Voting bill championed by Klobuchar blocked in Senate

WASHINGTON – Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar was left to contend with a harsh reality, no matter how she framed the situation.

The wide-ranging elections package she's championed in the Senate was firmly sidelined in a party-line vote Tuesday, blocked through a combination of fierce GOP opposition and the lasting power of the legislative filibuster. Remaining for Klobuchar and other Democrats were questions over how to move forward on a top priority, the future of which looks grim.

Klobuchar, however, appeared undeterred, and she and other leading Democrats say they'll continue to press the issue.

"I wouldn't spend my time, the last few months on this, if I didn't think it was paramount to our democracy and that eventually something good is going to come out of it," Minnesota's senior senator said in an interview Tuesday. "I just don't know when."

But she added: "All good things take awhile to get done."

From the bill's introduction earlier this year to Senate committee work and Tuesday's procedural vote on starting debate, Klobuchar has played a leading role in Senate Democrats' push to pass legislation known as the For The People Act.

The bill represents Democrats' effort to overhaul American elections with numerous provisions that have rankled Republicans in Washington. Klobuchar describes the bill as setting federal minimum standards.

In recent months, Democrats have grown further alarmed at Republicans' work in some states to try to tighten voting laws following former President Donald Trump's false claims about the 2020 presidential election. Senate Republicans for their part stuck together in opposing the federal changes Democrats are seeking.

Republican South Dakota Sen. John Thune slammed the Democrats' bill as "an unprecedented federal takeover of elections" during a floor speech Tuesday. And Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz told reporters that "I'm not just a no on this bill, I'm a hell no."

While the GOP blockade had long been expected, it was nevertheless a blow to a key part of the agenda Democrats have tried to put forward during the first year of the Biden administration.

"We will not stop fighting to extend voting rights to every single American," said Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith, a Democrat. "And we're not going to stop trying to get dark money out of our politics."

At least 10 Republicans would have needed to join all 50 Democratic senators in voting to advance the bill over the chamber's legislative filibuster threshold in this initial hurdle.

"The problem isn't the Senate Democrats," Smith said. "The problem is Republicans that refuse, that just say no, to every effort to compromise."

Klobuchar and Smith have both said this year they support getting rid of the filibuster. Klobuchar has notably shifted from the position she held in 2017 when Republicans controlled both the Senate and White House.

Also complicating matters in the days ahead of the vote was Sen. Joe Manchin. The West Virginia Democrat first said he would vote against the election legislation in an op-ed earlier this month. Last week, Manchin's office outlined a list of potential compromises. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced hours before the vote Tuesday that after negotiations involving Klobuchar, Manchin would support starting debate on the bill. Manchin made clear in a statement he would do so with the expectation he would be able to try to include revisions if the bill advanced.

"Our party has clearly stated we want to move ahead with debate, they don't, and so now we will continue to push this I think in a more practical way than in the past and in a real way, because every time these states pass voter suppression, and they're going to keep doing it, it's going to come up again," Klobuchar said. "And I just think it's going to create a lot of public pressure to actually get something done."

Speaking from the Senate floor ahead of the vote, Klobuchar vowed "this is not the end of the line for this bill." She also announced that the Senate Rules Committee she chairs will hold a series of hearings including a stop in Georgia, whose recent GOP-led voting law has become a national flash point in the voting-rights debate.

Still, the issue of the filibuster remains. Senate Democrats lack the votes they need within their own party to change the rule, despite Klobuchar's and Smith's concerns.

"Obviously to me it shows we have to change the filibuster rules," Klobuchar said in the interview Tuesday. "It's archaic. It's something that was set up for really bad reasons and it's stopping us from moving as a country."

Hunter Woodall • 612-673-4559

Twitter: @huntermw