Manchin wants to make the U.S. Senate look stupid and comical (and sadistic) to the world.

[Towlie]

Manchin wants to make filibuster 'painful' to use

Sen. Joe Manchin said Sunday he is open to altering the Senate filibuster to make it more “painful” for the minority party to wield, while reiterating his opposition to ending the procedural hurdle altogether.

“The filibuster should be painful, it really should be painful and we've made it more comfortable over the years,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” “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 said. “I'm willing to look at any way we can, but I'm not willing to take away the involvement of the minority.”

It seems that somehow, the goal of making wise decisions has gotten completely lost.

[CentralMass]

1. Manchin and 7 other Democrats just made the party uinlaterially strip the bill of provision that

2/3rds of the county support in a bill that passed without a single republican vote. You can't make it look any stupider then that.

[Fiendish Thingy]

2. Can't use reconciliation for voting rights- I highly doubt Biden will Permit Harris to overrule

He wouldn’t let Harris overrule the parliamentarian for minimum wage, I doubt he will for a much weaker case for voting rights.

Biden has signalled he wants the next reconciliation bill to be infrastructure- that means another reconciliation bill couldn’t pass until 2022, when it will be too late.

If you remove his comments on reconciliation, Manchin’s comments actually make some sense- the senate could move to modify the rules for the filibuster, requiring senators to actually speak, and for 40 senators to be present to sustain the filibuster. That would indeed make it more “painful”...

No, I think Manchin either misspoke or was being disingenuous- there will be an intensified fight over killing/modifying the filibuster to pass HR1, which MUST pass by the fall.

In any case, there some cracks appearing in Manchin’s steadfast, absolute proclamation of “NEVER!” Less than a week ago...

Stay tuned.

[drray23]

3. Thats notable. Its a start

Sharp departure from his previous stance of never wanting to do anything about the fillibuster. Maybe we can get to a point where its systematic use to block any bill no matter what is too burdensome for the GOP. This used to be the case until it was gradually loosened over the years where now all it takes is to invoke it and thats it.

[comradebillyboy]

4. Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, RoJo and Lady G beat him

to the punch making the U.S. Senate look stupid, comical and sadistic.