I’m told Manchin and a dozen other Senate Democrats met with an expert on Senate rules and discussed various ways of carving out a filibuster exception or otherwise reforming it to allow passage of voting rights legislation. The meeting was organized by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
The ideas included looking at how to change the rules specifically to pass voting rights protections by a simple majority threshold, a Senate Democratic source who shared details of the meeting told me. The source added: “Manchin is engaged.”
The expert whom Manchin and other Democrats met with is Martin Paone, who has three decades of experience in Senate staff positions, the source tells me. Paone will also attend Friday’s caucus meeting among Senate Democrats, where this will get further discussion.
These meetings are separate from another set of meetings going on among Senate Democrats that doesn’t involve Manchin.