(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden is expected to meet with all Senate Democrats at the U.S. Capitol Thursday about voting rights legislation and possible changes to the chamber’s filibuster rules, according to a senior Democratic aide.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to questions about the meeting.
The visit comes as Senate Democrats are struggling to agree to possible changes to filibuster rules that might help them move ahead with Democrat-only legislation overhauling voting rights amid unified Republican opposition in the 50-50 Senate. It also comes two days after Biden traveled to Georgia to rally support for the legislation. He faces growing backlash from party allies who say he’s not doing enough.
Biden is seeking to pressure reluctant Senate Democrats — including West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema — to change Senate filibuster rules so that the voting rights legislation could clear the chamber on a simple majority vote. It takes 60 votes to end a filibuster — essentially endless debate — and move forward on most legislation.
“The threat to our democracy is so grave, we must find a way to pass these voting rights bills, debate them, vote,” Biden said Tuesday in Atlanta. “Let the majority prevail.”
Manchin this week reiterated that he opposes both getting rid of the filibuster entirely and changing Senate rules via a simple majority vote, the so-called nuclear option. He said any changes to the chamber’s rules should be made with support from at least two-thirds of the Senate.
Manchin met with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats early Wednesday, but he and Schumer indicated afterward that they hadn’t come to any agreement or resolution and that talks are ongoing.
Schumer has vowed to have a Senate floor showdown on the voting rights measures by Monday, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. He said he’ll try to bring up a broad Democrat-drafted voting rights reform bill and a narrower bill called the John Lewis Voting Rights Act that restores the Justice Department’s ability to require some states to get pre-clearance for changes to their voting laws. If they fail to get enough GOP support to advance to the floor, as expected, Schumer said he’ll force a debate on Senate filibuster rules to put all senators on record on the matter.
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