Member-only story
On Partisan Bipartisanship: An open letter to Senator Manchin
Dear Senator Manchin:
You have told us that you will block the most important voting rights legislation in two generations — legislation that you in fact co-sponsored in the last Congress — because you don’t believe such reform should happen in a “partisan” manner.
But Senator: Right now, across this country, voting rights are being changed in a partisan manner.
There are hundreds of bills being considered in Republican state legislatures that will have the obvious and intended effect of making it harder for some Americans to vote. Whether or not those changes are motivated by race, they are certainly motivated by politics. And yet none of the Republican state legislatures that are passing these bills are even pretending to promise America that their efforts to suppress the vote have bipartisan support. Because — plainly—they do not.
You have told us that instead, Congress should consider restoring the Voting Rights Act, as you have proposed in a modification of H.R.4 with the support of Senator Murkowski. “Inaction,” you said, “is not an option.”
But whether or not this Supreme Court would uphold that bill, that bill would do nothing to correct the changes that are being made right now. Your bill is not retroactive. By the time Congress…
