Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat from West Virginia, said in a published statement Wednesday that he would under no circumstances vote to weaken or abolish the Senate subsidiary.
“The time has come to end these political games, and to usher in a new era of duality, where we find common ground on the key policy debates facing our country,” Manchin said in a Washington Post opinion article said.
Although Manchin has made clear his thoughts on preserving the filibuster, he goes further. Manchin said both parties had to compromise and that it was unacceptable to use the budget reconciliation process to enforce important legislation. President Joe Biden’s $ 1.9 billion US bailout plan has been reconciled.
“I simply do not believe that budget reconciliation should replace the regular order in the Senate. How is it good for the future of this country?” he wrote. “Senate Democrats should avoid the temptation to abandon our Republican colleagues on important national issues. However, Republicans have a responsibility to stop saying no and participate in finding a real compromise with the Democrats.”
He added: “We will not solve the problems of our country in one Congress if we only seek biased solutions … It is time we do our job.”
Congress is at odds over the adoption of the For the People Act, a comprehensive measure that seeks to change the laws on funding campaigns, suffrage and ethics, as the Biden government insists on a trillion-dollar infrastructure package.
Democrats did not have the 50 Senate votes needed to abolish the filibuster, as some prominent rulings support the effective requirement of majority to pass bills. Large parts of Biden’s agenda are threatened by the threshold of 60 votes in the Senate due to widespread Republican opposition in a chamber divided between 50-50 between the parties.
Biden, who earlier said the filibuster was being “abused in a giant way”, advocated a “talking filibuster” to make it harder for a minority party to block bills, and he said he was prepared to to revive the rule of the Senate. He said his goal is to find a way to negotiate and make progress with his goals.
But Biden also indicated that he might support moving forward if that failed.
“We’re going to get a lot done. And if we have to – if there’s a complete lockdown and chaos due to the filibuster, then we’ll have to go beyond what I’m talking about,” Biden said late last year. month.
