US Democrats’ sweeping attempt to rewrite US election and voting law on Tuesday suffered a major setback in the US Senate, blocked by a filibuster wall of Republican opposition to what would be the largest overhaul of the electoral system in a generation.
The vote leaves the Democrats with no clear path forward, although US President Joe Biden said: “This fight is far from over.”
The bill, known as the For the People Act, would touch on virtually every aspect of how elections are conducted, striking down hurdles to voting, while also curbing the influence of money in politics and limiting partisan influence over the drawing of congressional districts.
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However, many Republicans say the measure represents instead a breathtaking federal infringement on states’ authority to conduct their own elections without fraud — and is meant to ultimately benefit Democrats.
It failed on a 50-50 vote after Republicans, some of whom derided the bill as the “Screw the People Act,” denied Democrats the 60 votes needed to begin debate under senate rules.
US Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the chamber as the bill failed to break past that filibuster barrier.
Biden praised Democratic senators for standing together “against the ongoing assault of voter suppression that represents a Jim Crow era in the 21st century.”
In a statement from the White House, he said that in their actions, though unsuccessful on Tuesday, they “took the next step forward in this continuous struggle.”
The rejection forces Democrats to reckon with what comes next for their top legislative priority in a narrowly divided senate.
They have touted the measure as a powerful counterweight to scores of proposals advancing in Republican-controlled statehouses making it more difficult to vote.
“Once again, the senate Republican minority has launched a partisan blockade of a pressing issue,” US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said from the chamber floor, vowing that the vote was the “starting gun” and not the last time voting rights would be up for debate.
Whatever Democrats decide, they are likely to be confronted with the same challenge they faced on Tuesday when minority Republicans used the filibuster to block consideration of the bill.
Republicans showed no sign of yielding, with Republican leader Mitch McConnell calling the bill “a solution looking for a problem” and vowed to “put an end to it.”
US Senator Ted Cruz dismissed it as “partisan legislation, written by elected Democrats, designed to keep elected Democrats in office.”
US Senator Shelley Moore Capito called the bill “a despicable, disingenuous attempt to strip states of their constitutional right to administer elections” that “should never come close to reaching the president’s desk.”
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