He thinks that either the majority needs to reach 60 votes to overcome an obstruction or the minority needs to reach 41 votes to sustain it. And he recognized the delicate status of the obstructionist in his own party.
“Jiminy Christmas, friend. That’s why I hate to say anything to you, “said Manchin in an interview on Tuesday.
“I want to make it very clear to everyone: there is no way I would vote to prevent the minority from participating in the Senate process. That means protecting the obstructionist, ”he added. “It must be a process to reach that limit of 60 votes.”
Statistically speaking, so far the GOP Senate has not obstructed anything this year. This is likely to change as soon as Schumer begins to pass legislation passed by the House that does not contain the 10 Republicans needed to move on.
But Manchin said that before Democrats start talking about how to find a way around their math problem, he wants to see a bipartisan effort. Notably, he said he would rather see an infrastructure bill – President Joe Biden’s next big spending priority – passed with Republican support, without using the budget reconciliation process to allow approval with a simple majority in the Senate.
“I didn’t see an effort by our leadership to sit down and work with them. No one is making any effort. They just assume it will be a holy war, ”said Manchin.
He said his comments on Sunday were very exaggerated: “They must have read a lot more about it than just saying, ‘Let’s see if we can preserve the obstruction.’ [That’s] where I was going. If you have any other ideas, let’s talk about it. “
Despite Manchin’s seemingly unshakable position, there is an undeniable swelling among Senate Democrats to end the Senate’s supermajority requirement to approve most bills. Among those who have publicly defended the changes in obstruction in recent days are Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, from Minnesota, and Catherine Cortez Masto, from Nevada.
And now that they have passed a $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, Senate Democrats are weighing their next move with their small majority. Many progressive bills passed by the House, such as electoral reform, police reform or new LGBTQ protections, are currently not supported in the Senate to become law.
Schumer is likely to vote on these projects anyway, to demonstrate that Republicans are opposed to policy changes, he said in an interview over the weekend. This public display of insufficient Republican Party adherence to change could be the first step in building a case that the obstructionist needs a review to approve the rest of Biden’s agenda.
“We are going to find a way. It’s my passion to get [election reform] done, when you see what they are doing in the states to change voting rights, ”said Schumer. “It’s all on the table. We have to. What is not an option is not to do bold things. “
Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) Are the most open opponents of the change in obstruction, although several other Democratic center senators have reservations. Biden himself also did not endorse the change in the obstruction, although the White House’s response on Monday did not rule out a move towards reforming the rules.
Sinema, in fact, prefers to replace previous obstruction amendments to reinstate the 60-vote requirement for nominations that Democrats first eased in 2013 and Republicans removed for Supreme Court choices in 2017.
“My position in the obstruction has been stable throughout my career,” said Sinema in an interview in February. “I would always oppose efforts to remove the obstruction.”
If Sinema is open to more modest reforms, she hasn’t said so yet. She said in a recent letter to a constituent who supports the 60-vote limit for “all Senate actions”.
The talking obstruction would essentially require the minority party to hold the floor while opposing a bill, with a supermajority of 60 votes needed for the majority party to reject it. The majority party could also expect exhaustion to take effect and, whenever minority senators could no longer speak, defeat the obstructionist with a simple majority of 51 votes.
Manchin’s support for a 60-vote minimum threshold to continue would then eliminate the central reform envisioned by a talking obstructionist classic. Former Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has proposed to decrease the number of votes needed to override the speaking obstruction, depending on how long the obstruction continues.
Democrats can change the obstruction rules in 2023, as long as they get seats in the Senate with anti-obstruction candidates, like Pennsylvania Governor John Fetterman. But waiting is also a risk: Democrats hold a majority in both chambers now, and losing even the Chamber during the semester would make an obstruction review irrelevant.
Therefore, despite considerable obstacles to changing the rules, critics of the Democratic bloc’s obstruction continued to defend their position.
“McConnell is determined to exploit the obstruction and fight progress in the most urgent crises that our country faces,” Cortez Masto said on Tuesday when he endorsed a demand for spoken obstruction. “If he wants to block actions on health, climate change and voting rights, he must have to report to the Senate and be transparent about his obstruction.”