Senate Republicans, with exception of Murkowski, block debate on voting rights bill

WASHINGTON - Republican senators on Wednesday voted to block debate on the third major voting rights bill that congressional Democrats have sought to pass this year in response to the state-level GOP push to restrict ballot access following former president Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen 2020 election.

Wednesday’s vote on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act - named after the civil rights icon and former congressman who died last year - fell short of the 60 votes necessary to proceed, 51-49. Only one Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voted to advance it.

The two prior bills put forth by congressional Democrats sought to impose a broad variety of new federal mandates for how states conduct elections, setting minimum standards for early voting and vote-by-mail, forbidding partisan congressional redistricting and overhauling campaign finance disclosures. Both bills failed to advance on straight party lines, with Republicans insisting that the federal government had no role setting state election practices.

The John Lewis bill instead seeks to empower the Justice Department and federal courts to review state election laws - in some cases, before they take effect - restoring provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that have been struck down by the Supreme Court in a series of decisions since 2013.

[Murkowski joins Democrats in effort to broaden support for voting rights measure]

While Republicans have supported prior reauthorizations of the Voting Rights Act, most recently in 2006, that support has all but evaporated since the 2013 Shelby County decision. That ruling effectively ended the practice of “preclearance,” giving federal prosecutors and judges the right to review and pre-emptively block discriminatory voting laws in certain covered jurisdictions with a history of racial prejudice. Another ruling earlier this year took aim at a separate part of the 1965 law, making it more difficult for the federal government to challenge state and local voting laws for possible discrimination after they are enacted.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday that the bill would allow federal prosecutors to “dictate” state voting procedures, and he accused Democrats of “trying to overturn the courts” with the revised legislation.

“There is nothing to suggest a sprawling federal takeover is necessary,” he said. “Nationalizing our elections is just a multi-decade Democratic Party goal in constant search of a justification. Their rationales may change constantly, but their end goal never does.”

But unlike the other Democratic voting bills this year, the John Lewis act attracted Republican support - albeit from a single lawmaker. Murkowski, in a statement, called voting rights “fundamental to our democracy” and said the bill “provides a framework through which legitimate voting rights issues can be tackled.”

“Every American deserves equal opportunity to participate in our electoral system and political process, and this bill provides a starting point as we seek broader bipartisan consensus on how best to ensure that,” she added.

No other Republicans have appeared even close to following Murkowski in support, and Democrats on Wednesday said the vote showed that there is no possible compromise to be had with the GOP on the subject of voting rights. That is expected to fuel a continued push to change the Senate rules in some way to eliminate the filibuster, the 60-vote supermajority rule, to allow legislation to pass.

“Crossing their arms and squelching any opportunity for progress is unacceptable,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday. “If Republicans have different ideas on how to achieve a stronger democracy, they owe it to the American people to come forward and debate their ideas.”

But it remains unclear whether Democrats have a path to eliminating, or even modifying, the filibuster.

Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., who has publicly opposed rules changes but also spent months trying to build GOP support for voting rights legislation, gave no indication Wednesday that his thinking has evolved. He told reporters that he still believed a bipartisan voting rights bill was possible, despite the firm signal from GOP senators that it is not.

“We have a good piece of legislation,” he said. “We’d love to have our Republican friends work with us. We’ve got Lisa Murkowski; we just need nine more.”

Asked how he expected to find those nine Republicans, Manchin did not set out a firm path. “We need other people to be talking to each other and find the pathway forward,” he said. “Just can’t be one or two people talking to both sides.”