Tag Archives: Filibusters

How’s he doing? Americans weigh in on Biden’s performance

President Joe Biden took office at a particularly polarized time in American history, so it’s not surprising that citizens are divided on his performance at the one-year mark.

A Georgia history teacher who voted for Biden would give him a “C” grade, faulting the president for not pushing earlier to end the filibuster in the Senate but supportive of his Build Back Better plan.

A retired nurse in Iowa who supported Pete Buttigieg in the Democratic primary says she’s been impressed by the way Biden has upheld the dignity of the office.

A registered independent in Arizona who voted for former President Donald Trump says Biden’s first year has been “pretty bad,” citing the shutdown of the Keystone XL oil pipeline and the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal.

Here’s what else Americans have to say about the job Biden has done so far:

THE TRUMP-TO-BIDEN VOTER

Craig Prichard believes Donald Trump should be in jail. But he’s far from your typical anti-Trumper: He voted for him in 2016.

But not in 2020. “No, sir,” says the 65-year-old self-described independent from Des Moines, Iowa.

Prichard is still angry at Trump over the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, saying he believes the former president caused it. But it was Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic that led Prichard to vote for Biden in 2020.

“Trump wanted to make it look like COVID was going away,” Prichard says. “That wasn’t the way to take care of it.”

Prichard, who for 40 years built farm machinery, worked construction and eventually retired after a stint at a meatpacking plant last year, says Biden is “handling COVID as well as he can” while juggling a number of other issues.

“Biden, you can tell he’s trying to handle the pandemic, food prices, gas prices, Russia, all at the same time, and he doesn’t seem to care how he looks,” Prichard says. “Because it’s not real good right now for him, even though there’s less people dying than if Trump were there.”

“Trump, turns out, only cared about how he looked,” Prichard says.

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THE TEACHER WHO GIVES BIDEN A ‘C’ GRADE

Kai Uchimura, a high school history teacher who lives in Decatur, Georgia, voted for Biden in 2020. He’d give him a “C” grade so far.

Uchimura, 26, describes himself as leaning left on most issues, though he is not a registered Democrat. He says he supports Biden’s social policy bill that remains stalled in Congress, but thinks Democrats have done a poor job of explaining its benefits.

“That Build Back Better plan, it seemed like no one knew what was in the bill except for the cost,” he says.

He also faults Biden for not pushing earlier to end the filibuster in the Senate that requires 60 votes to advance most legislation. Last week, for the first time, Biden directly advocated eliminating the filibuster in order to debate and vote on election and voting rights legislation.

“I know that when he was coming into office, he had this message of trying to unite the country and extend a hand across the aisle,” Uchimura says. “But I wish he would have recognized earlier that this era of bipartisanship seems to be pretty much on thin ice.”

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THE BIDEN VOTER WHO DECRIES POLARIZATION

Lynn Manning-John, a school principal on a Native American reservation on the Nevada-Idaho border, is pleased with Biden’s first year in office but worries his presidency has further polarized her community.

At a Walmart in Elko County, Nevada, a ranching region that heavily supported the former president, she’s overheard customers complain about how Biden’s agenda has permeated “Trump country.”

“There is just a reluctance to support the current president,” the 45-year-old independent voter says. “There’s pushback towards anything that he puts forward, even if it’s good and common sense.” She was especially happy with Biden’s nomination of Deb Haaland, a fellow Native American, as interior secretary.

The superintendent and five out of seven school board members in Elko County resigned last year during protests from parents’ groups opposed to lesson plans about equity and diversity in the parts of the county outside the Duck Valley Indian Reservation.

Manning-John sees the resignations and the parents’ demands as an outgrowth of the backlash to Biden’s 2020 victory.

Biden’s election win is still unreal to many Americans, she says.

“And the absolute revolt that has come about since absolutely goes directly to the school boards,” she says.

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THE BIDEN VOTER WARY OF LIBERALS

Patrick Sweeney voted for Biden but has been disappointed the president hasn’t pushed back more against the left wing of the Democratic Party.

“I wish he would claim and stake out the middle ground, and be more that, ‘This is what the Democratic Party represents,’” says Sweeney, a 62-year-old retired educator in a Phoenix suburb who is not affiliated with a political party.

“So much of the conversation seems to get focused on the extreme left wing of the Democratic Party and progressive positions,” Sweeney says. “I think he needs to be more front and center in countering that.”

Sweeney is pleased with the infrastructure bill Biden signed into law but wishes he’d stopped there instead of pushing a massive increase in social service spending.

“I was enthusiastic about the original infrastructure plan,” Sweeney says. “I think it’s long overdue, and I was really glad to see it, and I think that could’ve and should’ve been a great accomplishment. Get the bulldozers and shovels rolling and get to work. She adds: “The Build Back Better plan, I think there’s too much in there that I don’t see the need for it, or I don’t know that the federal government is the solution for it.”

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THE TRUMP VOTER WHO’S NOT IMPRESSED

Eric Ollarsaba says Biden’s presidency has been “pretty bad.” But the 33-year-old Trump voter isn’t surprised.

“He’s pretty much doing exactly what I expected him to do,” says Ollarsaba, a registered independent who lives in Phoenix and works at an online car retailer. “He’s a career politician.”

He is disappointed Biden shut the Keystone XL oil pipeline, and he was appalled by the chaotic U.S. military exit from Afghanistan.

“We’re probably going to be reliant on other countries for energy, which I could potentially see leading to another conflict, or us involving ourselves in another war,” Ollarsaba says. “I think we still needed a U.S. presence in Afghanistan. Not major military operations, but we still need a presence and I think that would make that region — at least for the United States — a little less dangerous.”

The U.S. should not have had to rely on the Taliban’s cooperation to evacuate Americans from Afghanistan, he says. He worries ceding influence there will allow terrorist groups to gain a foothold.

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THE DEMOCRAT WHO PREFERRED MAYOR PETE

Biden wasn’t Kathleen Paul’s first pick. The 74-year-old retired nurse liked Pete Buttigieg in the Democratic primary.

“I thought Biden was sort of ‘Jokin’ Joe,’” Paul says. “He said things that were so off-the-cuff when (Barack) Obama was president. I thought, ‘Can we really take this guy seriously?’”

Turns out, a bit to her surprise, she can.

“I’ve been really impressed with the way he upholds the dignity of the office, the way he expresses himself,” says Paul, a self-described liberal Democrat from Des Moines, Iowa. “I knew he had experience and had been through tragedy. But I didn’t know he could project the weight of that.”

She credits Biden with following the science in his handling of the pandemic but faults him for his naïve optimism in setting last July 4 as the date by which 70% of the nation’s eligible population would be vaccinated. That goal was reached months later but the percentage has slipped under 70% because younger children were made eligible.

She was also upset by the chaotic pullout from Afghanistan, saying the administration should have foreseen the end result: “Bombs going off, people running down runways after planes.”

“They made the move, and it was not well done,” she says. “If you’re there for 20 years, what’s another six months to pull the Band-Aid off a little more slowly?”

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THE BIDEN VOTER WHO WANTS HIM TO TOOT HIS OWN HORN

Natalie Rawlings, a registered Democrat who voted for Biden, says the president doesn’t get enough credit for all the things that are going right, like the strong job market that has made it easier for workers to switch jobs.

But she thinks that’s partly his own fault.

“I don’t know why he’s having such a hard time with the messaging,” says Rawlings, a 50-year-old Atlanta resident who works for a Fortune 500 company. “Did Biden think his plans were going to sell themselves?”

She also thinks Biden has misjudged his ability to cajole his former colleagues in the Senate to back his agenda.

“Biden has bit off more than he can chew,” she says. “Maybe if he did things more incrementally, but now that would appear like he’s backpedaling.”

It’s still early, but she’s skeptical he’ll be a two-term president.

“I can’t see a clear path for Biden into a second term,” she says.

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THE TRUMP VOTER PLEASANTLY SURPRISED BY SOME BIDEN INITIATIVES

J.J. Goicoechea, a cattle rancher from Eureka, Nevada, voted for Trump and plans to vote Republican again, but he says he’s been pleasantly surprised with the Biden administration’s agricultural initiatives, including those tailored to small family farms and ranches like his.

Farms and ranches have received more than $1 billion in relief dollars since Biden took office. The administration has worked to fund independent processors after beef plants closed during the pandemic and engaged farmers in regards to climate change, working to incentivize them to offset carbon emissions through tactics like planting carbon-capturing crops.

But Goicoechea, 47, worries the attempt to strengthen regulations and the Packers and Stockyards Act could have unintended consequences and raise costs in an industry where many ranchers already operate on small margins. He attributes inflation to the government spending and relief programs that the administration has helped push through Congress and says it has raised costs on everything needed to operate a cattle ranch.

“The cost of doing business has just almost doubled over where it was last year,” Goicoechea says, citing the prices of hay, fuel, fertilizer and tires for pickups and tractors. “I’m a little concerned about where that’s going. We keep asking for help, they give us a little monetary help, and that kind of drives inflation up higher.”

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THE SOCIAL WORKER WHO IS RETHINKING HER VOTE

Gina Massiah reluctantly voted for Biden, considering him the better of two bad options. But now the 49-year-old social worker isn’t so sure.

“Yes, there was a lot of division,” the Brooklyn resident says of the Trump era. But with Trump, “you knew what you were getting.”

“Was he a bigot? He was all of that. None of us are perfect. We all come with things, right? But I think he would have gotten a lot more done had he gotten reelected.” She adds: “I absolutely favor him over Biden. And woo, that’s a Black person saying that, right?”

“That might sound insane to some people that I’m saying that,” she says, “but that’s how I feel.”

Massiah, a registered Democrat who doesn’t feel bound to either party, lumps Biden in with other politicians who make big promises but “forget about you” once they get into office.

She’s particularly dismayed by the lack of progress on racial issues. While she said many had held out hope because Vice President Kamala Harris is a woman of color, “we’re still getting gunned down by police. We’re still getting targeted when we go into the stores.”

Massiah is exhausted.

“I’m just fed up. Truly fed up.”

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Associated Press writers Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa; Sudhin Thanawala in Atlanta; Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix; Sam Metz in Carson City, Nevada.; and Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.

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Schumer: Senate to vote on filibuster change on voting bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — Days before the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced the Senate will vote soon on easing filibuster rules in an effort to advance stalled voting legislation that Democrats say is needed to protect America’s democracy.

In a letter Monday to colleagues, Schumer, D-N.Y., said the Senate “must evolve” and will “debate and consider” the rule changes by Jan. 17, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, as the Democrats seek to overcome Republican opposition to their elections law package.

“Let me be clear: January 6th was a symptom of a broader illness — an effort to delegitimize our election process,” Schumer wrote, “and the Senate must advance systemic democracy reforms to repair our republic or else the events of that day will not be an aberration — they will be the new norm.”

The election and voting rights package has been stalled in the evenly split 50-50 Senate, blocked by a Republican-led filibuster with Democrats unable to mount the 60 votes needed to advance it toward passage.

So far Democrats have been unable to agree among themselves over potential changes to the Senate rules to reduce the 60-vote hurdle, despite months of private negotiations.

Two holdout Democrats, Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have tried to warn their party off changes to the Senate rules, arguing that if and when Republicans take majority control of the chamber they can then use the lower voting threshold to advance bills Democrats strongly oppose.

President Joe Biden has waded only cautiously into the debate — a former longtime senator who largely stands by existing rules but is also under enormous political pressure to break the logjam on the voting legislation.

Voting rights advocates warn that Republican-led states are passing restrictive legislation and trying to install election officials loyal to the former President, Donald Trump, in ways that could subvert future elections.

Trump urged his followers last Jan. 6 to “fight like hell” for his presidency, and a mob stormed the Capitol trying to stop Congress from certifying the state election tallies for Biden. It was the worst domestic attack on a seat of government in U.S. history.

How the Senate filibuster rules would be changed remains under discussion.

It seems certain that a full-scale end of the filibuster is out of reach for Democrats. Changing the rules would need all 50 votes, and Manchin and Sinema have made it clear they are unwilling to go that far.

Senators are wary of a sweeping overhaul after seeing the fallout that came from Democrats ending the filibuster for some judicial and executive branch nominees. Once Republicans took power, Sen. Mitch McConnell, the GOP leader, did away with the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations — ushering three Trump-picked conservative justices to the high court.

But despite their reluctance on major filibuster changes, Manchin and Sinema both support the election legislation. In fact, Manchin helped craft the latest package in an unsuccessful effort to win Republican support. Now the two Democrats’ colleagues are working on ways to change the filibuster so at least this legislation could pass.

Private talks with senators have been underway for weeks and continued during the holiday break.

Ideas include forcing senators to hold the floor, old-fashioned style, rather than simply raise their filibuster objections — a scene that would have echoes of the 1950s and 1960s when Southern segregationists filibustered civil rights legislation.

Other ideas are also being considered, and some Democrats have noted that Sinema has mentioned she is open to hearing the arguments as part of a full debate.

Republicans are so worried Democrats will end the filibuster that McConnell has taken other actions to try to keep Manchin and Sinema close so they don’t join the rest of their party in making any drastic changes.

One Republican, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, argued on Monday that ending the filibuster would turn the Senate into a “Lord of the Flies”-style institution where majority rules, no matter what.

“It is absurd and dangerous to the institution itself,” said Lee in a statement. He said Schumer and his “disastrous plan” must be stopped.

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With virus aid in sight, Democrats debate filibuster changes

WASHINGTON (AP) — With President Joe Biden on the verge of his first big legislative victory, a key moderate Democrat said Sunday he’s open to changing Senate rules that could allow for more party-line votes to push through other parts of the White House’s agenda such as voting rights.

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin stressed that he wants to keep the procedural hurdle known as the filibuster, saying major legislation should always have significant input from the minority party. But he noted there are other ways to change the rules that now effectively require 60 votes for most legislation. One example: the “talking filibuster,” which requires senators to slow a bill by holding the floor, but then grants an “up or down” simple majority vote if they give up.

“The filibuster should be painful, it really should be painful and we’ve made it more comfortable over the years,” Manchin said. “Maybe it has to be more painful.”

“If you want to make it a little bit more painful, make him stand there and talk,” Manchin added. “I’m willing to look at any way we can, but I’m not willing to take away the involvement of the minority.”

Democrats are beginning to look to their next legislative priorities after an early signature win for Biden on Saturday, with the Senate approving a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan on a party-line 50-49 vote.

Final passage is expected Tuesday in the House if leaders can hold the support of progressives frustrated that the Senate narrowed unemployment benefits and stripped out an increase to the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Over the weekend, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, representing around 100 House liberals, called the Senate’s weakening of some provisions “bad policy and bad politics.” But Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., also characterized the changes as “relatively minor concessions” and emphasized the bill retained its “core bold, progressive elements.”

Biden says he would sign the measure immediately if the House passed it. The legislation would allow many Americans to receive $1,400 in direct checks from the government this month.

“Lessons learned: If we have unity, we can do big things,” a jubilant Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told The Associated Press in an interview after Saturday’s vote.

Still, the Democrats’ approach required a last-minute call from Biden to Manchin to secure his vote after he raised late resistance to the breadth of unemployment benefits. That immediately raised questions about the path ahead in a partisan environment where few, if any, Republicans are expected to back planks of the president’s agenda.

Democrats used a fast-track budget process known as reconciliation to approve Biden’s top priority without Republican support, a strategy that succeeded despite the reservations of some moderates. But work in the coming months on other issues such as voting rights and immigration could prove more difficult.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., pledged that Senate Republicans would block passage of a sweeping House-passed bill on voting rights. The measure, known as HR 1, would restrict partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, strike down hurdles to voting and bring transparency to the campaign finance system. It would serve as a counterweight to voting rights restrictions advancing in Republican-controlled statehouses across the country in the wake of Donald Trump’s repeated false claims about a “stolen” election.

“Not one Republican is going to vote for HR 1 because it’s a federal takeover of elections, it sets up a system where there is no real voter security or verification,” Graham said. “It is a liberal wish list in terms of how you vote.”

The Senate is divided 50-50, but Democrats control the chamber because Vice President Kamala Harris can cast the tie-breaking vote. With 60 votes effectively needed on most legislation, Democrats must win the support of at least some Republicans to pass Biden’s agenda.

When asked about the voting rights bill, Manchin on Sunday left the door open to supporting some kind of a workaround to allow for passage based on a simple majority, suggesting he could support “reconciliation” if he was satisfied that Republicans had the ability to provide input. But it was unclear how that would work as voting rights are not budget-related and would not qualify for the reconciliation process.

“I’m not going to go there until my Republican friends have the ability to have their say also,” Manchin said.

On Sunday, the anti-filibuster advocacy group “Fix Our Senate” praised Manchin’s comments as a viable way to get past “pure partisan obstruction” in the Senate.

“Sen. Manchin just saw Senate Republicans unanimously oppose a wildly popular and desperately-needed COVID relief bill that only passed because it couldn’t be filibustered, so it’s encouraging to hear him express openness to reforms to ensure that voting rights and other critical bills can’t be blocked by a purely obstructionist minority,” the group said in a statement.

Manchin spoke on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” “Fox News Sunday,” CNN’s “State of the Union” and ABC’s “This Week,” and Graham appeared on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

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Associated Press writers Alan Fram and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

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