Keep Fighting

Every day there are new defeats.

But the little victories add up to.

We will not stop fighting and neither should you.

Senator Joe Manchin published an op-ed announcing that he will not be supporting the For the People Act -- a transformative voting rights and ethics reform bill. Manchin also stated that he will not vote to reform the filibuster.

While infuriating, this is also not a big surprise. We have known for a while now that the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate relies on at least two weak links: Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema. As long as passing any legislation, much less reforming the filibuster, requires support from both of them, then the scope of what we can accomplish via congressional action in 2021-2022 is narrow.

Frustrating as that may be, it is important to remember that we are playing a longer game and that many trends still favor our side. For one, a new majority continues to emerge in American politics, and future electorates will be more favorable than past ones. Second, the recent special election in New Mexico indicates that the national political environment still tilts toward Democrats by as much as 6%. Third, there are very winnable U.S. Senate seats currently held by Republicans that are on the ballot in 2022, including states that Biden won such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where Democratic victories would make opposition to legislation from Manchin and Sinema obsolete.

We are not giving up on passing good legislation in 2021-2022, but we need to also admit that to pass more of what we want--including stronger democracy reform, LGBTQ+ protections, criminal justice reform, and legislation to create a new, green economy for all--then we need more votes in the Senate.

Earlier this week, President Biden made remarks on why Congress wasn't passing more of his agenda; saying "because Biden only has a majority effectively of four votes in the House and a tie in the Senate with two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends."

That last part is a bit of hyperbole, but his point is still made. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona are making the passage of any progressive policy almost impossible. By not supporting large swaths of the Democratic agenda, much less filibuster reform, Sinema and Manchin are largely allowing McConnell to hold Biden's agenda hostage.

Now for the good news. On Tuesday, Democrats won a crushing 24.6% victory in a special election in New Mexico's first congressional district to fill the vacancy created when Deb Halaand resigned from the House of Representatives to become Secretary of the Interior. While this is a blue leaning district, the nearly 25-point margin of victory is over six points better than what Democrats would be expected to win by if the national political environment was evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. This indicates that Democrats have a real chance to keep their U.S. House majority in 2022 and win even more seats in the U.S. Senate, something which could potentially make the obstruction of Manchin, Sinema and McConnell obsolete.

We can't replace Manchin and Sinema anytime soon, but we can elect more, and better, Democrats to the Senate in 2022. The filibuster and Senate Republicans are standing in the way of real progressive policy, but with only a couple more seats in states that Biden won--such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin--we can change that.

(from Amanda McKay, Daily Kos)