Last updated on June 9th, 2021 at 04:48 am
Democrats were overjoyed in January when Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won their special elections. With control of the senate came the opportunity to aggressively pass Joe Biden‘s policy goals.
But Joe Manchin (and Kyrsten Sinema) have created barriers to those goals. This weekend, the West Virginia senator said he would be voting against the For the People Act.
Manchin’s actions are troubling to many Democratic lawmakers. That list includes long-tome South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn. Clyburn tore into Manchin during a Monday night appearance on CNN.
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The Democrat told host Erin Burnett, “I think Senator Manchin needs to take a hard look at what he’s saying here. He’s not talking about voting against For the People. He’s talking about denying other Democratic senators an opportunity to cast a vote on a very critical issue.”
Clyburn continued:
“I would say to Senator Manchin, you’ve told us what you’re for and against. How about put forth the legislation that you would like to see passed? Let us see your bill on voting rights and preserving the integrity of our democracy. We are playing a very dangerous game here. If I had not studied history all of my life, maybe I wouldn’t be thinking the way I think, and not feeling the way I feel. The fact the matter is the greatest empires in the world came down because of decadence, and a lot of avoidance of issues. It’s a whole theory that Nero played his fiddle as Rome burned. But what we have is a modern day fiddling around in the Senate and this democracy is on fire.”
https://twitter.com/politicususa/status/1402072148689272840
Manchin has seemingly been plotting to tank a Democratic bill for months. He is sure to continue taking heat for making this the issue where he plants his flag.
Todd Neikirk is a New Jersey based politics and technology writer. His work has been featured in psfk.com, foxsports.com and hillreporter.com. He enjoys sports, politics, comic books and spending time at the shore with his family.
