Manchin’s reluctance puts Democrats’ U.S. voting rights bill at risk

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Democrats’ efforts to pass voting rights legislation in Congress appeared in jeopardy on Tuesday, as a centrist Democratic senator said he had little interest in a strategy that would allow the party to bypass Republican opposition.

Senator Joe Manchin told reporters that it was his “preference” to line up Republican support for a rule change that would allow Democrats to pass a voting rights bill on a party-line vote. That could spell doom for the legislation, which Republicans oppose.

“For us to go it alone, no matter what side does it, it just ends up coming back at you pretty hard,” Manchin told reporters.

His remarks came a day after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate would vote to change chamber’s rule known as the filibuster by Jan. 17 https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-vote-changing-rules-if-republicans-obstruct-voting-rights-law-schumer-2022-01-03, the federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King, in order to enact voting rights legislation.

Without Manchin’s support, Senate Democrats would not be able to muster the votes necessary to alter the filibuster, which requires a 60-vote majority to pass most bills. The 100-seat Senate is split 50-50, with Democrats in charge only because Vice President Kamala Harris casts a tie-breaking vote.

Manchin’s objections have also complicated Democratic efforts to pass President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion climate and social policy legislation.

Democrats would need 10 Republicans to support voting rights legislation if Senate rules went unchanged. But Republicans have repeatedly used the filibuster to block the measures.

Manchin and another centrist holdout, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, were due to meet later on Tuesday with fellow Democrats, according to Schumer.

Most Democrats want the filibuster changed to accommodate voting rights legislation after a wave of Republican-led states last year passed new restrictions on voting.

The state laws were inspired by Republican former President Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election that he lost to Biden by a substantial margin.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and David Morgan;Editing by Andy Sullivan, Tomasz Janowski and Cynthia Osterman)