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Biden Pledges Fight for Voting Rights, Police Reform 

President Joe Biden pledged Friday to fight for stalled voting rights and police reform legislation, addressing graduates of South Carolina State University amid the harsh reality that months of talks with lawmakers have failed to move the measures closer to becoming law.

Biden spoke at the historically Black school a day after conceding that his nearly $2 trillion social and environmental bill was unlikely to become law this year, as he had hoped, due to continued disagreement among fellow Democrats. Republicans unanimously oppose the spending.

Wearing a black gown as he delivered the December commencement address, the president bemoaned GOP opposition that has kept voting rights bills from advancing in the 50-50 Senate following passage by the Democratic-controlled House. He blamed “that other team, which used to be called the Republican Party,” for refusing to even allow the bills to be debated.

“But this battle’s not over,” Biden said. “We’re going to keep up the fight until we get it done.”

‘Sacred right to vote’

Biden’s vow to keep pushing to protect what he called “the sacred right to vote” comes as the NAACP and similar groups have grown frustrated with the White House over the lack of progress on the issue. Voting rights is a priority for Democrats heading into next year’s midterm elections after Republican-controlled legislatures passed a wave of restrictive new voting laws.

Biden pledged similar advocacy for police reform, another issue important to the Black community after a series of killings of Black men by police, including George Floyd’s death last year after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for about nine minutes.

The House passed a sweeping police reform measure earlier this year in response to Floyd’s killing, but months of negotiations among a bipartisan group of senators failed to produce a bill.

Biden vowed to keep pressing for police reform, too.

“The fight’s not over,” he said at the alma mater of House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress and South Carolina’s only Democrat in the delegation. Clyburn, who sat on stage with Biden, accepted his degree — earned 60 years earlier — from the president, a longtime friend.

Pitch to students

In his speech, Biden at times sounded more like a candidate as he used the appearance before a predominantly Black audience to stress how his administration is working to improve their economic and educational standing, from increasing funding for historically Black colleges and universities to fighting housing discrimination.

Black voters, in South Carolina and other states, were a crucial part of the coalition that helped Biden win election as president.

He also touched on the infrastructure bill he recently signed into law, including the promise of thousands of new jobs, but avoided discussing his centerpiece social welfare and environmental bill. That measure remains bottled up in the Senate, largely because of opposition from a fellow Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and facing an uncertain fate next year, when Democrats need accomplishments to show as they campaign for reelection in the November midterms.

Biden also pledged to help stamp out hate and racism, referenced the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol carried out in hopes of subverting his election, and talked about his appreciation for historically Black colleges and universities. He noted that key members of his team had graduated from historically Black schools, including Vice President Kamala Harris, a Howard University alum.

“You can defeat hate, but you can’t eliminate it,” Biden said. “It just slides back under a rock and, when given oxygen by political leaders, it comes out ugly and mean as it was before. We can’t give it any oxygen. We have to step on it.”

He did not discuss legislative strategy, including how he would turn hard Democratic opposition to the $2 trillion plan into support. All he offered was the promise to keep fighting — the same advice he gave the graduates.

Biden told them their “secret power” is the ability to understand the injustices and complications of the world, with the enduring legacies of racism leaving Black Americans at a disadvantage in home ownership and economic mobility.

Why the delay for Clyburn?

There were no December ceremonies when Clyburn graduated in 1961, so he received his diploma by mail. Instead of addressing this year’s graduates, as had been planned, Clyburn joined the procession of students on stage to receive his degree from Biden, whom he invited to deliver the commencement address.

The president visited at a fraught time for his agenda, with the future of his $2 trillion social and environmental spending package in doubt. While Democrats had hoped to make progress on the bill before Christmas, continued disagreements among lawmakers have all but halted negotiations, and Biden himself has signaled Democrats should shift their focus to passing a voting rights bill — another heavy lift in the evenly divided Senate.

On Friday, Senate Democrats huddled privately, as they have for weeks, discussing with parliamentary experts ways to adjust the chamber’s filibuster rules so they can push past Republican opposition and pass voting and election bills ahead of the 2022 midterms. No decisions have been reached, but senators insist they’re making progress.

Biden and Clyburn had been planning a gathering in South Carolina, Clyburn told reporters this week, and they figured Friday’s ceremony would suffice. The meeting was significant for both, in that it was Biden’s first time as president in South Carolina, where Clyburn’s public support is credited with boosting Biden to the Democratic presidential nomination.

On the cusp of South Carolina’s first-in-the-South primary, after struggling through less than stellar performances in other early nominating contests, Biden secured a public endorsement from Clyburn, an awaited signal for many Black voters that Biden would be the candidate to stand up for their interests.

Biden subsequently bested chief rival Bernie Sanders on Super Tuesday and claimed the nomination before defeating Republican incumbent Donald Trump in the general election. 
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US Senate Parliamentarian Deals Democrats Blow on Immigration

Democrats must drop an effort to let millions of immigrants remain temporarily in the U.S. from their expansive social and environment bill, the Senate parliamentarian decided Thursday, dealing the latest blow to a longtime priority of the party, migrant advocates and progressives.

The opinion by Elizabeth MacDonough, the Senate’s nonpartisan arbiter of its rules, all but certainly means Democrats will ultimately have to pull the proposal from their 10-year, roughly $2 trillion package. The measure carries health care, family services and climate change initiatives, mostly paid for with higher taxes on corporations and the rich, that are top priorities for President Joe Biden.

When the Senate considers the overall legislation — which is currently stalled — Democrats are expected to try reviving the immigration provisions, or perhaps even stronger language giving migrants a way to become permanent residents or citizens. But such efforts would face solid opposition from Republicans and probably a small number of Democrats, which would be enough for defeat in the 50-50 chamber.

MacDonough’s opinion was no surprise — it was the third time since September that she said Democrats would violate Senate rules by using the legislation to help immigrants and should remove immigration provisions from the bill. Nonetheless, it was a painful setback for advocates hoping to capitalize on Democratic control of the White House and Congress for gains on the issue, which have been elusive in Congress for decades.

MacDonough’s finding was the second defeat of the day inflicted on Democrats’ social and economic package. Biden was also forced to concede that Senate work on the massive overall bill would be delayed until at least January after his negotiations stalled with holdout Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat who wants to further cut and reshape the legislation.

“We will advance this work together over the days and weeks ahead,” the president said in a statement.

Democrats’ latest immigration proposal would have let an estimated 6.5 million immigrants in the U.S. since at least 2010 without legal authorization apply for up to two five-year work permits. The permits would let them hold jobs, avoid deportation and in some instances travel abroad without risking their residency here. Applicants would have to meet background checks and other requirements.

Immigration advocates and their Democratic Senate allies have said they will continue seeking a way to include provisions helping migrants in the legislation, but their pathway is unclear.

“Disappointed. And we’re considering what options remain,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, told reporters about the parliamentarian’s ruling.

‘Substantial policy changes’

Democrats are using special rules that would let them push the overall bill through the Senate by a simple majority vote, not the 60 votes legislation usually needs to end debate and move forward. GOP opposition means the immigration provisions Democrats want would not survive as a free-standing bill.

But under those same rules, such bills can’t have provisions that are driven more by policy changes than by cuts or increases in the federal budget.

The parliamentarian makes that call. Her opinion said Democrats had failed that test because the disputed language would have changed a program that currently awards work permits sparingly into one where it would be mandatory to issue the permits to migrants who qualify for them.

“These are substantial policy changes with lasting effects just like those we previously considered and outweigh the budgetary impact,” MacDonough wrote. Earlier this year, she rejected two Democratic proposals that would have each created a chance for permanent legal status for 8 million migrants.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the bill’s immigration provisions would end up costing the government around $111 billion over 10 years, largely because of federal benefits immigrants would qualify to receive by gaining legal status.

The rejected plan would have created no new pathway for those getting work permits to remain in the U.S. permanently. But the budget office estimated last month that of 6.5 million migrants who would ultimately get the temporary permits, around 3 million would later gain permanent residency because their new status would remove some obstacles in that process.

Many progressives and migrant supporters have long urged Democrats to vote to overrule the parliamentarian, whose opinion is advisory and whose decisions senators seldom overturn. Advocates resumed pressuring the party to do so after MacDonough’s ruling.

“This is a fight about racial justice,” said Greisa Martinez Rosas, executive director of United We Dream, an immigrant rights group. Citing the strong support Democrats usually receive from Hispanic voters, she said advocates would accept no excuses for inaction.

“It’s time for Democrats to deliver on their promises; they must disregard today’s recommendation” by the parliamentarian and add citizenship provisions to the bill, she said.

Overturning the ruling

It seems unlikely that Democrats would have the unanimous support they would need to overturn MacDonough’s opinion. Manchin, one of Congress’ more conservative Democrats, has said he would not vote to overturn a ruling of the parliamentarian “on every issue.”

Even so, top Democrats signaled Thursday evening that they would try.

“We strongly disagree with the Senate parliamentarian’s interpretation of our immigration proposal, and we will pursue every means to achieve a path to citizenship” in the social and environment bill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Durbin and four Latino Democratic senators said in a statement. They added, “We stand with the millions of immigrant families across the country who deserve better and for whom we will not stop fighting.”

The latest proposal fell well short of Biden’s initial plan this year to give the 11 million immigrants in the U.S. without legal authorization a way to seek permanent residency and even citizenship.

Even so, it would have been Congress’ most sweeping move in decades to help migrants in this country. A 1986 immigration overhaul helped an estimated 2.5 million immigrants win permanent residency.
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Despite Control of Congress, Democrats’ Agenda Appears Stalled 

Heading into what analysts expect to be their last year with unified control of Congress and the presidency for the foreseeable future, it remains unclear whether the Democratic Party will be able to capitalize on the opportunity to see key legislative priorities enacted into law. 

This week, just as Democratic lawmakers were celebrating a pair of significant victories on Capitol Hill, two members essential to their tenuous hold on the Senate majority signaled that they will block the party’s two biggest legislative priorities. That raised questions about how the Democrats will spend the remainder of the 117th Congress. 

On Wednesday, reports began to emerge that talks between the White House and West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin over President Joe Biden’s signature Build Back Better social and climate spending package had broken down. Democrats cannot afford to lose a single vote on the package, meaning that without Manchin’s support, the measure is as good as dead, given lockstep Republican opposition in the evenly-divided chamber. 

Also Wednesday, Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema said that she would not support an effort to alter Senate rules to allow the body’s Democrats to pass the Freedom to Vote Act, a package of voting rights measures, suggesting that that bill may also be doomed. 

Senate rules stymie Democrats 

The Democrats control 50 of the Senate’s 100 seats, and can rely on Vice President Kamala Harris to cast a deciding 51st vote in the event of a tie. However, because of the Senate’s filibuster rule, which requires a 60-vote majority to cut off debate on a subject, the Democrats are significantly constrained in their ability to pass legislation without significant Republican assistance. 

In the past few days, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer worked out an agreement with Senate Republicans to temporarily waive Senate filibuster rules in order to raise the nation’s debt limit and avoid a government default. Shortly thereafter, he brought the annual National Defense Authorization Act to the floor, where it passed on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis, 88-11. 

There is one well-known road around the filibuster: a process called budget reconciliation that allows a bill that fits certain parameters to be exempt from the filibuster. The Build Back Better Act is written in the form of a budget reconciliation bill, but that protection is only useful if the Democrats can retain all 50 of their members, meaning that Manchin’s refusal to support it is fatal to its chances of passage. 

No carve-out for voting 

Democratic senators pushing the voting rights legislation had hoped to convince the party to come together on a vote that would narrowly change the filibuster rules — something that can, ironically, be done with a simple majority — to allow the voting rights bill to pass with 51 votes. 

On Wednesday, however, Sinema’s office issued a statement indicating that while she supports the Freedom to Vote Act, she is not inclined to change the filibuster rule in order to pass it. The statement suggested that to do so would only invite wild swings in federal law in the future, whenever a party gains unified control of Congress and the White House. 

On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, criticized the suggestion that Democrats might do away with the filibuster in order to pass their agenda.

“Entire generations of statesmen would have seen … these unhinged proposals as Armageddon for our institutions,” he said.

So, now what? 

Experts are divided on exactly what the current impasse means for the remainder of the 117th Congress. Some, like Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, say they expect little legislative activity to take place. Sabato told VOA he expects Democrats to focus on tasks like filling vacant seats on federal courts, which they can do with a simple majority. 

“Judicial appointments are the one area where they really have been successful,” Sabato said. “They’ll fill every possible judgeship, as long as they maintain the 50-50 Senate. As long as they can do that, they’ll get something done that will have long-lasting effects.” 

Sabato said there is faint hope that there could be some bipartisan move toward regulating major social media firms, but he pointed out that while both parties are angry at companies like Facebook and Twitter, the parties don’t agree on the changes they would like to see implemented.

And in an election year when Republicans hope to take control of Congress, he added, there may be little incentive to cooperate.

“They could reach a compromise, but again, if Republicans are confident of gaining control of Congress — which they have every reason to be — why would they compromise when they have a good chance of getting everything they want when they’re in charge?” 

Biden can point to one major bipartisan victory, a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, which was signed into law last month, and addressed a long wish list of projects around the country sought by lawmakers of both parties. Since then, however, attracting Republican support or maintaining Democratic party unity on other major planks of Biden’s agenda has proved elusive. 

A more hopeful outlook 

William A. Galston, a senior fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies program, told VOA that he still holds out hope that Democrats and Republicans in Congress will be able to find some common ground in the first half of 2022, before the looming midterm elections make cooperation a practical impossibility. 

“One possibility is that they will turn to issues that are less visible right now, but which may have a greater prospect of bipartisan support and therefore, success on the floor of the Senate,” Galston said. “There have been a number of bills, for example, dealing with supply chain issues. And it is at least possible that pieces of larger bills could be peeled off, the ones that are most likely to get support across party lines.” 

In particular, he pointed to a piece of legislation that passed the Senate following the cooperative efforts of Schumer and Republican Sen. Todd Young, of Indiana. The bill, called the United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021, creates a Directorate for Technology and Innovation in the National Science Foundation.

Part of the new directorate’s mission would be to “to improve national competitiveness in science, research, and innovation” in order to support the goal of the administration’s national security strategy. 

“That would put us in a substantially better position to address some key looming challenges, including our competition with China,” Galston said. The bill has not progressed in the House of Representatives, he noted. However, he said, “I suspect very strongly that if the White House and leaders in both chambers got together, they could figure out how to unstick that bill.” 
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