Dear Senator Manchin,
I am a resident of West Virginia and a subscriber to the Charleston Gazette-Mail. Therefore, I had full access to your column of June 6 rather than having to settle for the abbreviated versions shown on TV. I appreciate your steadfastness towards your principles, but must disagree with you about the nature of those principles. You appear to believe that the stability of the democracy depends upon the continuation of the filibuster as a mechanism to foster bipartisanship. I believe you are mistaken as to the nature of the opposition, as it is now apparent that the party of Mitch McConnell disdains any attempt at bipartisanship. Just as the fanatics on the right have referred to Democrats as snowflakes, they in turn live in mortal fear at being called RINO’s. Ever since the members of the Freedom Caucus emerged from the primal swamp of the Tea Party movement, and burrowed into the halls of Congress, the rules of the game have changed.
No more is it possible for those of good will to seek out compromise with the opposing party. Being seen as being open to compromise is a sure way to gain an opponent on their right who will decry openness to compromise as socialism light. It is no longer possible to generate even a fraction of Republicans who are willing to extend their necks out in order to have them chopped off by those who still carry weapons for Donald Trump. Therefore, I believe your mission to save democracy by insisting upon the virginal purity of the filibuster to be misguided, and dangerous to the democracy you so rightly wish to defend.
This is the most dangerous time for the status quo to remain in place. With the decennial reapportionment staring at us, the result of redistricting in states with Republican majorities in their legislature will be gerrymandering on steroids. When you consider the results of the last election, where Republicans were able to convert a state where in 2012, Democratic candidates received 81,000 more votes than Republicans. Yet Republicans captured 9 of the 13 Congressional races in 2012 in North Carolina. This is the future you will unleash upon this nation due to your intransigence at both favoring the filibuster, and your opposition to the For the People act.
I believe you find more portions of the For the People act to be good than those that are prone to increase division. This is your opportunity to use the processes of the Senate to propose changes to the bill in order to gain support from the opposition, and become a bipartisan act. But it will only happen if you agree to some sort of proposal to enable the bill to be brought onto the floor of the Senate for discussion and amendment. Please go ahead and express your support for some mechanism to bring this bill up for debate. It does not have to be blanket abandonment of the filibuster, but whatever legislative sleight of hand allows this type of bill to avoid the strictures of being filibustered would be greatly appreciated by this constituent. We know what the Republicans will do if they attain the majority again. Handing them the keys to the car of state by allowing the For the People bill to die a lonely death will not end well. It truly is in your hands to keep democracy alive, but not by the means you believe to be necessary.
Even A Broken Clock 