CHUCK SCHUMER REJECTS JOE MANCHIN’S VOTING RIGHTS STRATEGY – By Ryan Grim, Sara Sirota (The Intercept) / May 19 2021
The Senate majority leader continues to push the all-encompassing For the People Act, while the West Virginia senator is narrowly focused on reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act.
CHUCK SCHUMER AND Joe Manchin are locked in a voting rights standoff.
Senate Majority Leader Schumer, D-N.Y., shot down an effort from Sens. Manchin, D-W.Va., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, to focus narrowly on reauthorizing the 1965 Voting Rights Act, instead championing the For the People Act as the more immediate fix for systemic problems in the U.S. electoral system.
For the uninitiated: The For the People Act, also known as H.R. 1 in the House and S. 1 in the Senate, would amount to a sweeping overhaul of election and campaign finance law; the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, or H.R. 4, would work to re-implement Justice Department oversight of voting laws in states that have a history of voter suppression and discrimination.
Schumer dismissed the Manchin gambit in unusually blunt terms. “Here’s the bottom line: … The Voting Rights Act is actually authorized until 2032, so their letter to us saying authorize it, well, it’s pretty much done,” Schumer told reporters during a press conference Tuesday.
CONTINUE > https://theintercept.com/2021/05/19/voting-election-reform-chuck-schumer-joe-manchin/
