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Senate fails to change filibuster rule for passage of voting rights legislation - ABC News

Senate fails to change filibuster rule for passage of voting rights legislation - ABC News

Senate fails to change filibuster rule for passage of voting rights legislation - ABC News
Jan 20, 2022 2 mins, 27 secs

The Senate on Wednesday night failed to change the filibuster rule to allow voting rights legislation to pass with a simple majority.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said prior to the vote that the Senate would be "saved" by the opposition.

Earlier in the evening, the Senate was unable to end debate on voting rights legislation -- something that would have required 60 votes to move toward final passage.

In a rare event, the Senate convened on Wednesday morning with all Democrats instructed to be in their seats inside the chamber as they tried to move forward on voting rights legislation and on a challenge to a longstanding Senate rule.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that Democrats would seek a carveout to the filibuster rule to pass voting rights legislation by replacing the current 60-vote threshold needed to break a filibuster with an old-fashioned "talking filibuster.".

"We feel very simply: On something as important as voting rights, if Senate Republicans are going to oppose it, they should not be allowed to sit in their office," Schumer said Tuesday following an evening caucus meeting.

"Just as Donald Trump has his "big lie," Mitch McConnell now has his: States are not engaging in trying to suppress voters whatsoever," Schumer said.

He also addressed two Democratic senators who hold what Schumer thinks is a false view that the chamber's filibuster brings greater bipartisanship -- and he countered in his remarks: "Isn't the protection of voting rights -- the most fundamental wellspring of this democracy -- more important?".

McConnell, in another blistering speech, said a rule change would "destroy the Senate" and warned of a "nuclear winter" if Democrats get their way and "blow up" the chamber's rule to pass voting rights legislation, which he called a "partisan Frankenstein bill.".

McConnell accused Democrats of trying to "smash and grab as much short-term power as they can carry," and said, "For both groups of senators, this vote will echo for generations.".

So, in theory, Harris, as president of the Senate, would serve as a tie-breaking vote for Democrats to pass the once-filibustered bill.

But both Manchin and Sinema have repeatedly made clear their opposition to changing the filibuster rule even in order to pass voting rights, although they say they support the underlying legislation.

Manchin defended his decision to vote against changing Senate rules in a floor speech Wednesday evening that he said aimed to "rebut what I believe is a great misleading of the American people" by Senate Democrats.

"If you think this bill makes sense and if you're worried about the future of American democracy and if you are prepared to vote for the bill, then why are you wasting everybody's time and not voting for the rule change that allows us to pass the bill

John Cornyn of Texas, who warned Democrats that they're embarking on a "slippery slope" in attempting to carve out an exception to the filibuster to pass a piece of legislation

Summarized by 365NEWSX ROBOTS

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