Passing a sweeping election reform bill required two things from Democratic Senate leadership, says former Obama administration staffer Dan Pfeiffer: compromising with centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) on some of the details and then convincing Manchin and a few other Democrats, like Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), to agree to nuke the filibuster since there was no other way around Republican opposition. "It's now abundantly clear there was never a plan to do either," Pfeiffer wrote in The Message Box on Wednesday, a day after the GOP blocked a debate on the issue.
Pfeiffer tempered his criticism by noting that Manchin "was incredibly vague about the reasons for his opposition to the bill for a very long time," but "in the end, he suggested a reasonable, if unsatisfying, compromise that received the support of Stacey Abrams and [former President] Barack Obama." But, he continued, Democrats couldn't "coalesce around it and offer a united front." Instead, they spent the night before Tuesday's vote "debating strategy and discussing breaking the bill into pieces ... It is truly impossible to imagine why these problems were not anticipated and addressed long before the vote was scheduled." Read more at The Message Box.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
What happens to a Democratic Party without Nancy Pelosi?TODAY'S BIG QUESTION The storied former speaker of the House is set to retire, leaving congressional Democrats a complicated legacy and an uncertain future
-
The plant-based portfolio diet focuses on heart healthThe Explainer Its guidelines are flexible and vegan-friendly
-
Gregory Bovino: the officer leading Border Patrol’s aggressive tacticsIn the Spotlight He has been referred to as the Border Patrol’s ‘commander-at-large’
-
What happens to a Democratic Party without Nancy Pelosi?
TODAY'S BIG QUESTION The storied former speaker of the House is set to retire, leaving congressional Democrats a complicated legacy and an uncertain future
-
The longest US government shutdown in historyThe Explainer Federal employees and low-income households have been particularly affected by ‘partisan standoffs’ in Washington
-
Has Zohran Mamdani shown the Democrats how to win again?Today’s Big Question New York City mayoral election touted as victory for left-wing populists but moderate centrist wins elsewhere present more complex path for Democratic Party
-
Is Mike Johnson rendering the House ‘irrelevant’?Talking Points Speaker has put the House on indefinite hiatus
-
Senate votes to kill Trump’s Brazil tariffSpeed Read Five Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in rebuking Trump’s import tax
-
Border Patrol gets scrutiny in court, gains power in ICESpeed Read Half of the new ICE directors are reportedly from DHS’s more aggressive Customs and Border Protection branch
-
Shutdown stalemate nears key pain pointsSpeed Read A federal employee union called for the Democrats to to stand down four weeks into the government standoff
-
Trump vows new tariffs on Canada over Reagan adspeed read The ad that offended the president has Ronald Reagan explaining why import taxes hurt the economy
