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.
-
Rothermere’s Telegraph takeover: ‘a right-leaning media powerhouse’Talking Point Deal gives Daily Mail and General Trust more than 50% of circulation in the UK newspaper market
-
The US-Saudi relationship: too big to fail?Talking Point With the Saudis investing $1 trillion into the US, and Trump granting them ‘major non-Nato ally’ status, for now the two countries need each other
-
Sudoku medium: November 30, 2025The daily medium sudoku puzzle from The Week
-
Could Trump run for a third term?The Explainer Constitutional amendment limits US presidents to two terms, but Trump diehards claim there is a loophole
-
Judge halts Trump’s DC Guard deploymentSpeed Read The Trump administration has ‘infringed upon the District’s right to govern itself,’ the judge ruled
-
Trump accuses Democrats of sedition meriting ‘death’Speed Read The president called for Democratic lawmakers to be arrested for urging the military to refuse illegal orders
-
Court strikes down Texas GOP gerrymanderSpeed Read The Texas congressional map ordered by Trump is likely an illegal racial gerrymander, the court ruled
-
Trump defends Saudi prince, shrugs off Khashoggi murderSpeed Read The president rebuked an ABC News reporter for asking Mohammed bin Salman about the death of a Washington Post journalist at the Saudi Consulate in 2018
-
Congress passes bill to force release of Epstein filesSpeed Read The Justice Department will release all files from its Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking investigation
-
Trump says he will sell F-35 jets to Saudi ArabiaSpeed Read The president plans to make several deals with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman this week
-
Judge blasts ‘profound’ errors in Comey caseSpeed Read ‘Government misconduct’ may necessitate dismissing the charges against the former FBI director altogether
