What’s Joe Manchin Smokin’?

His newest proposal is based on a deeply misguided faith in the good faith of Republicans

Photo by Bill O’Leary via Getty Images

With GOP-controlled states passing ever more insidious voter suppression bills, the calls for a federal-level response have increased dramatically. Democratic leaders have emphasized the need for the election reforms outlined in the For the People Act, but with the Senate filibuster rule still in place, that bill is unlikely to ever see passage. Indeed, it does not even have the support of all Senate Democrats, including perennial thorn-in-the-side of the Democratic caucus, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Manchin’s problem with the bill is that it enjoys no bipartisan support whatsoever, and therefore he believes passing it would further undermine faith in our elections and increase suspicion along partisan lines. The mark-up process in the Senate Rules committee earlier this week reinforced his view. 

“No matter what was brought up, it was [a] partisan vote, 9-9,” Manchin said. “This is one of the most—I think—important things that we can do to try to bring our country back together, and if we do it in a partisan way, it’s not going to be successful, I believe.”

This is hopelessly circular reasoning once you assume that the GOP is acting in bad faith in order to protect what amounts to its minority rule. After all, so long as the GOP can remain united in its opposition, then anything that doesn’t concede every argument to them is necessarily partisan, and therefore bad in Manchin’s opinion. That allows the GOP to hold the entire bill hostage because Manchin insists that it somehow has to please both sides.

His solution to the impasse is equally strained but worth noting. As reported by ABC News, rather than focus on things like voter registration, gerrymandering, campaign finance reform and early voting requirements, Manchin wants to revive discussions of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore the practice of “preclearance” for certain laws that impact voting, meaning any change would have to get approval first from federal authorities. But here’s the twist: Rather than have the preclearance apply only to states and jurisdictions that have historically discriminated against minority voters, Manchin would make preclearance a blanket requirement for any new law that changes voting rules in any state or jurisdiction.

“I believe Democrats and Republicans feel very strongly about protecting the ballot boxes allowing people to protect the right to vote, making it accessible, making it fair, and making it secure. And the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, if we apply that to all 50 states and territories, it’s something that can be done—it should be done,” Manchin said. “It could be done bipartisan to start getting confidence back in our system.”

In short, Manchin believes that by spreading out the oversight and not focusing on just the bad actors (all of which were pretty much once part of the Confederacy), the proposed law would appease Republicans enough to deliver 10 bipartisan votes for cloture, ending the filibuster of the bill. 

In some ways Manchin’s proposal is interesting. It might actually survive scrutiny by the Supreme Court, which indicated in its Shelby County decision in 2012 that it was the long-term disparate treatment of certain states that bothered them. Manchin’s proposal therefore preemptively addresses review by even this more conservative Supreme Court and takes the focus off of the South, which has the biggest problem with federal oversight. 

On the other hand, his proposal is naive because the problem in passing the For the People Act or the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act isn’t that the provisions are unfair or unlawful, but that the GOP simply does not want to give up power. If you assume that Republic opposition to voting reform arises from its simple fear of more Democratic voters, then GOP senators won’t be swayed by a preclearance provision, even if it is nationwide, because it would still operate to stop all the voter suppression bills that GOP-controlled states just passed.

Indeed, within moments of Manchin proposing the change and the refocus on preclearance under the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, it was shot down by Senator John Cornyn of Texas. “That is a way to do through the back door what [the For The People Act] is trying to do through the front door,” Cornyn said. “In other words, it will completely pluck the authority to conduct elections and change election laws from the states and give it to the Department of Justice.”

Manchin may learn quickly that even the most reasonable attempts to provide fair and equal access to the ballot box can’t garner 10 votes from the GOP. It will be interesting to see whether Manchin’s tune over bipartisanship changes should his own proposals—based on his earnest belief that Republicans actually want to help voters gain access to the ballot—fail to gain even a single GOP vote.