Tipsheet

Is Joe Manchin's Influence Waning?

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  June 17, 2021 8:00 PM

Every other day there's something to write about Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV). It can be hard to keep track. On Monday, Carson raised the question as to if the senator could be persuaded to relax his support for the filibuster. That idea came from Ross Douthat, opinion columnist at the New York Times, who offered that Manchin ought to support cloture threshold vote being lowered from 60 to 55 votes as something of a "fix."

Tyler Olson reporting for Fox News has more. On Monday, Manchin was on a call with members from No Labels, where he mentioned an openness to lowering that threshold. "So I’m open to looking at it, I’m just not open to getting rid of the filibuster, that’s all," Manchin said, who also said it was "one of many good, good suggestions I’ve had." 

On Wednesday, the senator told Burgess Everett with POLITICO though that he still supports the filibuster, and had even stronger words about getting rid of it. It's worth emphasizing that this does not mean he's not open to changing it. "If we lose the filibuster, we’ve lost democracy as we know and we’ve lost the country being a reliable and stable power," he said as part of his comments.

Fox News also asked Manchin on Thursday about his openness to lowering the threshold, to which the senator responded "everything's good." 

It's worth mentioning that Manchin's comments on the call with No Labels was reported as a leak by The Intercept, if only because of Manchin's reaction to the news that the outlet reported such comments. The Intercept last month did a hit piece on many conservative reporters, including Townhall's own Julio Rosas.

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Perhaps the biggest blow of all, though, is what is being called a compromise from Manchin, who offered a different version of the "For the People Act" than those being considered. As Jordain Carney with The Hill reported:

Manchin has said that he opposes the For the People Act as it was introduced. The version Democrats are bringing to the floor is slightly revised, giving states and localities more time to implement the provisions. It does keep the original bill largely intact.

Manchin has also said he doesn’t support the revised version and instead has circulated a list to his colleagues detailing what he supports, and doesn’t support, in the bill.

Manchin outlined roughly two dozen ideas that garnered his approval including making election day a public holiday, mandating at least 15 consecutive days for early voting in federal elections, banning gerrymandering and allowing for automatic voter registration through a state's department of motor vehicles. 

Manchin also, according to a version of the list obtained by The Hill, backs tighter campaign finance requirements currently in the For the People Act. This would include requiring online and digital ads to disclose their funding sources in a way similar to TV and radio ads, as well as tighter ethics requirements for presidents and vice presidents and requirements that campaigns and committees report foreign contacts.

Carney's article also mentions that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is against any such proposal. "I would make this observation about the revised version ... all Republicans I think will oppose that as well if that were to be what surfaced on the floor," the minority leader said to press.

What likely doomed any hope for Manchin's compromise is who it's connected to, none other than Stacey Abrams. As Reagan covered on Wednesday, Abrams shared on MSNBC's "The ReidOut" that she's still aiming to get the "For the People Act" passed, through what she calls the Hot Summer Campaign, in which voters will bombard their senators daily to get it passed. 

Abrams went on another sympathetic program on Thursday, CNN's "New Day," to offer her support for Manchin's bill, which immediately tainted it.

 As Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) said, "it became the Stacey Abrams substitute."

Leader McConnell's office also released a statement, which referenced Abrams by name:

Senate Democrats seem to have reached a so-called “compromise” election takeover among themselves. In reality, the plan endorsed by Stacey Abrams is no compromise. It still subverts the First Amendment to supercharge cancel culture and the left’s name-and-shame campaign model. It takes redistricting away from state legislatures and hands it over to computers. And it still retains S. 1’s rotten core: an assault on the fundamental idea that states, not the federal government, should decide how to run their own elections.

As did Jason Snead, executive director of Honest Elections Project:

The policies in the Manchin election proposal would still be an unconstitutional takeover of elections by the federal government. Stacey Abrams’ plain hypocrisy in supporting it should not be ignored.

“Some of the elements Abrams is now embracing are nearly identical to what she condemned as ‘a redux of Jim Crow in a suit and tie’ just 3 months ago in her home state of Georgia. If Abrams is going to do an about face, she needs to own up to her hypocrisy, apologize to the Georgians harmed by her rhetoric, and demand that MLB bring the 2021 All-Star game back to Atlanta.

“Both the Manchin proposal and the Georgia Law make voter roll maintenance easier. They both require voter ID with allowable alternatives. And the Manchin proposal requires 15 days of early voting while the Georgia Law requires between 17-19 days of early voting including weekends. Abrams should stop demonizing states for adopting policies she now says she supports.

Others took to noticing on Twitter as well, pointing out how this actually makes Abrams a flip flopper on the issue.

Sen. Manchin--considered a moderate while Abrams is anything but--was likely better off without such a polarizing figure weighing in.