The Senate must pass voting rights legislation. Now.
Republicans already enacted new laws severely limiting the number of votes Democrats can get in future elections—including Electoral Votes in 2024—making it difficult if not impossible to get fair elections. It is likely that without a new federal law, Democrats will be permanently locked out of power. Given the fascist tendencies of the Republican Party, it’s hard to see how we will get democracy back. Ever.
There is one person who could change this right now, and that is Sen. Joe Manchin. He could do that by changing his position on the filibuster enough for a voting rights bill to pass the Senate. Once signed into law, that would restore much of the balance between the parties.
Time is long up for Sen. Manchin. Until substantive voting rights passes the Senate, I will continue my campaign to drive him out of the Democratic Party. I’m calling on you, and every other Democrat, to unfriend Joe Manchin.
Last week, I looked at what Democrats in the Senate could do to fix this problem. I called on Senate Democrats to expel the Republican Senators who didn’t vote to remove Trump from office during his second impeachment.
Of course, Republicans are only a part of the problem. There is another reason Joe Manchin is in office: because of his contributors.
Manchin’s Contributors Must Change
So, this week, I turn to another class of Joe Manchin’s friends: His Contributors.
Joe Manchin only has power because contributors give him money for his campaigns.
Who are these contributors?
Unaccountable Donations
- Balance forward from previous campaigns: $1,125,553
- Unitemized Donations (contributions under the reporting threshold): $542,048
- Joe Manchin, himself: $38,600
Democratic Organizations
- Senate Impact (Democratic Joint Candidate Committees): $257,469
- Democrats for Opportunity Fund1: $94,686
- US Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (Democratic Party Committees): $42,600
- Blue Senate 2018 (Democratic Joint Candidate Committees): $32,290
Major Contributors
- Sheet Metal Workers International Association (SMWIA): $40,000
- American Electric Power (AEP) (utility): $34,750
- International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW): $34,000
- United Mine Workers of America (UMW): $34,000
- International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF): $31,000
- Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA): $31,000
- American Federation of Teachers (AFT): $30,000
Other Significant Contributors ($25,000 or more) by Category
Communications
- AT&T
- Comcast Corporation & NBC Universal
- Verizon Communications
Fossil Fuels
Utilities
- Dominion Energy2
- Firstenergy Corp3
- Southern Company4
Unions
- Communications Workers of America (CWA)
- International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE)
- National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC)
- United Association of Journeymen & Apprentices of the Plumbing & Pipe Fitting Industry of the United States & Canada
Insurance, Finance and Banking
- American Bankers Association
- American Family Life Assurance Company
- Huntington Bancshares
- New York Life Insurance Company
Transportation
- CSX (railroads)
- Norfolk Southern (railroads)
Footnotes on Contributors
1 Democratic-based groups (but not official party committees) and generic liberal/progressive ones, plus Democratic Joint Candidate Committees
2 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Energy
[As of 2015, 22% of its power generation came from nuclear and 59% from fossil fuel]
3 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FirstEnergy
Also, FirstEnergy Relies Heavily on Coal for Power Generation by Vineet Kulkarni, 22 December 2015
[57% of its power generation as of 2015]
4 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Company
[As of 2017, coal-based generation has dropped to about 30%. Attempting carbon capture. Has major solar plant in NM. Contributed to a pro-Trump group.]
Source: Follow the Money .org — Joe Manchin
Analysis of Contributors
As you might expect, entities with interest in keeping fossil fuels going are top contributors. This includes power companies, many of which still burn a lot of coal. But it also includes the railroads, which ship much of that coal. It includes the UMW, although their interest in perpetuating the exploitation of workers is suspect. Shouldn’t they be in favor of phasing out coal mining when they can get favorable terms for retiring workers from a Democratic administration?
Another huge group of contributors are labor unions. If you belong to one of these unions, your money may well have gone to support Joe Manchin. I think it’s a fair question to ask union leadership why they are giving to Manchin. I’m sure some of them will tell you he helps working people, but take a look at the reconciliation bill. Vast swaths of that bill are designed to help working people. Yet, Manchin has held it up and tried to stop it. And he might even well succeed, for all I know.
There are also insurance and financial organizations. Here is where people could be looking at their investments and their purchases. Perhaps there is a better company for your money.
But what really tops the charts, here, are the contributions by Democratic committees and organs of the party. We are looking at $427,045 from major Democratic organizations. That’s almost a half-million dollars from groups you may well have contributed to.
Stop doing that. You don’t need to give to any of these organizations. You can give your money directly to the candidates who best represent you. If you are a progressive (or even a Democrat of any sort), you should not be giving money to an organization that will then turn around and give it to Joe Manchin.
But, but, but, he’s in a red state!
Let me gently suggest that we might be better to invest our money elsewhere. For example, North Carolina could be more Democratic if we invested there. What about Georgia? Perhaps we could pick up two or three new Democratic Senators with the money we have been spending on Manchin.
And…Manchin’s Contributors Must Apologize
Maybe more significantly, Manchin’s contributors need to call him up and put a little guilt trip on him. We contributed to you. Why aren’t you helping us out in our time of need.
But who am I kidding. Most of them like what Manchin is doing. They like climate change—at least they don’t dislike it enough to let fixing it eat into their profits. They like exploiting workers. It’s what makes the big financial institutions big. They hate regulation. They don’t want regulatory agencies to get additional funding.
The only contributors here who might actually call on Manchin to change his position on voting rights are the Democratic entities. Let me put it to them this way: If we don’t get voting rights passed in the Senate, there won’t be a Democratic Party. So, it is in your best interest, as a Democratic group, to lean on Manchin as hard as you can to get him to change his position on this.
Of course, it would be in your interest, as Democrats, to get him to allow a much more robust reconciliation package to pass. But that’s just politics. The voting rights bill is an existential threat to the Democratic Party and to democracy, generally. So, if you are, say, a leader in the US Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, why aren’t you on the phone screaming at Joe Manchin right now?
As for the rest of us Democrats, it’s up to us to make these institutions change, so that the people they fund change. That’s how we ultimately get politicians like Joe Manchin to act in the best interests of the American people.
This article is part of a series urging members of the Democratic Party to push Joe Manchin out of the party unless he takes the actions necessary for a substantive voting rights bill to pass Congress and get signed into law. Previous articles can be found here:
Part I: Explored why Manchin is wrong to oppose the reconciliation bill and announced the 15 September deadline for him to get voting rights passed. Poll shows the vast majority of voters on Daily Kos believe Manchin is helping the Republicans more than the Democrats.
Part II: Postponed the deadline until 22 September because Manchin reached agreement with Democratic leadership on a voting rights bill.
Part III: No voting rights bill passed. Urged Democrats in the West Virginia Senate to unfriend Manchin.
Part IV: No voting rights bill passed. Urged Democrats in the West Virginia House of Delegates to unfriend Manchin.
Part V: No voting rights bill passed. Looked at where Manchin gets his money—Enersystems, which provides waste coal to be burned for electrical power. Is it appropriate for a coal baron to be a critical part of the Democratic Party?
Part VI: No voting rights bill passed. Looked at Joe Biden’s role in enabling Manchin and listed action items for Biden to take to correct this—and items we need to press the President on.
Part VII: No voting rights bill passed. Called on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to take Manchin and Sinema off committees.
Part VIII: No voting rights bill passed. Called on leaders in the Senate to put the Republican Senators who didn’t vote to remove Trump on trial and expel them from the Senate. This allows the Senate to fix the filibuster rules. This also bypasses Manchin and Sinema, allowing a simple majority of Democratic Senators to pass voting rights and other important legislation.
Next week, I’m going to summarize the methods we could use to get Joe Manchin to permit voting rights to pass in the Senate or push him out of the party.
There are many groups of people Sen. Manchin needs to consider. I have been going through these groups one at a time and urging them to unfriend Manchin until he has no friends left.
Or he gets voting rights through the Senate.
While Manchin isn’t up for re-election next year, that hasn't stopped people from launching a move to replace him when the time comes. Check out the Replace Joe Manchin website to contribute to this effort.
Thanks to Merlin196357 for pointing this out in WV Activists Start Organization To Replace Senator Joe Manchin.
It’s hard to imagine a campaign to primary Manchin in 2024 is going to move him much now, but that doesn’t mean he should get to stay past his sell-by date. And that effort on top of pressure on his friends may be what’s really needed to fix the problem.
And people who want to primary Manchin might want to look at Part III of this series for Democratic members of the WV Senate, who would be prime candidates to replace him.