Give. Joe. Manchin. Everything. He. Wants.
My oldest sons are nine, so 2032 will be the first presidential election they will be eligible to vote in. I’m not sure American democracy has that long. If GOP legislatures and conservative judges keep having their way, it’s only a matter of time before “Election Day” becomes a bitterly ironic farce.
We could do something about this, of course. We could pass the For the People Act, a bill that would ban partisan gerrymandering, undo almost all the voter suppression laws recently passed by Republican legislatures, and even make Election Day a national holiday, among other things. But until recently it looked like we most certainly wouldn’t, because of one man: Joe Manchin.
A week and a half ago he told us he would vote against the For the People Act, virtually guaranteeing its demise. He also said he would refuse to abolish or weaken the filibuster, hammering yet another nail in its coffin. Reading his arguments, I despaired. He seemed not to understand that his commitment to bipartisanship was both futile and counter-productive. Futile, because today’s GOP isn’t interested in negotiating a compromise on voting rights or much of anything else. Their political calculations tell them that the surest path back to power is to stymie Democratic reform efforts at every opportunity, then blame Democrats for the gridlock and hope voters punish the incumbents without looking deeper to see where the real fault for our political dysfunction lies.
Manchin’s quixotic quest for bipartisanship is also counter-productive to the extent that it involves slavish devotion to the filibuster. Granting forty senators a veto on all legislation strips the few moderates in their caucus of any incentive to negotiate. Why stick your neck out trying to help forge a compromise, and give your primary challenger plenty of soundbites to run on if, at the end of the day, you’re still going to come up short of sixty votes? On the other hand, Republicans who want to appease moderates in their states can always say, “look, it wasn’t my fault we couldn’t get bipartisan legislation passed. Almost nothing could get sixty votes.”
So going into this past weekend I felt there really was no hope. Then, yesterday, Manchin revealed the structure of a voting rights bill that would not only support, but that he believed was truly bipartisan. It allows certain voter ID requirements, and eliminates public funding of elections, both things that will irk progressives. BUT…. it also supports and end to partisan gerrymandering, fifteen days of early voting, and making Election Day a national holiday. It requires candidates for president and vice president to disclose their tax returns, and would eliminate “dark money,” forcing donors to candidates and political action committees to reveal their identities.
SOLD! Seriously, this should be the reaction of every Democrat on Capitol Hill. No negotiating, no dithering. Even if Manchin’s compromise did nothing more than ban partisan gerrymandering, I would back it. The rest is gravy. Gerrymandering already grossly distorts our political process. According to a report by the Center for American Progress, during the 2012, 2014, and 2016 elections, gerrymandering shifted the outcomes in 59 House races, on average. In most cases, that shift benefited the Republicans, because it’s just easier to “pack and crack” voters who live in densely populated areas, thus diluting the ballot power of voters who tend to lean Democratic. According to Fivethirtyeight, Republicans stand to benefit even more from the redistricting process that will follow in the wake of the 2020 census, thanks to victories in key states last November, and thanks to the conservative Supreme Court’s ruling in Rucho v. Common Cause, which will give them a free hand.
So I’ll take it. Tell Joe Manchin, “alright Joe, we’re one hundred percent behind you here. Now get as many Republicans on board as you can.”
There are several reason why Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and other members of the Democratic leadership should take this approach. First of all, it makes them look like the moderates in the room, while the inevitable Republican opposition will come off looking either extreme or, more likely, as if they were never negotiating in good faith in the first place. Which brings me to the second reason: nothing will make it clearer to Joe Manchin the impossibility of compromise with Republicans than allowing him to take his bill, a bill that he believes represents bipartisanship, to the GOP caucus, and having them throw it back in his face. It will be a rude awakening, but it needs to happen. He needs to be stripped of his illusions before he can be persuaded to reform Senate procedures. Which brings me to my final point: Manchin will not budge on the filibuster as long as he believes that it serves the interests of bipartisanship. Once he realizes it does not, he may be persuaded to sign off on reforms, like actually requiring Senators to stand up and debate rather than simply placing a passive hold on bills, that would make it harder, and more politically costly, to sustain a filibuster. Once the filibuster has been reformed, that will pave the way for other legislative action, on things like immigration and climate change, that would otherwise have died in committee.
Manchin’s wish list for voting rights may not include everything progressives want, but if enacted I would sleep better, knowing at least that democracy was safe, for now.