Anymore’

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