Joe Manchin is Blocking Voting Rights for Millions of Americans

Democrat Joe Manchin from West Virginia has announced that he is acting against the interests of West Virgnians and the rights of all Americans by voting against federal legislation to protect Americans’ right to vote. In an op-ed for his hometown paper the Charleston Gazette-Mail, Manchin claimed he would oppose the For the People Act, which the House passed but has failed to make it to the Senate. The legislation would expand ballot access by creating automatic voter registration throughout the country, restore the voting rights of the formerly incarcerated, expand early voting, and modernize voting systems.

Trump and GOP supporters who believe the 2020 election was "stolen" have given Republican legislatures shared talking points in enacting harmful legislation to restrict the right to vote in at least 14 states, by The Washington Post’s count. In Arkansas and Montana, Republican governors signed bills into law to create or further restrict identification requirements for voting in person and through absentee ballots. Arizona, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming followed suit.

Manchin has also been vocal in his opposition to ending the Senate filibuster.  Ending the outdated practice of the filibuster would actually allow bills to pass with a majority of the chamber vote (which is how it is actually supposed to work).  

What Manchin fails to mention is how the cherished filibuster has been used historically to strip voting rights from Black communities throughout the country, with concentrated voter suppression efforts in the South.  Journalist Ari Berman wrote a Mother Jones article describing the first filibuster Southern Democrats used to block civil rights legislation, specifically a House bill to send federal supervisors to protect voting, registration, and ballot tallies in the South in 1890. At the time, the Ku Klux Klan had been using violence and lynchings to intimidate Black communities who were given newly-protected voting rights through passage of the 14th Amendment.

What Manchin fails to realize is that the vast majority of West Virginians not supported the COVID relief bill and the jobs bill, they also support the voting rights bill (by even a larger margin):

 Manchin, who incorrectly believes that the founding fathers created the filibuster, thinks that the filibusters promotes bipartisanship (it doesn't-- it just blocks legislation, preventing progress).  He also incorrectly believes that the For the People Act is partisan legislation (it isn't- it promotes/expands access to voting for both Republican and Democratic voters).  

Manchin is a multi-millionaire who never has to worry about being bullied by cops, paying rent, being denied the right to vote, or having the cash to see a doctor. He fetishizes bipartisanship, which is the same at this point as making a deal with the devil. None of this is new, but it’s disappointing just how delusional he’s become.