Joe Manchin just got squeezed
Even as the media largely tries to portray the current Senate vote on voting rights legislation as make-or-break and we’re all doomed if it fails, the factual reality is that the current vote is just the beginning of the process. The point of the vote is to put a spotlight on the likes of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, as they refuse to exempt voting rights from the filibuster, so that the public pressure will grow exponentially – and they may end up feeling compelled to cave on it a bit later.
To that end Nick Saban, the most powerful head coach in college football, and a West Virginia native, has co-authored a public letter to Joe Manchin, urging him to make voting rights legislation happen. This serves to place all kinds of media pressure on Manchin, perhaps even spilling over into sports news reporting, forcing Manchin to think about whether he’ll still have a career if he fails to help make voting rights legislation happen.
Saban did parenthetically add that he’s opposed to eliminating the filibuster entirely. That’s been getting a lot of attention from the doomsday types, but it’s irrelevant. Saban did not say that he’s opposed to exempting voting rights legislation from the filibuster. And since that’s the only way to make voting rights legislation happen, Saban is tacitly saying that he’s in favor of exempting it from the filibuster.
The bottom line is that the process of passing voting rights legislation is just beginning, no matter what the media says. The question is whether you are going to help the likes of Nick Saban by ramping up the pressure on Manchin (202-224-3954) and Sinema (202-224-4521), or whether you’re going to let them off the hook by just saying defeatist things like “they’ll never cave no matter what.” Whether or not voting rights legislation passes will come down to you.
