The fact that the Democrats are reacting publicly this way after Manchin seemingly delivered a final "no" on the BBB "reconciliation" plan, which basically involves most of Biden's first year legislative agenda, shows at a minimum they think they need to demonstrate to the Democratic base that they're actually making some effort to fight for their own side.
One result of the process we've seen of Manchinema dragging out the finalization of the BBB bill since the summer is that it sends a grim message to potential Democratic voters in 2022:
- The Democrats control the Presidency and both Houses of Congress and can't get their own programs passed.
- The Democrats control the Presidency and both Houses of Congress and can't get their own programs passed.
- The Democrats control the Presidency and both Houses of Congress and can't get their own programs passed.
Voting rights: preserving democratic elections
For voting rights, the stakes are preserving democracy and defeating the massive Republican voting-suppression efforts that broadly follow the model of the post-Reconstruction, Jim Crow voter-suppression laws in the state of the former Confederacy.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has set a vote on exempting voting rights legislation from the filibuster rule for January 17, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. West Virginia coal baron Joe Manchin is still holding out at this point on not changing the filibuster rule without support from Republicans. This claim is a bad joke. Manchin knows very well Republican Senators are not going to allow voting rights legislation to pass if they can stop it
This is an interview with Chuck Schumer in which Joý Ried asks some unusually tough questions about whether he can deliver on the filibuster change: Sen. Schumer On Manchin, Sinema: We've Got To Keep Pressing Them On Voting Rights Action MSNBC 01/04/2021.
President Biden this year has defined the situation is very dramatic terms. ""It's the most dangerous threat to voting and the integrity of free and fair elections in our history," he said in July. More recently, he declared in a commemoration speech in South Carolina (Remarks by President Biden 12/19/2021):
I’ve never seen anything like the unrelenting assault on the right to vote. Never. I don’t think any of you have, on this stage, ever seen it. Not a joke.I can remember feeling some of that exaggerated optimism in the 1990s, when I thought that for all the very obvious racism and regressive politics that were already on the national agenda, that the Southern states would not be willing to go back to Jim Crow type segregation. And while no Members of Congress that I've heard of are currently advocating segregated drinking fountains, the old "states rights" segregation of the 1960s and 1960s is obviously still alive and well and has been passed on to significant segments of subsequent generations of white people.
And, folks, you know, as John Lewis said, it is the only — without the right to vote, there is no democracy. It’s not just about who gets to vote or making it easier, as we used to try to do, to make people eligible be able to vote. It’s about who gets to count the vote or whether your vote counts at all. ...
[T]his new sinister combination of voter suppression and election subversion: it’s un-American, it’s undemocratic,
But this battle is not over. We must pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. We must. ...
And finally, we continue to confront the oldest and darkest forces in this nation: hate and racism. ...
I’ve known every major world leader in the last 40 years. I’ve spoken to over 140 heads of state since I’ve become President.
Do you know what they all ask me? “Is America going to be all right?” What about democracy in America? Did you ever think you’d be asked that question by another leader? I’m not exaggerating ...
Despite all the laws enacted through the struggles we know, we knew we could make progress. But one of things I thought and Jim [Congressman James Clyburn] probably didn’t — but I thought, Jim — I thought when we had some of those major victories, we’d finally crossed a threshold. But what I didn’t realize is you can defeat hate, but you can’t eliminate it. It just slides back under a rock. And when given oxygen by political leaders, it comes out ugly and mean as it was before.
We can’t give it any oxygen. We have to step on it. We have to respond to it. (Applause.) It’s not who we are. It’s a minority. But if the majority doesn’t speak up, it has a profound impact.
And that’s what we’ve seen the last few years. We cannot, we must not give hate any safe harbor. We have to shine the brightest light as we can on it. That’s the ultimate disinfectant: Call it out. [my emphasis]
Nobody but corporate lobbyists and opponents of voting rights actually care about the filibuster. It's an undemocratic rule that the radicalized Republican Party now routinely uses to block Democratic-sponsored legislation. So it's good that Schumer has set a deadline for a vote. However, in practice that also makes it a make-or-break date. If that effort fails, the Democrats will keep voting rights legislation on the list of issues they include in their fundraising emails and recite in campaign speeches. But we need new federal voting rights legislation in 2021 and the Democrats failed to pass it. We can insert all the ifs, ands, and buts that we want after that. But it didn't pass. If the Jan. 17 gambit fails, in practice that will mean that voting rights legislation is dead in 2022, as well.
People can follow developments in the voting rights fight at Democracy Docket, the website of Marc Elias, who is heading the current court fights for the Democrats in the states. The Brennan Center has a great deal of information on voting rights issues, including this online petition to Senators. It's important to remember that enacting any substantive federal voting rights act right now requires changing the Senate filibuster rule. All Democratic Senators including Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema support two major bills, the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. But the Republicans are filibuster it, and there is no remotely likely scenario in which enough Republicans would agree to end debate under the filibuster rule so the laws could be sent to Biden's desk for signature.
Build Back Better: green infrastructure and rebuilding the social state
Unlike the two voting rights bills just mentioned, the BBB ("reconciliation") package has been more of a moving target since Congress began debating it. So if it does pass in something like the current form, we basically won't know which parts of the package actually made the cut. This CNN report gives some basic facts on the version of BBB that Joe Manchin recently dead last weekend: Tami Luhby and Katie Lobosco, Biden's Build Back Better plan is on ice. Here's what that means for you 12/20/2021.
It includes important (though sadly insufficient) steps toward more actively countering climate change. But it also includes other labor and social provisions that constitute a large part of Biden's own legislative agenda: guaranteed paid sick leave and family leave, continuation of child tax credits, a universal pre-K program, and others.
The "bipartisan" infrastructure bill (the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, IIJA) is essentially a glorified highway bill. As David Dayen notes, " it’s one of those pieces of legislation that can simultaneously be called the biggest boost to infrastructure in U.S. history and a modest effort at the same time." The Build Back Better "reconciliation" bill is qualitatively different and includes significant elements of social infrastructure and economic policy. As Dayen puts it, "A one-time boost of investment in physical infrastructure is welcome and should be cherished. But many of the ambitions President Biden had in his initial infrastructure proposal cannot be realized through this effort." (Infrastructure Summer: The Bipartisan Bill Is Step One of Many The American Prospect 08/10/2021)
It's also worth noting that the "bipartisan" IIJA bill, also referred to as the $1 trillion bill, But only roughly half of it can be considered new spending, but does include "nearly $550 billion in new spending above what Congress was already planning to allocate for infrastructure over the next eight years." (Barbara Sprunt et al, Biden says final passage of $1 trillion infrastructure plan is a big step forward NPR 11/06/2021)
Since a significant portion of the IIJA deals with familiar kinds of physical infrastructure and is a multiple-year bill, how much the public will be able to associate obvious benefits from IIJA projects with the Biden Administration's passage of the bill during the 2022 election year. Adie Tomer et al note that while "over half of new spending is transportation-focused," it also includes "[e]ntirely new programs have been authorized to address essential gaps in our nation’s current infrastructure funding, like resilience." (America has an infrastructure bill. What happens next? Brookings 11/09/2021)
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