The Senate failed to reach an agreement on voting rights legislation, which would have required 60 votes to go to final approval. There will be a second vote to amend the Senate rules to allow the measure to pass with a simple majority after another round of speeches on the Senate floor. It would need 51 votes to pass, and it is also anticipated to fail.
In an unprecedented turn of events, the Senate convened on Wednesday morning, with all Democrats asked to stay in their seats as they sought to move forward on voting rights legislation and a challenge to a long-standing Senate rule, according to ABC News.
Republicans block voting rights bill in the Senate
Back-to-back losses would be a big setback for President Biden, who used a White House press conference during the Senate debate to criticize Republicans' success in delaying his domestic agenda, including the voting rights bill. It was a demoralizing moment for Democrats in Congress, who had thrown their weight behind the issue despite the long chances of victory.
Both the voting measure and the move to reduce the filibuster were fiercely opposed by Republicans. They accused Democrats of creating a crisis by misrepresenting the significance of new state rules in order to achieve a long-held aim of getting more influence over state elections - at the risk of jeopardizing the Senate's distinctiveness in doing so.
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, a conservative Republican who grew up with a single mother who worked 16-hour days as a nurse's aide, scoffed at the similarity. He pointed out that in the Jim Crow South, African Americans who ventured to vote risked being lynched, losing their jobs, or being forced to literacy tests - a far cry from now.
Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, a liberal Democrat and the Ivy League-educated son of parents who were among IBM's first Black executives, responded with an impassioned statement. Booker maintained that racial prejudice still exists today.
Even as they faced a setback, Democrats predicted that once Americans realized that Republicans were working hard in states across the country to make it more difficult for some people, particularly people of color, to vote after Democrats won the White House and Congress in 2020, they would rally to their side, The New York Times reported.
Failed voting rights bill is a setback for Democrats
Even more concerning for Democrats is that the party's procrastination comes at a time when Biden's presidential popularity rating is decreasing, as is voter excitement for the midterm elections. According to a Morning Consult poll conducted in July 2021, less than half of Democratic voters (48%) indicated they were "very" enthused about the forthcoming midterm elections, down 5 percentage points from the previous April. Biden's job popularity with all groups polled, including Democrats and Black voters, fell between July and September of last year, according to the Pew Research Center.
We predict some of this lack of enthusiasm among the Democratic base, attributed to previous midterm election tendencies. What's more troubling for the party is that crucial blue-voting communities, such as Black voters, are fed up, and there are signs that their support for the president is dwindling. Furthermore, there isn't a clear piece of legislation that Democrats can enact next to bolster their base's support.
To put it another way, if Biden and his Democratic colleagues want to keep their congressional majority, they're in a genuine pickle. The preservation of American democracy isn't the only thing Democrats stand to lose if they fail to act and let their constituents down, as seen by the recent opposition to the party's most recent assault on voting rights, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Related Article : Chuck Schumer Urges Sinema, Manchin To Back Modified Filibuster; Senator Vows To Turn Up Heat on GOP on Voting Rights
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