West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin wants the filibuster to be more “painful” for use by the minority party, reiterating his support for the Senate procedure.
“The filibuster should be painful. It really should be painful,” he told Fox News’s Chris Wallace on Sunday. “And we have — we’ve made it more comfortable over the years, not intentionally, maybe it just evolved into that. Maybe it has to be more painful. Maybe you have to stand there. There’s things we can talk about.”
“But, Chris, whenever you take away in the Senate the ability for the minority, however, it may be, Democrats or Republicans to have input, why do have two senators in Rhode Island and two senators in New York or California?,” the Democrat continued. “Why is there one body that treats everyone, hopefully, the ability to intervene, the ability to be involved, the ability to represent no matter how large or small? That’s so the big person doesn’t take advantage of a smaller person or a person in not just stature but in their position. That’s what this is all about. And I’m going to fight for that.”
Manchin, a swing vote in a deadlocked 50-50 Senate, also indicated he may support budget reconciliation, a fast track procedure that only requires a simple majority of votes rather than the required 60 senators it would take to end debate in the case of the filibuster. Manchin did not rule its use during talks regarding H.R. 1, a sweeping voter’s rights bill, which includes same-day registration and ballot rights for felons. The legislation recently cleared the House by a party-line vote.
MANCHIN FORCES DEMOCRATS TO HIT THE BRAKES BUT HE’S NOT IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT
“I’m not willing to go into reconciliation until we at least get bipartisanship or get working together or allow the Senate to do its job,” Manchin said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “I’m not going to go there until my Republican friends have the ability to have their say also.”
Manchin’s colleagues, including California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, implied that support for the filibuster might fade if Republicans use it to stonewall liberal objectives.
“If we continue to see obstruction from our Republican colleagues — as we saw through this Covid relief package — I think the patience is going to wear thin, even on moderate Democrats,” Padilla said Sunday. “But we’ll see.”
Manchin forced his Democratic orbit to include $300 additional weekly unemployment benefits and $10,200 in tax relief for those without jobs in the $1.9 trillion spending bill on Friday. He said he wasn’t planning on nuking the legislation, adding that his intentions were for a more balanced package.
When asked by Wallace if he wanted to stop the bill, Manchin said, “Absolutely not.”
“That’s not how negotiations should go and that should never be the intent of anybody. There was nothing that I wanted more than to have a balanced bill. And that is something that came into it at the last minute. I thought it was something that more than what we ever agreed on or intended.”
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He continued, “So when that happened, Chris, I just said hold on, if we stay at $300 for unemployment, it’s seamless, no one misses a paycheck, not at all, and basically, we were doing so much more with child tax credits, we were helping every family, and there’s got to be a balance and I’m in that modern middle, I guess, it’s not real crowded, Chris, I can assure you, but we just try to make it all come to fruition, and it did, and that’s the way negotiations should go.”
