While the full scale of what the White House is planning remains unclear, Biden is expected to deliver a speech connecting the day to the defense of the ballot, aides said.
But aides also recognize that a full-court press on voting rights — even if good politics — would be doomed to fail without a change to the filibuster. And they are skeptical that they can bring reluctant Democrats on board for such changes. While Manchin has said he’s open to reforming the chamber’s rules in a bipartisan manner, he does not support nuking the legislative filibuster. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) has warned that scrapping the filibuster could come back to haunt Democrats. White House aides, as such, have been instructed to avoid the phrase “filibuster reform,” which they believe has become toxic and spurs knee-jerk opposition.
Other Democrats are losing patience, however. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) delivered a passionate speech from the Senate floor this week pushing Democrats to act on voting rights, noting that the Senate just scrapped a 60-vote threshold to pass a debt ceiling hike. Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), who has been in touch with Warnock, said he believes Democrats are “in a good place with the voting rights bill,” though it’s “not the timeline that I would want.”
“I don’t want it to be constrained by trying to do it before the end of the year. I don’t know that you have to do it before the end of the year,” Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House and a close Biden ally, said in an interview. “I just want us to get a bill done that will help preserve this democracy because if we don’t, I think we’ve lost this democracy.”
As pressure ramps up, a group of Senate Democrats have been working on possible rule changes to the chamber that could, potentially, pacify the party’s more centrist members. Those senators — Angus King (I-Maine), Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) — met with Manchin and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday to discuss Senate rule reforms.
“The longer we wait the more mischief the states are performing,” said King.
But rules changes are complicated, take time and most Democrats expect the effort to come to a head in January. And few, if any, Democrats expect success unless Biden were to use the power of his office to influence centrist holdouts—something he has so far refrained from doing.