Thread by @ChadPergram

1) Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has now laid out a strategy regarding the voting rights bill an the filibuster.

2) What will happen is the HOUSE will tee up an unrelated NASA bill. In place of the NASA language, the House will prep the text of the Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights bill and potentially put these measures in front of the House Rules Cmte as early as tonight

3) The House will then consider those bills on the floor, presumably Thursday and ship the “new,” combo bill to the Senate.

4) Because the House is utilizing an already used bill (the NASA measure), the updated, pre-packaged voting rights bills DO NOT face a filibuster just to put the bills on the floor in the Senate.

5) This eliminates the “Motion to the Proceed” to launch debate on those bills as well as the filibuster.

6) Bouncing the shell NASA bill back and forth between the House and Senate is considered a “message between houses.” Thus, it is exempt from a filibuster on the front end in the Senate.

7) However, the bill WILL face a filibuster on the back-end. That still needs 60 votes to cut off debate in the Senate on the overall bill.

Schumer will need to file cloture to end debate on the bill. It still needs 60 yeas when that vote comes.

8) It is not clear yet when Schumer will file cloture. But, by rule, Schumer must do it two days ahead of the actual vote. In other words, if Schumer files cloture Thursday, Friday serves as an intervening day. The cloture vote to end the filibuster isn’t “ripe” until Saturday.

9) At that point (whether it’s Friday or later), Schumer will have a failed cloture vote. That is the parliamentary tool he needs to potentially initiate a “nuclear option” and alter the filibuster.

10) However, Schumer needs all of his members on board, plus the vote of Vice President Harris – breaking a tie – to execute this maneuver.

So, the House must move first.

11) This is why we believe there is an increasing possibility of a weekend session or action on Martin Luther King Day.

Schumer cannot file cloture on the revamped bill until he gets it from the House.

12) So, what we are staring at are two key votes in the Senate, either over the weekend or on Monday.

One roll call is the cloture vote to terminate the filibuster on the voting bill. That vote will fail.

13) Then, Schumer, at an undetermined time, could ATTEMPT to execute a nuclear option to alter Senate procedures on the filibuster.

14) That vote would establish a new precedent to lower the bar to end filibusters, specifically for voting rights bills, to 51, rather than 60. One might expect that vote to come on Monday or later.