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      Senate Democrats poised for voting rights push to counter Republican restrictions

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      US voting rightsSenate Democrats poised for voting rights push to counter Republican restrictionsSenate expected to reintroduce Democrats’ marquee election reform bill known as the For the People Act before summer recess Hugo Lowell in Washington DCTue 10 Aug 2021 13.46 EDTLast modified on Tue 10 Aug 2021 14.40 EDTTop Democrats in the Senate are poised to make another attempt to push through voting rights legislation before the chamber leaves Washington for a summer recess, in a sign of their determination to counter a wave of Republican-led ballot restrictions across the nation.The Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is expected to reintroduce Democrats’ marquee election reform bill known as the For the People Act, with additional votes on one measure to end partisan gerrymandering and another measure to tighten campaign spending, sources said.None of the measures, for which Schumer hopes to schedule votes immediately after the Senate takes up the $3.5tn budget blueprint for infrastructure, is expected to garner any Republican support and will thus likely follow the demise of the For the People Act in June.The move by Senate Democrats will encourage voting rights activists, who have watched with alarm that the issue appeared to have taken a back seat as protracted negotiations over the $1tn bipartisan infrastructure package consumed the Senate.Yet in the face of united Republican opposition, the endgame for Democrats – even as they scramble to enact voting rights legislation to roll back a wave of GOP ballot restrictions in time for the 2022 midterm elections – remains unclear.The only conceivable path for Democrats to ensure passage of the voting rights bills would require reforming the Senate’s filibuster rule, an option not currently available to party leaders after holdouts last week reiterated their opposition.Senator Kyrsten Sinema on Friday told ABC that she continued to support the 60-vote requirement for the filibuster, days after senator Joe Manchin said anew that he would not acquiesce to carving out a voting rights exemption from the rule.Democrats face a time crunch as they prepare for the 2022 midterms, when they hope to mitigate Republican gains after House district lines are redrawn on the results of last year’s census.Democrats are particularly determined to curb partisan redistricting, which could allow Republicans to gain enough seats to reclaim the House majority and thwart their ambitions of enacting Joe Biden’s legislative agenda in the second half of his first term.And with some Republican-led states racing to redraw lines once the Census Bureau releases detailed population data on 12 August, advocates for stronger federal voting rights laws have warned that Congress needs to act before mid-September in order to affect 2022 balloting.To that end, a group of Democrats led by Senate rules chair Amy Klobuchar and Senator Jeff Merkley have continued to work on voting rights legislation in an attempt to keep up momentum against GOP ballot restrictions based on Trump’s lies about a stolen election.Some Democrats involved in the effort were optimistic that they could introduce this week a For the People Act version 2.0 that incorporated elements from a three-page, scaled-down version of the bill proposed by Manchin two months ago, the sources said.But the legislation was not complete as of Tuesday, and Democrats crafting the voting rights legislation now expect Schumer to try to again advance the For the People Act after the Senate completes a set of marathon rapid fire votes on the $3.5tn budget blueprint.The group, which also includes Senators Alex Padilla and Raphael Warnock, anticipate Schumer will then schedule votes on two measures from Manchin’s proposal: one that aims to counter partisan gerrymandering, and another to combat so-called dark money in politics.The stakes are significant both for Warnock, who is on the ballot next year, as well as for the Democratic caucus more widely, since the loss of his seat in the battleground state of Georgia could shunt the party back into the minority in the 50-50 Senate.And Warnock faces an uphill struggle in seeking re-election as he prepares to run in a state where Republicans have moved decisively to limit mail-in-ballots, curb early voting and shift electoral power towards the Republican-led state house.After Republicans blocked the For the People Act, the most far-reaching election reform legislation to come before Congress in a generation, the Senate majority leader vowed to redouble his efforts.“In the fight for voting rights, this vote was the starting gun, not the finish line,” Schumer said. “We will not let it go. We will not let it die. This voter suppression cannot stand.”But some Democrats have signalled skepticism about forcing an almost certainly futile votes measure now, in a rushed move they say could erode potential Republican support should they try to enact bipartisan voting rights bills in the future.Before the vote on S1, Democrats reached out across the aisle to encourage centrists such as Lisa Murkowski to back the legislation. In a sign of the pessimism about the passage of the two new bills, there has been no such effort this time, the sources said.TopicsUS voting rightsUS SenateUS politicsDemocratsBiden administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      Senate resumes infrastructure debate as Trump threatens Republicans who back bill

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      US SenateSenate resumes infrastructure debate as Trump threatens Republicans who back billTrump says it ‘will be very hard for me to endorse anyone foolish enough to vote in favor of this deal’ as session to resume at noon01:21Edward HelmoreSun 8 Aug 2021 13.59 EDTFirst published on Sun 8 Aug 2021 09.09 EDTSenators resumed a weekend session toward passage of a $1tn bipartisan infrastructure package on Sunday amid threats from former president Donald Trump who raged against any Republicans who support the measure.Majority leader Chuck Schumer stressed to colleagues that they could proceed the “easy way or the hard way”, while a few Republican senators appeared determined to run out the clock for days. “We’ll keep proceeding until we get this bill done,” Schumer said.The bill would provide what Joe Biden has called a “historic investment” in public works programs, from roads and bridges to broadband internet access, drinking water and more. It was expected to pass on Saturday – before it heads to the House – but ran into Republican procedural delays, forcing yet another day of debate.Trump, who maintains a strong grip on the party and intense popularity with much of its base, also throw a spanner in the works by attacking any of his party who back the bill.“Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill is a disgrace,” he said in a statement and then added that it “…will be very hard for me to endorse anyone foolish enough to vote in favor of this deal.”In a rare stroke of bipartisanship, Republicans joined Democrats to advance the measure and more votes are expected Sunday. If approved, the bill would go to the House, where it might face changes and – if it does – it could return to the Senate for another vote before heading to Biden’s desk.Despite the overwhelming support, momentum has dragged as a few Republican senators refused to yield 30 hours of required debate before the next set of procedural votes, which could delay swift passage of the package and result in a dayslong slog.Senators were meeting for the second consecutive weekend to work on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which is the first of Biden’s two infrastructure packages.Once voting wraps up, senators immediately will turn to the next item on Biden’s agenda, the budget outline for a $3.5tn package of child care, elder care and other programs that is a much more partisan undertaking and expected to draw only Democratic support.Schumer has vowed to keep senators in session until they finish up the bipartisan bill and start the initial votes on the next big package.For some Republican senators, the back-to-back voting on Biden’s big priorities is what they are trying to delay, hoping to slow or halt what appears to be a steady march to achieve the president’s infrastructure goals.Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, an ally of Donald Trump and the former president’s ambassador to Japan, was among those leading the effort for the Senate to take as much time as needed to debate and amend the bill.“There’s absolutely no reason to rush,” Hagerty said during a floor speech Saturday. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has so far allowed the bill to progress and backed it, despite the broadsides and name-calling coming from Trump. “This is a compromise,” McConnell said.Senators have spent the past week processing nearly two dozen amendments to the 2,700-page package, but so far none has substantially changed its framework.More amendments could be debated Sunday with senators considering revisions to a section on cryptocurrency, a long-shot effort by defense hawks to add $50bn for defense-related infrastructure and a bipartisan amendment to repurpose a portion of the untapped Covid-19 relief aid that had been sent to the states.TopicsUS SenateBiden administrationJoe BidenDonald TrumpRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Republicans join Democrats to advance $1tn infrastructure bill – video

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      Chuck Schumer warned that coming to a bipartisan compromise could be ‘hard’ as Republicans joined Democrats to advance a $1tn infrastructure bill in the US Senate, remaining in session over the weekend.
      The bill represents the biggest spending in decades on American infrastructure including roads, bridges, airports and waterways, in what Joe Biden has called a ‘historic investment’ in public works.

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