The Bulletin., January 20, 2022, Page 13, Image 13

The BulleTin • Thursday, January 20, 2022 A13
Senate engages in raw debate in
fight to end voting-bill filibuster
BY LISA MASCARO
associated Press
WASHINGTON — Senators
faced off after an emotional,
raw debate Wednesday on vot-
ing legislation that Democrats
and civil rights leaders say is
vital for protecting democracy
but that almost certainly will
be defeated without a filibuster
rules change, in what would be
a stinging setback for President
Joe Biden and his party.
Vice President Kamala Har-
ris arrived on Capitol Hill to
preside over the evening pro-
ceedings, able to cast a potential
tie-breaking vote.
Despite his late push, Biden
has been unable to persuade
two holdout Democrats,
Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and
Joe Manchin of West Virginia,
to change Senate rules so the
party can overpower a Repub-
lican filibuster that is blocking
the voting bill. The two senators
have withstood an onslaught
of criticism from Black leaders
and civil rights organizations,
and they risk further political
fallout as other groups and even
their own colleagues threaten to
yank campaign support.
In piercing speeches, the de-
bate is carrying echoes of an
earlier era when the Senate fil-
ibuster was deployed by oppo-
nents of civil rights legislation.
Voting rights advocates warn
that Republican-led states are
passing laws making it more
difficult for Black Americans
and others to vote by consol-
idating polling locations, re-
quiring certain types of iden-
tification and ordering other
changes.
Sen. Raphael Warnock,
D-Ga., called it a “moral mo-
ment” for the Senate.
Democrats decided to press
ahead at a tumultuous time for
Biden and his party.
Senate Majority Leader
Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., con-
tended fight is not over and he
ridiculed Republican claims
amanda andrade-rhoades / freelancer aP
From left, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, and
House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., and other members of the
Congressional Black Caucus, walk to the Senate chamber to speak to
reporters about their support of voting rights legislation at the Capitol
in Washington on Wednesday.
that the new election laws in the
states will not end up hurting
voter access and turnout. “We
are going to keep fighting long
after today,” Schumer said.
The Freedom to Vote: John
R. Lewis Act would make Elec-
tion Day a national holiday,
ensure access to early voting
and mail-in ballots — which
have become especially pop-
ular during the COVID-19
pandemic — and enable the
Justice Department to inter-
vene in states with a history
of voter interference, among
other changes. It has passed the
House.
Both Manchin and Sinema
say they support the legislation
but are unwilling to change
Senate rules. With a 50-50 split,
Democrats have a narrow Sen-
ate majority — Vice President
Kamala Harris can break a tie
— but they lack the 60 votes
needed to overcome the GOP
filibuster.
Instead, Schumer put for-
ward a more specific rules
change for a “talking filibuster”
on this one bill. It would require
senators to stand at their desks
and exhaust the debate before
holding a simple majority vote,
rather than the current practice
that simply allows senators to
privately signal their objections.
But even that is expected
to fail because Manchin and
Sinema have said they are un-
willing to change the rules on
a party-line vote by Democrats
alone.
Emotions were on display
during the floor debate.
When Sen. Dick Durbin,
D-Ill., asked Senate Republi-
can leader Mitch McConnell
of Kentucky whether he would
pause for a question, McCon-
nell left the chamber refusing to
respond.
Durbin said he would have
asked McConnell: “Does he re-
ally believe that there’s no evi-
dence of voter suppression?”
The No. 2 Republican, Sen.
John Thune of South Dakota,
said at one point: “I am not a
racist.”
McConnell, who led his party
in doing away with the filibus-
ter’s 60-vote threshold for Su-
preme Court nominees during
Donald Trump’s presidency,
warned off changing the rules
again.
McConnell derided the “fake
hysteria” from Democrats over
the states’ new voting laws and
called the pending bill a federal
takeover of election systems. He
said doing away with filibuster
rules would “break the Senate.”
Manchin drew a roomful of
senators for his own speech,
upstaging the president’s news
conference and defending the
filibuster. He said majority rule
would only “add fuel to the fire”
and it was “dysfunction that is
tearing this nation apart.”
Just as Manchin and Sinema
blocked Biden’s broad “Build
Back Better” domestic spending
package, the two senators are
now dashing hopes for another
major part of Biden’s agenda.
They are infuriating many of
their colleagues and facing a
barrage of criticism, particularly
from civil rights leaders.
Several members of the Con-
gressional Black Caucus walked
across the Capitol building for
the proceedings. “We want this
Senate to act today in a favor-
able way. But if it don’t, we ain’t
giving up,” said Rep. James Cly-
burn, D-S.C., the highest-rank-
ing Black member of Congress.
Manchin did open the door
to a more tailored package of
voting law changes, including to
the Electoral Count Act, which
was tested during the Jan. 6,
2021, insurrection at the Capi-
tol. He said senators from both
parties are working on that and
it could draw Republican sup-
port.
Sen. Lisa Murkowksi,
R-Alaska, said a bipartisan co-
alition should work on legis-
lation to ensure voter access,
particularly in far-flung areas
like her state, and to shore up
Americans’ faith in democracy.
“We don’t need, we do not
need a repeat of 2020 when by
all accounts our last president,
having lost the election, sought
to change the results,” said Mur-
kowski.
She said the Senate debate
had declined to a troubling
state: “You’re either a racist or a
hypocrite. Really, really? Is that
where we are?”
Biden says Putin will
pay ‘dear price’ if he
invades Ukraine
BY AAMER MADHANI AND
MATTHEW LEE
associated Press
WASHINGTON — Presi-
dent Joe Biden said Wednes-
day he thinks Russia will
invade Ukraine and warned
President Vladimir Putin
that his country would pay
a “dear price” in lives lost
and a possible cutoff from
the global banking system if
it does.
Biden, speaking at a news
conference to mark his one-
year anniversary in office,
also said a “minor incur-
sion” by Russia would elicit
a lesser response. He later
sought to clarify that he was
referring to a nonmilitary
action, such as a cyberat-
tack, that would be met
with a similar reciprocal re-
sponse, and that if Russian
forces cross the Ukrainian
border, killing Ukrainian
fighters, “that changes ev-
erything.”
But the comments also
hinted at the challenge of
keeping the United States
and its NATO allies united
in their response to Russia.
In explaining the minor in-
cursion remark, he said, “it’s
very important that we keep
everyone in NATO on the
same page.”
The news conference
came at a critical moment
in Europe as Russia has
amassed 100,000 troops
near the Ukrainian bor-
der and a series of talks in
Europe last week failed to
ease tensions. Secretary of
State Antony Blinken will
meet with Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov
in Geneva on Friday. On
Wednesday, Blinken met
with Ukraine’s president in
Kyiv and he heads to Berlin
on Thursday for talks with
allies.
Even after he sought
to clarify his comments
about a potential NATO re-
sponse to a “minor incur-
sion” by Russia, the White
House moved quickly to
make clear that Biden was
not telegraphing to Putin
that the U.S. would tolerate
some military action against
Ukraine.
As the White House did
cleanup, Biden faced a bar-
rage of criticism over the
“minor incursion” remark.
“This is the wrong way
to view this threat,” said
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio,
who was part of a biparti-
san congressional delegation
that traveled to Kyiv over
the weekend to meet with
Ukrainian officials. “Any in-
cursion by the Russian mili-
tary into Ukraine should be
viewed as a major incursion
because it will destabilize
Ukraine and freedom-lov-
ing countries in Eastern Eu-
rope.”
Ukraine, meanwhile, said
it was prepared for the worst
and would survive whatever
difficulties come its way.
The president urged the
country not to panic.
Russian military activ-
ity has been increasing in
recent weeks, but the U.S.
has not concluded whether
Putin plans to invade or
whether the show of force is
intended to squeeze the se-
curity concessions without
an actual conflict.
Meanwhile, a top Rus-
sian diplomat said Moscow
would not back down from
its insistence that the U.S.
formally ban Ukraine from
ever joining NATO and re-
duce its and the alliance’s
military presence in East-
ern Europe. Deputy Foreign
Minister Sergei Ryabkov
said Moscow had no inten-
tion of invading Ukraine but
that its demands for security
guarantees were non-nego-
tiable.
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