Filibusters and Debate Curbs

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      Voting Rights Bill Falters in Congress as States Race Ahead

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      Opposition from Republicans and some of their own senators has left Democrats struggling to determine whether they should try to nix the filibuster to save a top priority.WASHINGTON — In the national struggle over voting rights, Democrats have rested their hopes for turning back a wave of new restrictions in Republican-led states and expanding ballot access on their narrow majorities in Congress. Failure, they have repeatedly insisted, “is not an option.”But as Republican efforts to clamp down on voting prevail across the country, the drive to enact the most sweeping elections overhaul in generations is faltering in the Senate. With a self-imposed Labor Day deadline for action, Democrats are struggling to unite around a strategy to overcome solid Republican opposition and an almost certain filibuster.Republicans in Congress have dug in against the measure, with even the most moderate dismissing it as bloated and overly prescriptive. That leaves Democrats no option for passing it other than to try to force the bill through by destroying the filibuster rule — which requires 60 votes to put aside any senator’s objection — to pass it on a simple majority, party-line vote.But Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, the Democrats’ decisive swing vote, has repeatedly pledged to protect the filibuster and is refusing to sign on to the voting rights bill. He calls the legislation “too darn broad” and too partisan, despite endorsing such proposals in past sessions. Other Democrats also remain uneasy about some of its core provisions.Navigating the 800-page For the People Act, or Senate Bill 1, through an evenly split chamber was never going to be an easy task, even after it passed the House with only Democratic votes. But the Democrats’ strategy for moving the measure increasingly hinges on the longest of long shots: persuading Mr. Manchin and the other 49 Democrats to support both the bill and the gutting of the filibuster.“We ought to be able to pass it — it really would be transformative,” Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, said recently. “But if we have several members of our caucus who have just point-blank said, ‘I will not break the filibuster,’ then what are we even doing?”Summarizing the party’s challenge, another Democratic senator who asked to remain anonymous to discuss strategy summed it up this way: The path to passage is as narrow as it is rocky, but Democrats have no choice but to die trying to get across.The hand-wringing is likely to only intensify in the coming weeks. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, vowed to force a floor debate in late June, testing Mr. Manchin’s opposition and laying the groundwork to justify scrapping the filibuster rule.“Hopefully, we can get bipartisan support,” Mr. Schumer said. “So far, we have not seen any glimmers on S. 1, and if not, everything is on the table.”The stakes, both politically and for the nation’s election systems, are enormous.The bill’s failure would allow the enactment of restrictive new voting measures in Republican-led states such as Georgia, Florida and Montana to take effect without legislative challenge. Democrats fear that would empower the Republican Party to pursue a strategy of marginalizing Black and young voters based on former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims of election fraud.Demonstrators in the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta protested restrictive voting measures under consideration in March.Megan Varner/Getty ImagesIf the measure passed, Democrats could effectively overpower the states by putting in place new national mandates that they set up automatic voter registration, hold regular no-excuse early and mail-in voting, and restore the franchise to felons who have served their terms. The legislation would also end partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, restructure the Federal Election Commission and require super PACs to disclose their big donors.A legion of advocacy groups and civil rights veterans argue that the fight is just starting.“This game isn’t done — we are just gearing up for a floor fight,” said Tiffany Muller, the president of End Citizens United and Let America Vote, which are spending millions of dollars on television ads in states like West Virginia. “At the end of the day, every single senator is going to have to make a choice if they are going to vote to uphold the right to vote or uphold an arcane Senate rule. That is the situation that creates the pressure to act.”Proponents of the overhaul on and off Capitol Hill have focused their attention for weeks on Mr. Manchin, a centrist who has expressed deep concerns about the consequences of pushing through voting legislation with the support of only one party. So far, they have taken a deliberately hands-off approach, betting that the senator will realize that there is no real compromise to be had with Republicans.There is little sign that he has come to that conclusion on his own. Democrats huddled last week in a large conference room atop a Senate office building to discuss the bill, making sure Mr. Manchin was there for an elaborate presentation about why it was vital. Mr. Schumer invited Marc E. Elias, the well-known Democratic election lawyer, to explain in detail the extent of the restrictions being pushed through Republican statehouses around the country. Senators as ideologically diverse as Raphael Warnock of Georgia, a progressive, and Jon Tester of Montana, a centrist, warned what might happen if the party did not act.Mr. Manchin listened silently and emerged saying his position had not changed.“I’m learning,” he told reporters. “Basically, we’re going to be talking and negotiating, talking and negotiating, and talking and negotiating.”Senators Rob Portman of Ohio, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Gary Peters of Michigan this month in the Capitol. Ms. Sinema is a co-sponsor of the election overhaul, but she has also pledged not to change the filibuster.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesDespite the intense focus on him, Mr. Manchin is not the only hurdle. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Arizona, is a co-sponsor of the election overhaul, but she has also pledged not to change the filibuster. A handful of other Democrats have shied away from definitive statements but are no less eager to do away with the rule.“I’m not to that point yet,” Mr. Tester said. He also signaled he might be more comfortable modifying the bill, saying he “wouldn’t lose any sleep” if Democrats dropped a provision that would create a new public campaign financing system for congressional candidates. Republicans have pilloried it.“First of all, we have to figure out if we have all the Democrats on board. Then we have to figure out if we have any Republicans on board,” Mr. Tester said. “Then we can answer that question.”Republicans are hoping that by banding together, they can doom the measure’s prospects. They succeeded in deadlocking a key committee considering the legislation, though their opposition did not bar it from advancing to the full Senate. They accuse Democrats of using the voting rights provisions to distract from other provisions in the bill, which they argue are designed to give Democrats lasting political advantages. If they can prevent Mr. Manchin and others from changing their minds on keeping the filibuster, they will have thwarted the entire endeavor..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media 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(min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“I don’t think they can convince 50 of their members this is the right thing to do,” said Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri. “I think it would be hard to explain giving government money to politicians, the partisan F.E.C.”In the meantime, Mr. Manchin is pushing the party to embrace what he sees as a more palatable alternative: legislation named after Representative John Lewis of Georgia, the civil rights icon who died last year, that would restore a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the Supreme Court struck down in 2013.That measure would revive a mandate that states and localities with patterns of discrimination clear election law changes with the federal government in advance, a requirement Mr. Manchin has suggested should be applied nationwide.The senator has said he prefers the approach because it would restore a practice that was the law of the land for decades and enjoyed broad bipartisan support of the kind necessary to ensure the public’s trust in election law.In reality, though, that bill has no better chance of becoming law without getting rid of the filibuster. Since the 2013 decision, when the justices asked Congress to send them an updated pre-clearance formula for reinstatement, Republicans have shown little interest in doing so.Only one, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, supports legislation reinstating the voting rights provision in the Senate. Asked recently about the prospect of building more Republican support, Ms. Murkowski pointed out that she had been unable to attract another co-sponsor from her party in the six years since the bill was first introduced.Complicating matters, it has yet to actually be reintroduced this term and may not be for months. Because any new enforcement provision would have to pass muster with the courts, Democrats are proceeding cautiously with a series of public hearings.All that has created an enormous time crunch. Election lawyers have advised Democrats that they have until Labor Day to make changes for the 2022 elections. Beyond that, they could easily lose control of the House and Senate.“The time clock for this is running out as we approach a midterm election when we face losing the Senate and even the House,” said Representative Terri A. Sewell, a Democrat who represents the so-called Civil Rights Belt of Alabama and is the lead sponsor of the bill named for Mr. Lewis.“If the vote and protecting the rights of all Americans to exercise that most precious right isn’t worth overcoming a procedural filibuster,” she said, “then what is?”Luke Broadwater More

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      Senate Panel Deadlocks on Voting Rights as Bill Faces Major Obstacles

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      Democrats now face the task of overcoming their own differences on the measure, and deciding whether they will use it as a vehicle to try to curb the filibuster.WASHINGTON — A key Senate committee deadlocked on Tuesday over Democrats’ sweeping proposed elections overhaul, previewing a partisan showdown on the Senate floor in the coming months that could determine the future of voting rights and campaign rules across the country.The tie vote in the Senate Rules Committee — with nine Democrats in favor and nine Republicans opposed — does not prevent Democrats from moving forward with the 800-page legislation, known as the For the People Act. Proponents hailed the vote as an important step toward adopting far-reaching federal changes to blunt the restrictive new voting laws emerging in Republican-led battleground states like Georgia and Florida.But the action confronted Democrats with a set of thorny questions about how to push forward on a bill that they view as a civil rights imperative with sweeping implications for democracy and their party. The bill as written faces near-impossible odds in the evenly divided Senate, where Republicans are expected to block it using a filibuster and at least one Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, remains opposed.With their control in Washington potentially fleeting and Republican states racing ahead with laws to curtail ballot access, Democrats must reach consensus among themselves on the measure, and decide whether to attempt to destroy or significantly alter the Senate’s filibuster rules — which set a 60-vote threshold to overcome any objection to advancing legislation — to salvage its chances of becoming law.“Here in the 21st century, we are witnessing an attempt at the greatest contraction of voting rights since the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of Jim Crow,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said at the session’s outset.He cited a new law in Iowa restricting early and mail-in voting, another in Florida cutting back on the use of drop boxes and making it harder to vote by mail, and one in Georgia, where Democrats have attacked the decision to bar third parties from giving water or snacks to voters waiting in long lines.“These laws carry the stench of oppression, the smell of bigotry,” Mr. Schumer said, telling Republicans they faced a “legacy-defining choice.” “Are you going to stamp it out, or are you going to spread it?”Among other changes, Democrats’ bill would essentially overwrite such changes by setting a nationwide floor on ballot access. Each state would be required to implement 15 days of early voting, no-excuse vote by mail programs like the ones many states expanded during the pandemic and automatic and same-day voter registration. Voting rights would be restored to those who had served prison sentences for felonies, and states would have to accept a workaround neutering voter identification laws that Democrats say can make it harder for minorities to vote.Over eight hours of debate, the clash only served to highlight how vast philosophical differences over elections have come to divide the two parties in the shadow of former President Donald J. Trump’s lies about fraud and theft in the 2020 contest.Republicans gave no indication they were willing to cede any ground to Democrats in a fight that stretches from the Capitol in Washington to state houses across the country. Instead, with Mr. Schumer’s Republican counterpart, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, taking the lead, they argued that Democrats were merely using state laws as a fig leaf to justify an unnecessary and self-serving federal power grab “cooked up at the Democratic National Committee.”“Our democracy is not in crisis, and we’re not going to let one party take over our democracy under the false pretense of saving it,” Mr. McConnell said.He and other Republicans on the committee were careful to sidestep many of Mr. Trump’s outlandish claims of fraud, which have taken deep root in the party, fueling the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol and prompting state lawmakers to adjust their election laws. But in a late-afternoon statement, Mr. Trump, who still towers over the party, made clear the connection between those lies and the push to curb ballot access, calling for every state to adopt restrictive voting laws, including voter-identification requirements, “so we never again have an election rigged and stolen from us.”“The people are demanding real reform!” Mr. Trump wrote.While the Rules Committee vote fulfilled Democrats’ pledge to thoroughly consider the bill before it reached the floor, it left an enormous challenge for Mr. Schumer. Progressive activists are spending millions of dollars to ramp up pressure on Democrats to quickly scrap the filibuster or miss a chance to implement the changes before 2022. The bill already passed the House with only Democratic votes.“What is intense pressure now is only going to grow,” said Eli Zupnick, a former Senate leadership aide and a spokesman for Fix Our Senate, a coalition of liberal groups pushing to eliminate the filibuster. “There is no way out. There is no third option. It is either the filibuster or the For the People Act.”But Mr. Manchin and a small group of others remain uncomfortable both with changing Senate rules and with provisions of the underlying bill, which also includes a public financing system for congressional candidates, far-reaching new ethics requirements for Congress and the White House, an end to gerrymandering congressional districts and dozens of other significant changes.Demonstrators protesting Georgia’s voting legislation in Atlanta in March.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesDemocratic senators plan to meet privately Thursday afternoon to begin deliberations over how to move forward, according to two Democratic officials who discussed the scheduled private session on the condition of anonymity.At least some senators appear ready to make wholesale changes if necessary to win the support of Mr. Manchin and other hesitant Democrats. One of them, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, said the stakes were “existential” if Democrats failed.“If we can’t unify behind it, I think there are going to be some tough decisions to maybe set pieces of it aside,” Mr. Kaine said in an interview.Democrats proposed only modest changes during Thursday’s marathon session in the Rules Committee.Republicans rejected a large package of changes meant to address concerns raised primarily by state elections administrators who have complained that some voting provisions would be expensive or onerous to implement.Republicans also rejected a proposal by Senator Jon Ossoff, Democrat of Georgia, to strike down bans, like one included in Georgia’s new law, on providing water to voters stuck in long lines to cast ballots..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media 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(min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}When the time came to offer their own amendments, Republicans were far more ambitious, submitting 150 proposals to kill various pieces of the bill. Ultimately, they demanded votes on only a couple of dozen, many of which forced Democrats to defend positions Republicans believe are politically unpopular.Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, the top Republican on the committee, tried to strip the provision creating a public financing system that would match small donations to congressional candidates with federal funds. Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, argued the case against it most vividly, calculating how much each member of the committee might receive in matching funds, including $24 million for himself.Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, the top Republican on the Senate panel considering the measure, tried to strip the bill of a public financing system that would match small donations to congressional candidates with federal funds.Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times“Your constituents in every one of your states, I would venture, do not want to give your campaigns or my campaign millions of dollars in federal funds,” he said. “We do not need welfare for politicians.”Democrats pointed out that the public financing would be optional, but defended it as far preferable to the current system, in which politicians largely rely on a small number of wealthy donors and special interests to bankroll their campaigns. The amendment failed.“If people want to pay for their campaigns with big-money donors instead, I guess that’s what they’ll do,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the committee chairwoman.In a sign of the how seriously both parties took the debate, Mr. McConnell, who rarely attends hearings as party leader, remained glued to the dais for much of the day, sparring vigorously with Democrats. He was most animated in opposition to proposed changes to campaign finance laws, reprising his role as the Senate’s pre-eminent champion of undisclosed, unlimited political spending.“Regardless of who has a partisan advantage here — let’s just put that aside — is it the business of the government to supervise political speech, to decide what you can say about an issue that may be in proximity to an election?” he said.Mr. McConnell called unsuccessfully for dropping language that would require super PACs to disclose the identities of their big donors and a proposed restructuring of the Federal Election Commission to make it more partisan.Mr. Ossoff pushed back. Arguing that there was often no difference between the objectives of super PACs and traditional campaigns, he said, “The public should have the right to know who is putting significant resources into influencing the views of the voters.” More

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      Why Arizona’s Senators May Collide With Democrats Who Elected Them

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhy Arizona’s Senators May Collide With Democrats Who Elected ThemSenators Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly ran on bipartisan approaches to governing, but some Democrats in Arizona view their openness to Senate Republicans with skepticism.Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Arizona, at the 2020 State of the Union address. She and Senator Mark Kelly have assumed unusual stature amid all the talk about bipartisanship.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesFeb. 2, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETDemocrats control the U.S. Senate by a single vote. President Biden has placed bipartisanship near the top of his agenda. Republican senators are pushing for deals, including on Covid-19 during a meeting on Monday with the president. On the economy, on immigration, on health care — the Biden administration will need votes from every senator it can get.Which is where Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly come in.Arizona’s two Democratic senators, both moderates, have assumed unusual stature amid all the talk about bipartisanship. Ms. Sinema made waves and frustrated progressives last month when she aligned with Republicans to maintain the filibuster, which empowers the minority party. Mr. Kelly was part of a bipartisan group of 16 senators who recently met with White House officials to discuss Covid relief. The pair represent a state that Mr. Biden narrowly flipped in November; pleasing Arizona is a new Democratic priority.But if Ms. Sinema and Mr. Kelly are emerging as players in Washington, the politics back home are more complicated. Arizona Democratic Party officials and activists threw themselves into the two senators’ races, despite the fact that many of these Democrats are more progressive than either Ms. Sinema or Mr. Kelly. Now they are eager for their senators not just to embrace the middle, but also to adopt the policies the left is pressing for as well. Many view the senators’ openness to Republicans with skepticism.Mr. Kelly and his wife, former Representative Gabrielle Giffords, after his swearing-in ceremony in December.Credit…Al Drago for The New York Times“So many things went into Kelly and Sinema’s victory that no one effort can take credit, but also everything was necessary, so nothing can be sacrificed,” said Ian Danley, the executive director of Arizona Wins, who helped coordinate voter outreach among dozens of liberal organizations last year. “They’re both in a tough spot. Those different strategies from a policy perspective can be in conflict.”Ms. Sinema, who was elected in 2018, and Mr. Kelly, who won last year, both ran for office on bipartisan approaches to government. And given the narrow Democratic control in the Senate, both senators are likely to prove essential to the Biden agenda as well as any major legislative deal-making on issues central to the state, including immigration, health care and Covid relief.Their importance was on clear display last week when Vice President Kamala Harris included the Phoenix ABC affiliate and The Arizona Republic’s editorial board in a round of interviews as she promoted the administration’s Covid relief package. Though Ms. Harris did not mention Ms. Sinema or Mr. Kelly by name, she left no doubt that their loyalty was paramount.“If we don’t pass this bill, I’m going to be very candid with you: We know more people are going to die in our country,” Ms. Harris said in the interview with The Republic. “More people will lose their jobs and our children are going to miss more school. We’ve got to be here collectively to say that that is not an option in America.”That same day, Ms. Harris offered similar comments to a television station and newspaper in West Virginia. Later, Senator Joe Manchin III, a Democrat who has represented the state since 2010 and relishes his reputation as an independent, voiced his own frustration, saying her interview was “not a way of working together.”Ms. Sinema and Mr. Kelly made no such comments, and some progressives viewed their silence as worrisome.“We need to be able to depend on these senators that we worked so hard to elect,” said Tomás Robles, an executive director of LUCHA, a civil rights group that knocked on tens of thousands of doors in Arizona for Democrats last year. “If they’re going to act like a moderate Republican, we will remember by the time elections come. We expect them to recognize that Latinos voted overwhelmingly for those two, and we expect them to repay our loyalty.”Nayeli Jaramillo-Montes, a canvasser with the Arizona advocacy group LUCHA, which knocked on tens of thousands of doors for Democrats last year.Credit…Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York TimesFor many immigration activists, a sense of pessimism has already begun to sink in. They fear that Democrats will try to strike a deal with Republicans who are unlikely to approve the sweeping changes Mr. Biden has proposed — similar to the strategy that failed during the Obama administration.Erika Andiola, a Phoenix-based immigration activist, became the first known undocumented congressional aide when she worked for Ms. Sinema in 2013, drawn to what she saw as Ms. Sinema’s intense interest and commitment in the issue. Now, Ms. Andiola said she viewed her former boss as moving to a more conservative stance on immigration — more often emphasizing border security than creating a path to citizenship for the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.“There is a window of time now and there is a way for Democrats to get something done on immigration — and they can do it on their own,” Ms. Andiola said. “In the moment of crisis, you have to choose your battles, you have to choose what you can win. Pick the right strategy. Compromising with Republicans is not going to get us anywhere.”Both Ms. Sinema and Mr. Kelly declined to be interviewed for this article, but statements from their offices emphasized bipartisanship and border security, as well as support for Dreamers, who were brought to the United States as children of unauthorized immigrants and have been threatened with deportation at times. Mr. Kelly is already part of the group of 16 senators tasked with finding bipartisan agreement on the relief package. Ms. Sinema has been one of the most outspoken critics of Arizona’s response to the pandemic, and some Arizona Democrats believe she will be supportive of the Biden administration’s package.Raquel Terán, the newly elected chair of the Arizona Democratic Party and a state representative, acknowledged that the two senators “didn’t campaign on the progressive end of spectrum.” But she said that while there might be some disagreements, she expected both to side with Mr. Biden on the relief package, health care and immigration.Raquel Terán, the new chair of the Arizona Democratic Party, said she expected the state’s senators to back President Biden’s agenda.Credit…Bob Christie/Associated Press“They will vote for the Democratic agenda, the agenda that Joe Biden has put forward — they supported him in the election and what they put on the table, so I am hopeful,” Ms. Terán said. “I hope that they will do everything to ensure that his agenda is not blocked.”Arizona has a long history with high-profile, independent-minded senators willing to buck party lines, and others who amassed political power — John McCain and Jon Kyl were long seen as two of the most influential senators during their time in office, and Jeff Flake became one of the first Republicans in the Senate to openly criticize former President Donald J. Trump.“There is no state in America that is going to play a more pivotal role in the direction of congressional legislation in the next two years,” said Glenn Hamer, the president of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce. “Every major piece of legislation is going to go right through Arizona, and the role many of us want our senators to play is as someone who reaches across the aisle.”Many Democrats point out that the political atmosphere of the state has changed drastically since 2018, with voters flipping both Senate seats and a Democrat presidential candidate winning in Arizona in November for only the second time in five decades. And since the riot in Washington last month, more than 5,000 Republicans have dropped their party affiliation.Still, Mr. Hamer warned that both senators were in a precarious political position, particularly Mr. Kelly, who won a special election and is up for re-election in 2022. (The Chamber of Commerce endorsed his opponent in the election last year, and did not make an endorsement in Ms. Sinema’s race.)Approving major changes like a $15-an-hour minimum wage or an immigration package that does not include more enforcement, Mr. Hamer said, would turn off the moderate voters who also helped propel the pair to Washington.“I don’t believe you can have unity in America without bipartisan legislation, and I really believe both of them have a role to play in that,” he said. “That would be far better and more durable than trying to blow up the filibuster.”Mr. Danley, a longtime liberal activist, similarly warned that the two senators could not take new voters in the state for granted.“If we’re going to turn out voters who support you, we need ammunition, we need to have something that is real and legitimate,” Mr. Danley said. “We can’t keep going out saying they are better than the bad guys — that is too low of a bar. What about actually being good for these folks who showed up and who have expectations?”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      I’m Not Actually Interested in Mitch McConnell’s Hypocrisy

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyI’m Not Actually Interested in Mitch McConnell’s HypocrisyTo make his case for the filibuster, he has essentially rewritten the history of the Senate.Opinion ColumnistJan. 29, 2021Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesOn Tuesday, Mitch McConnell, now the Senate minority leader, spoke in defense of the legislative filibuster.“When it comes to lawmaking, the framers’ vision and our history are clear. The Senate exists to require deliberation and cooperation,” McConnell declared. “James Madison said the Senate’s job was to provide a ‘complicated check’ against ‘improper acts of legislation.’ We ensure that laws earn enough buy-in to receive the lasting consent of the governed. We stop bad ideas, improve good ideas and keep laws from swinging wildly with every election.”He went on: “More than any other feature, it is the Senate’s 60-vote threshold to end debate on legislation that achieves this.”It’s hard to take any of this seriously. None of McConnell’s stated concern for the “lasting consent of the governed” was on display when Senate Republicans, under his leadership, tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act by majority vote. Nor was there any interest in “deliberation and cooperation” when Republicans wanted a new round of corporate and upper-income tax cuts.If anything, the filibuster stymies that deliberation and cooperation by destroying the will to legislate at all. It makes bipartisanship less likely by erasing any incentive to build novel coalitions for particular issues. If, under the filibuster, there’s no difference between 51 votes for immigration reform and 56 votes (or even 59), then what’s the point of even trying? Why reach out to the other side if there’s almost no way you’ll reach the threshold to take action? And on the other side, why tinker with legislation if you know it’s not going to pass? When there’s no reason to do otherwise, why not act as a rigid, unyielding partisan?It’s obvious that McConnell’s commitment to the filibuster is instrumental. The filibuster on executive branch nominations of appointees and federal judges was sacred — he condemned the Democrats’ use of the “nuclear option” to get rid of it in 2013 — until President Trump needed Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court and then it was bye-bye to the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees that McConnell’s predecessor as Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, had left intact. If the reconciliation process didn’t exist, and Republicans needed 60 votes for upper-income tax cuts, there’s almost no doubt McConnell would have killed the legislative filibuster in 2017, for the sake of his party’s signature priority.I’m not actually that interested in McConnell’s hypocrisy. I’m interested in his history. To make his case for the indispensable importance of the legislative filibuster, McConnell has essentially rewritten the history of the Senate. He has to create a new narrative to serve his current interests.The truth is that the filibuster was an accident; an extra-constitutional innovation that lay dormant for a generation after its unintentional creation during the Jefferson administration. For most of the Senate’s history after the Civil War, filibusters were rare, deployed as the Southern weapon of choice against civil rights legislation, and an occasional tool of partisan obstruction.Far from necessary, the filibuster is extraneous. Everything it is said to encourage — debate, deliberation, consensus building — is already accomplished by the structure of the chamber itself, insofar as it happens at all.In the form it takes today, the filibuster doesn’t make the Senate work the way the framers intended. Instead, it makes the Senate a nearly insurmountable obstacle to most legislative business. And that, in turn, has made Congress inert and dysfunctional to the point of disrupting the constitutional balance of power. Legislation that deserves a debate never reaches the floor; coalitions that could form never get off the ground.In quoting Madison, McConnell frames the filibuster as part of our constitutional inheritance. It is not. The filibuster isn’t in the Constitution. The Senate, like the House of Representatives, was meant to run on majority rule.Remember, the framers had direct experience with supermajority government. Under the Articles of Confederation, each state had equal representation and it took a two-thirds vote of the states for Congress to exercise its enumerated powers. Without the consent of nine states (out of 13), Congress could not enter treaties, appropriate funds or borrow money. And the bar to amendment, unanimity, was even higher. The articles were such a disaster that, rather than try to amend them, a group of influential elites decided to scrap them altogether.For a taste of this frustration, read Alexander Hamilton in Federalist no. 22, which contains a fierce condemnation of supermajority rule as it was under the articles:The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching toward it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority.Hamilton is especially angry with the effect of the supermajority requirement on governance.In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action. The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good.Delegates to the constitutional convention considered and rejected supermajority requirements for navigation acts (concerning ships and shipping), regulation of interstate commerce and the raising of armies. Majorities would have the final say everywhere except for treaties, amendments and conviction in an impeachment trial.To make the Senate slow-moving and deliberative, the framers would not raise barriers to action so much as they would insulate the body from short-term democratic accountability. That meant indirect election by state legislatures, staggered terms of six years and a small membership of two senators per state. And at ratification, that is where the Senate stood: a self-consciously aristocratic body meant to check the House of Representatives and oversee the executive branch, confirming its appointments and ratifying its foreign agreements.The filibuster doesn’t enter the picture until years later, as an accident of parliamentary bookkeeping. In 1806, on the advice of Vice President Aaron Burr (who thought it redundant), the Senate dropped the “previous question” — a motion to end debate and bring an item up for immediate vote — from its rules. Without a motion to call the previous question, however, an individual senator could, in theory, hold the floor indefinitely.It took 31 years for someone to actually do it. The first known filibuster took place in 1837, when several Whig senators tried unsuccessfully to block a Democratic bill to reverse an 1834 censure of President Andrew Jackson and expunge it from the congressional record. Even then, the filibuster was not widely used until the second half of the 19th century, as the parties, and thus the Senate, grew more polarized along party lines.The filibuster as we understand it developed in the 20th century. In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson called on Senate Democrats to reform the filibuster as a war measure after Republicans successfully filibustered a bill to arm merchant ships. Democrats obliged and created a “cloture” rule to end debate with a two-thirds vote of the chamber. In 1975, the Senate reduced that threshold from two-thirds to three-fifths, or 60 votes in a 100-member body.Throughout this time, filibusters were uncommon. It was perfectly possible for the Senate to debate, deliberate and come to consensus without the supermajority requirement McConnell and the Republican caucus have imposed on virtually all legislation since 2009.The point of comparison for the Senate as McConnell has shaped it is the middle of the 20th century, when a conservative coalition of Republicans and Dixiecrats made the chamber a graveyard of liberal legislation and social reform. Consensus didn’t matter. Power did. And it wasn’t until liberals wrested power from this coalition — in the House as well as the Senate — that they could take the initiative and begin work on an otherwise popular agenda.There is no question the Senate is supposed to be slow, even sluggish. But it’s not supposed to be an endless bottleneck. The framers wanted stability in government, not stagnation. What we have now, with the filibuster intact, is a Senate that can barely move.This isn’t just a problem for President Biden and the Democratic Party; it’s a problem for the entire constitutional order. Our system is built around Congress; Congress makes laws, Congress holds the purse strings, Congress hands out mandates, Congress checks the president and makes sure the judiciary stays in its lane.When Congress doesn’t act, other actors take up the slack. The story of our democracy these last 10 years is, in part, the story of how a listless, sclerotic Senate broke Congress and pushed the other branches to govern in its stead, with the president and the courts making as much policy as they can without congressional input, with all the capriciousness, whiplash and uncertainty that can come from that.If you don’t like presidents governing through executive order, then you should want an active, energetic Congress that embraces its constitutional mandate to rule over the whole country and direct its government. If you want that, you should oppose the filibuster.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The First Post-Reagan Presidency

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      Credit…Timo LenzenSkip to contentSkip to site indexOpinionThe First Post-Reagan PresidencySo far, Joe Biden has been surprisingly progressive.Credit…Timo LenzenSupported byContinue reading the main storyOpinion ColumnistJan. 28, 2021, 8:50 p.m. ETDuring Donald Trump’s presidency, I sometimes took comfort in the Yale political scientist Stephen Skowronek’s concept of “political time.”In Skowronek’s formulation, presidential history moves in 40- to 60-year cycles, or “regimes.” Each is inaugurated by transformative, “reconstructive” leaders who define the boundaries of political possibility for their successors.Franklin Delano Roosevelt was such a figure. For decades following his presidency, Republicans and Democrats alike accepted many of the basic assumptions of the New Deal. Ronald Reagan was another. After him, even Democrats like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama feared deficit spending, inflation and anything that smacked of “big government.”I found Skowronek’s schema reassuring because of where Trump seemed to fit into it. Skowronek thought Trump was a “late regime affiliate” — a category that includes Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover. Such figures, he’s written, are outsiders from the party of a dominant but decrepit regime.They use the “internal disarray and festering weakness of the establishment” to “seize the initiative.” Promising to save a faltering political order, they end up imploding and bringing the old regime down with them. No such leader, he wrote, has ever been re-elected.During Trump’s reign, Skowronek’s ideas gained some popular currency, offering a way to make sense of a presidency that seemed anomalous and bizarre. “We are still in the middle of Trump’s rendition of the type,” he wrote in an updated edition of his book “Presidential Leadership in Political Time,” “but we have seen this movie before, and it has always ended the same way.”Skowronek doesn’t present his theory as a skeleton key to history. It’s a way of understanding historical dynamics, not predicting the future. Still, if Trump represented the last gasps of Reaganism instead of the birth of something new, then after him, Skowronek suggests, a fresh regime could begin.When Joe Biden became the Democratic nominee, it seemed that the coming of a new era had been delayed. Reconstructive leaders, in Skowronek’s formulation, repudiate the doctrines of an establishment that no longer has answers for the existential challenges the country faces. Biden, Skowronek told me, is “a guy who’s made his way up through establishment Democratic politics.” Nothing about him seemed trailblazing.Yet as Biden’s administration begins, there are signs that a new politics is coalescing. When, in his inauguration speech, Biden touted “unity,” he framed it as a national rejection of the dark forces unleashed by his discredited predecessor, not stale Gang of Eight bipartisanship. He takes power at a time when what was once conventional wisdom about deficits, inflation and the proper size of government has fallen apart. That means Biden, who has been in national office since before Reagan’s presidency, has the potential to be our first truly post-Reagan president.“Biden has a huge opportunity to finally get our nation past the Reagan narrative that has still lingered,” said Representative Ro Khanna, who was a national co-chair of Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign. “And the opportunity is to show that government, by getting the shots in every person’s arm of the vaccines, and building infrastructure, and helping working families, is going to be a force for good.” More

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      With Georgia Senate Wins, Democrats Solidify Power in Washington

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionliveLatest UpdatesCalls for Impeachment25th Amendment ExplainedTrump Officials ResignHow Mob Stormed CapitolAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWith Georgia Senate Wins, Democrats Solidify Power in WashingtonSenator Chuck Schumer will fulfill his ambition of becoming majority leader as Senator Mitch McConnell returns to heading the minority, shifting the policy agenda as Joe Biden takes office.Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, leaving his office on Wednesday, with framed portraits of former majority leaders behind him.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesJan. 7, 2021Updated 7:34 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — The stunning Democratic wins in two Georgia Senate races this week upended Washington’s power structure overnight, providing an unexpected opening to the incoming Biden administration by handing unified control of Congress to Democrats, who will be tested by governing with spare majorities.The victories by Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff mean that Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, will control the Senate floor rather than Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and a man Democrats have long seen as the main impediment to their legislative ambitions.The momentous shift occurred even as a violent siege of the Capitol on Wednesday, egged on by President Trump, made clear the staunch refusal of his supporters to acknowledge President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the winner of the election, an explosive last gasp of Republican protest before Democrats assume full control. Thrust together at a secure location with top congressional leaders after being evacuated during the mayhem, Mr. McConnell found himself congratulating Mr. Schumer on his newfound status. In a wholesale change that will shift the policy agenda after Mr. Biden’s inauguration, liberals — including Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the democratic socialist who will now lead the Budget Committee — will head Senate panels, rather than conservatives. Legislation from the Democratic-controlled House that had languished in the Senate will now get consideration across the Rotunda.The abrupt shift in circumstances invigorated Democrats who had been deflated in November when they failed to gain a Senate majority on Nov. 3 despite Mr. Biden’s victory. Given the traditional advantage Republicans have had in Georgia runoff elections, many Democrats had become resigned to the prospect that they would be sentenced to another two years in the Senate minority, stymied in delivering on Mr. Biden’s priorities.“We sure did not take the most direct path to get here, but here we are,” said Mr. Schumer, happy with the outcome any way he could get it, a result that put him in reach of fulfilling his ambition of becoming majority leader after four years as the chief of the minority.While the change in Senate control is momentous, particularly in easing the way for Mr. Biden to fill administration jobs and judicial vacancies, it does not mean that Democrats can have their way on everything — or even most things.The Democratic majority in the House shrank in the last election, emboldening Republicans and giving Speaker Nancy Pelosi less wiggle room in what is likely her last term. More than half of House Republicans voted to throw out certified presidential election results from Arizona and Pennsylvania overnight Wednesday and Thursday without evidence of fraud, reflecting both the extreme character of the House Republican conference and what is sure to be a reluctance to work with Mr. Biden.With the Senate divided 50 to 50 and Democrats in charge only by virtue of the tiebreaking power of the vice president, the filibuster also looms large. Democrats will need to attract at least 10 Republicans to advance most bills while contending with demands from the left for bolder action now that their party will control all of Congress.Democrats conceded the difficulties but still welcomed the reversal of fortune.“It is not all going to be easy, but it is certainly better than being 52-48 and President Biden playing ‘Mother, May I?’ with Leader McConnell in moving any legislation to the floor,” said Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, one of the incoming president’s closest allies on Capitol Hill.Yet Mr. McConnell, newly elected to his seventh term, has been in the position of leading the minority before and has proved effective in obstructing Democratic priorities.The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesUpdated Jan. 7, 2021, 9:15 p.m. ETBetsy DeVos, education secretary, is second cabinet member to resign.Here’s what Trump’s cabinet members have said about the storming of the Capitol.Lawmakers fear a coronavirus outbreak after sharing close quarters in lockdown.During President Barack Obama’s first term, Democrats had a filibuster-proof 60 votes for a period, and Mr. McConnell still managed to confound Democrats while gradually chipping away at their majority. Republicans took control in 2015, mainly through emphasizing party unity against Democratic initiatives.As minority leader, Mr. McConnell can be expected to employ the same tactics while focusing on the 2022 midterm elections and seeking to regain his Senate power. That will make the first two years of Mr. Biden’s administration extremely important when it comes to accomplishing any major priority.Republicans said they recognized that the legislative environment will be drastically different.“It’s the agenda, an agenda shift — totally changed,” said Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia. “They’re going to have the ability to run things from the House and, you know, shift the emphasis.”When the Senate last had a 50-to-50 split in 2001, the two leaders, the Republican Trent Lott of Mississippi and the Democrat Tom Daschle of South Dakota, worked out a power-sharing agreement. But those two leaders had a much deeper relationship than Mr. McConnell and Mr. Schumer — they had worked cooperatively on the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton — and the Senate was less polarized than it is today.Mr. Schumer and Mr. McConnell will need to engage in talks to come up with some sort of governing framework.“I assume in the next couple weeks, Schumer and Mitch will sit down and kind of figure out how this is going to work,” said Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican. “We had a little bit of a pattern back in 2000, but times have changed. It’s different now.”Perhaps the biggest difference will be the committee chairmen, representing a significant swing in ideology. Besides Mr. Sanders, for example, Senator Sherrod Brown, the progressive Ohio Democrat and strong labor ally, is set to be head of the Banking Committee and will have a markedly different agenda than that of the outgoing Republican chairman, Senator Michael D. Crapo of Idaho.Mr. Brown said his first order of legislative business would be addressing the effect of the coronavirus pandemic and relief provisions set to expire, including an eviction moratorium.“We need to fix a lot of the damage Trump’s done, and then there’s pent-up demand for a whole lot of things,” Mr. Brown said. “What do we do about climate and about racial inequality, about wealth inequality, about structural racism?”Among other notable committee changes would be Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon as head of the tax-writing Finance Committee, and Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois as chairman of the Judiciary Committee rather than Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, who was a chief driver of the Republican push to install more than 200 conservative judges on the nation’s federal courts the past four years. Senator Patty Murray of Washington, an aggressive backer of health law changes, is in line for the health committee.With the even partisan split, Democrats have begun talking about employing a special legislative process called reconciliation that applies budget rules to eliminate the threat of a filibuster, but what can be accomplished with that approach is limited. Activists are encouraging Democrats to try to eliminate the 60-vote filibuster to take advantage of their power while they have it.“A window of opportunity like this may not come around again for a long while,” said Brian Fallon, a former Schumer aide and head of the progressive group Demand Justice. “It is almost overwhelming to think of all the opportunities for legislating that now exist, but the priority must be democratic reforms that make institutions like the Senate and our courts more aligned with the will of the people.”But a handful of centrist Democrats, including Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, have said they have no interest in gutting the filibuster, instead regarding it as a way to force the kind of compromise they think could restore the Senate’s ability to legislate.“Bipartisan legislation tends to stand the test of time, and so hopefully we continue to work together and have it be encouraged by the filibuster,” Mr. Tester said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘We’ve Harmed the Senate Enough’: Why Joe Manchin Won’t Budge on the Filibuster

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      WASHINGTON — Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, the most conservative member of his party in the Senate, has a message for fellow Democrats hoping to capture the majority and quickly begin muscling through legislation to bring about sweeping, liberal change: not on his watch.With Democrats mounting an intense, long-shot campaign to win two Georgia Senate seats whose fates will be decided in runoffs in January — a feat that would give them control of both chambers of Congress along with the presidency — Mr. Manchin’s unequivocal stance against ending the filibuster means that President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. would still need substantial Republican support, and probably Mr. Manchin’s seal of approval, for any major move.In a wide-ranging interview in his office, Mr. Manchin, 73, a former governor, argued that moderates in both parties needed to assert themselves in a new Senate, no matter which party is in charge. He said that his party had lost rural voters because of an ultraprogressive message that scared them, and he criticized Republicans for selling their “souls” in subservience to President Trump.This interview has been edited for length and clarity.Q: It strikes me that you’re going to be playing potentially an extremely important role if we end up with a 50-50 Senate. Would you agree with that?A: I would think the only reason that people are assuming that — you can tell me if it’s true or not — is because of my independent voting. I’m pretty independent. If it makes sense, I go home and explain it. If it doesn’t make sense, I don’t. Sometimes that’s a real strong Democratic issue they’re really happy with, and sometimes it’s a Republican issue they’re happy with. I think I’m the most moderate or centrist — as far as centrist voting — than anybody else in Congress, 535 people.Q: What do you make of the election results over all?A: I just can’t believe that 72 million people were either that mad or that scared of the Democrat Party to vote for what I consider a very flawed individual. Here’s a person who lost 230,000 lives under his watch, basically denounced the science completely because it might hurt him politically, has a lack of compassion or empathy for humans, and denigrates anybody and everybody that does not agree with him. How 72 million people could still walk in and say, ‘Yeah, it’s better than that,’ I just can’t figure it out.That was a sobering thing for me. My state got wiped out this election. So I would say, I’m just looking at myself, I have not been good at my message. I know why I’m a Democrat. And I know that I’ve never seen the Democrat Party forsake anybody.Q: Why do you think West Virginia and the rural areas have gone so red?A: I can tell you what they said: ‘Listen, I just couldn’t bring myself to vote for another Democrat that might give support to the very liberal wing in Washington that I don’t agree with and have nothing in common with. I don’t have anything in common with people who talk about defunding the police. It looks like they’re condoning riots.’ There’s not a member in the Democratic caucus that condones any of this violence or riots or looting. None.I just would hope that people would start looking at the person that they’re voting for and not the party they belong to. A Democrat who’s a moderate-conservative like myself is much needed to bring other people to that moderate position.Q: The Democratic Party thought it could take back the Senate this year, and there’s still a chance that maybe that can happen if you get both of the seats in Georgia. But in order to pass major legislation, you would have to either get some Republican support or kill the filibuster. You’ve long opposed killing the filibuster. Why is that?A: I can assure you I will not vote to end the filibuster, because that would break the Senate. We’ve harmed the Senate enough with the nuclear option on the judges. We’re making lifetime appointments based on a simple majority. The minority should have input — that’s the whole purpose for the Senate. If you basically do away with the filibuster altogether for legislation, you won’t have the Senate. You’re a glorified House. And I will not do that.Q: So there’s no issue where you would agree to end the filibuster? Let’s say there’s a badly needed new coronavirus stimulus package, and the Republicans won’t make a deal.A: No. If we can’t come together to help America, God help us. If you’ve got to blow up the Senate to do the right thing, then we’ve got the wrong people in the Senate, or we have people that won’t talk to each other. You know, I’ve always said this: Chuck Schumer, with his personality, he’ll talk to anybody and everybody. You can work with Chuck. Chuck is going to try everything he can do to try to engage with Mitch again.Q: Are there any other issues where you would draw a line in the sand and stand up to other members of your party?A: I’ve done that. I was that one vote for Brett Kavanaugh. I thought there had to be evidence, and I never saw evidence. The country was in a feeding frenzy. And there was no Democrat that was going to buck that. I said, ‘I’m not going to ruin a person’s life because there’s no evidence.’And wouldn’t it be so befitting if he votes to uphold the Affordable Care Act? God, oh my. Redemption! Is there redemption here? He and I had a long conversation, and I basically said, ‘I’m pleading with you and your inner conscience, whenever this comes before you, I want you to think about 800,000 West Virginians who couldn’t get insurance before because of a pre-existing condition. I want you to think about 160,000 West Virginians that were so poor, they had nothing.’Q: It does seem like Democrats have won the argument on the Affordable Care Act. Six years ago, Republicans were campaigning on blowing up Obamacare; now they’re running ads saying they’re protecting pre-existing conditions.A: Here’s the thing. It’s 16,000 jobs in West Virginia. Three million jobs in America. You want to be a vote that basically eliminates three million jobs? You want to be a vote that wipes out your state? It’s crazy.Q: Is there any chance of a bipartisan group of moderates — you, Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and some others — emerging that can advance compromise policy in a new Senate?A: We used to have meetings all the time, either in here or her office. We had 10 or 12 or 13, sometimes as many as 20, working through the fiscal crisis or different things, trying to find a pathway forward. We need to be more vocal with our leadership.Q: What does it mean to be a Democrat in 2020?A: To me, it still means the compassion that we have for people, but also the dignity of work. That has to be our driver. It’s the economy, it’s all about the economy. You can’t help anybody if you have no economy and no resources to help them.When it comes to workplace safety, it’s the Democrats everyone turns to because they know they’ll do something. When it comes time to protect people’s jobs and opportunities, it’s the Democrats who will fight to protect that. We’re trying to give quality health care, so people can basically contribute to society. With that, look at the economy that we created: a billion dollars coming in our state. We don’t say that, and we don’t seem to get credit for that.So I’m back on track. I know why I’m here, and I know why I’m a Democrat, and I’m going to fight like the dickens.Q: You did a video with a mix of Democrats and Republicans asking people to respect the results of the election. Why do you think that so many Republicans are unwilling to acknowledge reality and stand up and say, ‘You lost, Mr. President’?A: I don’t know. I don’t know the value of being a U.S. senator, or a governor, or a congressman or anything that’s worth selling your soul or your convictions. These are all good people who for some reason aren’t speaking up. They’re hoping it just kind of goes away.Why rouse up 70 million people that were willing to vote for all his flaws, knowing he’s a very flawed human being? He instilled something, the anger in people, feeling like, ‘Hey, I’m getting the shaft here, I’m getting shorted.’ So, they just want that to kind of go away and see if it calms down rather than putting themselves in the iron. And I understand that. But it would be so refreshing to have a majority of all of my colleagues and my friends on the Republican side say, ‘Listen. It’s time now to move on.’ More