“Manchin Vows to Block Democratic Voting Rights Bill and Preserve Filibuster”

NYT:

Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia said on Sunday in no uncertain terms that he will not vote for the Democrats’ far-reaching bill to combat voter suppression and restore ethical controls on the presidency shattered by Donald J. Trump.

In an opinion piece in a West Virginia paper, Mr. Manchin, a Democrat, also reiterated his staunch opposition to ending the Senate’s legislative filibuster, which would seem to doom many of President Biden’s most ambitious legislative goals.

The bill, the For the People Act, would roll back dozens of laws being passed by Republican state legislatures to limit early and mail-in voting and empower partisan poll watchers and voting oversight.

The legislation would also force major-party candidates for president and vice president to release 10 years’ worth of personal and business tax returns and end the president’s and vice president’s exemption from executive branch conflict-of-interest rules, which allowed Mr. Trump to maintain businesses that profited off his presidency.

“I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy, and for that reason, I will vote against the For the People Act. Furthermore, I will not vote to weaken or eliminate the filibuster,” Mr. Manchin wrote in The Charleston Gazette-Mail, his home state capital’s newspaper.

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