Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country are approving a wave of new voting restrictions on virtually party-line votes that require only a simple majority to pass. The US Supreme Court has likewise decided the key voting rights rulings that helped trigger this surge of state legislation on a party-line, majority-vote basis over the past decade.
But the announcements last week by Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona that they will not support exempting voting rights legislation from the filibuster means Congress can respond to these moves only with a bipartisan supermajority of 60 votes. …
Voting rights is the most dramatic example of how the axis of Republican-controlled state governments, the GOP-appointed majority on the Supreme Court and filibusters mounted by Senate Republicans is limiting Democrats’ ability to set the national agenda, even as they hold unified control of the White House, House and Senate for the first time since 2010. CONTINUED
Ronald Brownstein, CNN
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