https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216237951
snip
Now onto tactics. Schumer can call up the Freedom to Vote Act (supported by all 50 Senate Democrats) or the Senate version of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (supported by all Senate Democrats besides Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia) or both. Both bills have been blocked by unyielding GOP opposition. Schumer can call for their reconsideration at any time.
However, there’s another, more complex plan under consideration to provide an alternative way for Senate consideration.
The House this week is supposed to take up an amendment to a bill dealing with NASA’s leasing “underutilized” property to private entities. The House and Senate have ping-ponged this bill back and forth already.
Under this new plan – which is still just under consideration, it hasn’t been agreed to yet – Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats would use this NASA bill as a shell, strip out the existing language and insert the Freedom to Vote Act instead. The House would then pass this revised bill and send it onto the Senate. Since it’s a “message” between the House and Senate, there’s no filibuster on the motion to proceed to the legislation. That means the Senate could take it up quickly.
Senate Republicans will still filibuster the underlying bill and Schumer would have to file cloture in order to cut off debate and force a vote. That hasn’t changed. So, in sum, a GOP filibuster still has to be overcome, but there’s only one cloture vote, compared to two with a regular bill.
Yet the advantage of this proposed plan is that Schumer would be filing cloture on a voting rights bill that’s already been adopted by the House, instead of the Senate-only version of the legislation. Thus when Republicans filibuster the measure, they’d be blocking a bill that just needs Senate approval in order to head to the president’s desk. It’s a distinction with a difference.
Schumer is expected to unveil more on his next steps today, so let’s return to the strategy discussion.
As we said, Schumer doesn’t have the votes to pass the Freedom to Vote Act – any version of it – due to a GOP opposition. And he can’t pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act for the same reason. All 50 Senate Republicans will vote no.
More importantly, Schumer doesn’t have 50 Democratic votes to trigger the “nuclear option” to change Senate rules unilaterally and get rid of the filibuster. Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) remain opposed to any such move.
Manchin will back some technical changes to the filibuster, although he won’t back getting rid of the 60-vote threshold to cut off debate on a bill.
“I'm not for breaking the filibuster, but I am for making the place work better by changing the rules,” Manchin told reporters on Tuesday, one of several statements he made laying out his continued opposition.
For her part, Sinema met Tuesday night in the LBJ Room with a group of Senate Democrats from the Rules Committee. The group included Sens. Angus King (I-Maine), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) to discuss potential rules changes.
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