WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats suffered twin legislative defeats late yesterday in their push to toughen voting rights protections in the run-up to this November’s mid-term elections that will determine control of Congress in 2023. In back-to-back votes late on Wednesday, Senate Republicans first blocked Democrats’ move to advance the voting rights legislation toward passage. It was the fifth time in less than a year that they did so.
They employed the decades old “filibuster” rule to stop the legislation, which requires the cooperation of at least 60 of the Senate’s 100 members to keep bills alive. The Senate currently is split 50-50.
In lightning speed, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, then moved to revamp the filibuster rule by lowering the 60-vote threshold to 50. This time, it was not Republicans, but Schumer’s own Democrats – conservatives Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema – who put the final nail in the coffin by voting against the rules change.
