Schumer's plan was to vote on S.1 at the end of the month. Activists had hoped to use it to make the case for filibuster reform.
Manchin has cut that off at the knees, making clear the bill won't even get 50. And focus on bipartisanship means changes to substance won't sway him
See for instance this @sambrodey piece from just a few days ago. This was how activists hoped the drama would play out (a bit of magical thinking here), but Manchin has since made clear it's not happening.
As I explored in my profile there are two Manchins, depending on the issue. There's one who will play hardball but cut a deal in the end. And there's another who will put his foot down, and keep it down.
Overall, though, I guess it's not surprising that Manchin wasn't thrilled with Schumer's "put up a bunch of doomed bills to pressure Manchin into eliminating the filibuster" strategy for this month.
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There’s been a lot of conflation of separate issues into “the Republican Party’s threat to democracy,” which is effective rhetorically but can confuse things from the “what to do about it” perspective
The way you get bipartisanship on a bipartisan commission is, often, a sort of gentlemen's agreement not to make either party look too bad. Mutually assured destruction.
That's ill-suited for 1/6, because only one party looks bad on that issue
Recall that it was moderate House Republicans who introduced a bill to create a 1/6 commission, just days after the Capitol was stormed.
The idea was, explicitly, that the country needed something like a 9/11 Commission to provide a full accounting of what happened.
What could such a commission do?
1.) It could uncover new facts. But it wouldn't have special powers to do so. Any ordinary cong. committee has the same powers. And a commission half-controlled by McConnell/McCarthy appointees likely wouldn't be aggressive in using those powers
One day later, McConnell says on Senate floor that "after careful consideration" he will oppose Dems' 1/6 commission proposal, calling it unnecessary because there are enough investigations already
McConnell had some disagreements with specifics of Dems' proposal, but of course he could try and negotiate on those if he wanted to.
The lines about a new investigation being unnecessary seem to justify blanket opposition to the idea.
McConnell's position is currently being expressed as his personal opinion, not the party's. So still theoretically possible he will not try hard to block the commission and leave it up to his senators. But he isn't helping.
Punditry shorthand is Biden won because of nonwhite voters and white college grads. Not the whole story. His coalition was:
-39% voters of color
-29% white college grads
-32% non-college whites
That is, he got more actual votes from non-college whites than college whites.
That's because, well, there are lots of white people in the USA, and lots of them vote. White share of the electorate has been shrinking but is still quite high (72% of 2020 voters).
McConnell (speaking now against the For the People Act) was the preeminent opponent of the McCain-Feingold bill. This was before he was GOP leader. His name was on the (mostly) failed Supreme Court challenge to it.
Of the 11 Republicans who voted for McCain-Feingold in 2002, just 1 is still in the Senate — Susan Collins. She has said she opposes the For the People Act in its current form cnn.com/2021/03/22/pol…