Manchin Shatters Schumer’s Fantasies on the Filibuster, Build Back Better – Opinion

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced that he would be trying to create a filibuster carve out to pass a “voting rights” bill. The ultimate aim in their calculus has nothing whatever to do with “voting rights.” Everyone who can legally vote can do so. It is possible to vote without being stopped. This effort is to federalize the elections. And one of the reasons they’re in such a rush to get this done is because they know they are about to get creamed in the midterms — they need to do something, anything, to disrupt that.

As far as Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) — the two Democratic senators who are declared opponents of doing away with the filibuster — Schumer said that they had to keep “pressing them and pressing them and pressing them until they do [comply].”

ALSO IN @PunchbowlNews AM: We zoom into @SenSchumer’s impossibly tricky 2022, filled with priorities for which he doesn’t have an immediate, obvious or even stealthy path to success. pic.twitter.com/wDHkQGiVnJ

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) January 4, 2022

This strategy was so successful before! It’s a way of expecting different results by doing the exact same thing again and again. Chuck isn’t making much sense. Of course, the problem is he can’t argue from sense because all sense goes in the opposite direction. They are now in minority and no longer hold the power. What will they do? They’re not thinking of that because they’re throwing everything they can into grabbing the power now, with the idea that if they do so, they can block out the Republicans in perpetuity.

But Joe Manchin has already popped Schumer’s bubble and done in this goal. He told reporters today that any carveout would be a “heavy lift,” that if you did that “you eat the whole turkey,” meaning you once you go down that road, you’ve killed the filibuster. He refused to go along with anything that wasn’t bipartisan. Translation: No dice, Chuckie. Schumer seems to be refusing delivery of the message.

Manchin stated that he knew this would backfire on the Democrats if they do anything stupid. “For us to go it alone….it comes back at you pretty hard,” Manchin said, specifically mentioning the late Harry Reid blowing up the filibuster for lower-level judges and how that came back to bite the Democrats. He and Sinema get that, but most of the other Democrats don’t.

But Manchin didn’t leave it there. Because there were reports that there was talk of reducing the Build Back Better bill into smaller, easier to pass bills, Manchin responded to inquiries about its current status. Manchin refuted all of this, at least as far as he is concerned. “There is no negotiation going on at this time,” Manchin said.

Senator Joe Manchin says, “I am not going to discuss Build Back Better any more because I believe I have been very clear about that.” No negotiations are taking place, OK? pic.twitter.com/SDNJhU8ew3

— The Hill (@thehill) January 4, 2022

Manchin said he wasn’t going to do anything to divide the country and that everyone needed to work across the aisle.

So, I don’t know what it is that Schumer thinks he’s going to do with a vote, apart from maybe hurting some of his people that might need to run in more moderate or red districts. As we noted, Joe Manchin’s position may actually help some of those people if they aren’t tagged with voting for the BBB. It sure doesn’t sound like Schumer has Manchin on board with anything.