(#4609) The writing is on the wall

      Since the Biden inauguration we who are clear eyed about how republicans operate have been shouting for a filibuster carve out for voting rights protections. Although Joe Biden was able to get an infrastructure bill passed with republican help it was only a hard infrastructure package that is dwarfed the human infrastructure bill that no republican voted for in the Senate and House. So the hope that republicans would get behind a voting rights protections bill when the republican party is going all out to suppress voting rights is ignorant. The only way a voting rights bill can pass the Senate is through a carve out of the filibuster, or complete removal of the filibuster, or somehow through a cleverly nuanced budget reconciliation process.
     Joe Manchin and his other reluctant democratic senators are going to come under extreme pressure in a New York second as the time for passing a voting rights protection bill is right now. Most likely this morning or later today a Joe Manchin led voting rights protections bill will be offered for a vote and when it most certainly will be defeated from clearing the 60 vote threshold Joe Manchin will have it confirmed to himself that republicans are not going to support his attempt to protect voting rights. It is at that moment that Joe Manchin will be faced with using a filibuster carve out for voting rights protections.
     The republican party is all in on suppressing the vote so they will not support anything that cripples their effort to keep poor and disadvantaged eligible voters from voting. What Joe Manchin and others like him need to realize is that without at least a carve out all sitting democrats in both the Senate and House will become the minority party because republicans were allowed to cheat their way into power. It is either that or use the carve out to protect voting rights. The calculus is simple! I expect that Joe Manchin will eventually agree and with him the other reluctant democratic Senators to at least a filibuster carve out if the voting rights protection bill is not somehow passed under budget reconciliation.