King Day promise on voting rights unlikely and that’s shameful

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s family will honor the late civil rights leader on Monday by demanding action on federal voting rights legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had initially set the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, on Monday, Jan. 17, as a deadline to either pass the voting legislation or consider revising the filibuster rules.

Schumer’s announcement came after President Joe Biden gave a fiery speech Tuesday in Atlanta, likening opponents of the legislation to racist historical figures and telling lawmakers they will be “judged by history.”

But Biden said on Thursday he’s “not sure” his elections and voting rights legislation can pass Congress this year. He spoke at the Capitol after a key fellow Democrat, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, dramatically and disrespectfully announced her refusal to go along with changing Senate rules to push past a Republican filibuster blockade.

Biden went to the Capitol to prod Democratic senators in a closed-door meeting, but he was not optimistic when he emerged.

All but acknowledging defeat, Biden vowed to keep fighting but was talking about next year for the sweeping legislation that advocates say is vital to protecting elections.

“One thing for certain, like every other major civil rights bill that came along, if we miss the first time, we could come back and try the second time,” he told reporters, his voice rising. “As long as I’m in the White House, as long as I’m engaged at all, I’m going to be fighting.”

Sinema declared just before Biden arrived on Capitol Hill that she could not support a “short sighted” rules change.

She said in a speech on the Senate floor that the answer to divisiveness in the Senate is not to change filibuster rules so one party, even hers, can pass controversial bills. “We must address the disease itself, the disease of division, to protect our democracy,” she said.

Sinema’s actions were a major sign of disrespect to the president and to civil rights advocates. How could she take such a public position in opposition before hearing what the president from her own party had to say about major legislation on voting rights, a major priority of African Americans, the most loyal voters in the Democratic base?

Biden spoke for more than an hour in private with restive Democrats in the Senate, including Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who also opposes changing Senate rules.

But Manchin, who played a major role writing Democrats’ voting legislation, threw cold water on the hopes Tuesday, saying any changes should be made with substantial Republican buy-in — even though there aren’t any Republican senators willing to sign on.

South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, the No. 3 Democrat in the House and a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, was right to question the wisdom of reflexively seeking bipartisanship, noting that the right to vote was granted to newly freed slaves on a party-line vote.

“He seems to be supporting a filibuster of his own bill,” Clyburn said of Manchin. “That, to us, is very disconcerting.” That’s a major understatement. What Manchin did is shameful and totally unacceptable.