You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people.
If you listened to the press last week, you may have heard that the sweeping democracy-saving voting rights & anti-corruption bill, the S.1 For the People Act is dead. As Mark Twain said, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
Last week's vote made clear that the For the People Act has no Republican support, and Democratic Senator Sen. Joe Manchin from West Virginia has said he won't support the bill as is. But he HAS offered amendments, and negotiations have ramped up on a modified bill, including making changes to require voter ID provisions but also allow voters to use water & property tax bills and other ways to identify voters.
The big blocking point is not Sen. Manchin or even Republicans at this point. It's the fililbuster, which requires 60 votes to stop, and last week's vote ended in a 50-50 tie. Manchin said that he's open to dropping the 60 votes needed to end the filibuster down to 55, and making the filibuster an old school “standing” filibuster.
While most democracy advocates favor doing away the the filibuster altogether, NH Senators Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen have not made it clear how far they will go to change the filibuster and get the for the people act passed. The Senate switchboard is 888-453-3211.
Negotiations on S. 1 and the filibuster are expected to continue until August.
As Granny D said, “Democracy is not something we HAVE, it's something we DO.”
For the Open Democracy Minute, I'm Brian Beihl. r
