NY Times:
Democrats Vow to Redouble Voting Push: ‘Today Is the Starter Pistol’
Even as the party’s sweeping elections bill was blocked in the Senate, Democrats and civil rights groups reaffirmed their resolve to fight for voting protections in Congress.
“I have yet to see Democrats act like this is the No. 1 priority on their agenda, and I suspect that we will start to see that after today,” said Nsé Ufot, the chief executive of the New Georgia Project Action Fund, a voting rights group. “Today is the starter pistol. Today marks the beginning of the escalation.”
Politico:
Manchin holds out until last minute on elections vote
He wants assurances that the Senate will amend the existing elections bill before he votes to advance it.
It may seem like a picayune matter given that no Republicans support the bill and the GOP is expected to filibuster the effort on Tuesday. But Democrats want to send a political message, and they need Manchin’s vote to paint a more vivid contrast with Republicans’ blockade.
He got his assurances and voted with the rest of the Ds, as did Sinema.
The biggest Democratic divide on voting bill is between the activists and pragmatists
First Read is your briefing from "Meet the Press" and the NBC Political Unit on the day's most important political stories and why they matter.
The activists believe the legislation — which includes protections for voting access, as well as reforms to redistricting and campaign finance — is the only true way forward to protect democracy, especially after Jan. 6.
On the other hand, the pragmatists — while they may even share the same fears about democracy — have also accepted that the votes aren’t there to overcome a GOP filibuster, to pass the legislation, or to even eliminate the filibuster.
NBC:
Manchin open to Biden's 'human infrastructure' plans and undoing some Trump tax cuts
A key moderate Democratic senator opened the door Tuesday to investing in President Joe Biden's "human infrastructure" proposals and unwinding some of the Republican tax cuts of 2017.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who is working to ink a bipartisan deal to fund physical infrastructure, expressed openness to a separate filibuster-proof package to make economic investments, although he said the size and scope have yet to be determined.
Greg Sargent/WaPo:
Kyrsten Sinema accidentally reveals the huge hole in her filibuster defense
But there’s an even more fundamental flaw in Sinema’s argument: Defending democracy and the filibuster simultaneously, in the terms that Sinema herself employs, is simply incoherent to its core.
Margaret McMullan/Bulwark:
To the Man Who Shouted at Me About Stolen Elections
A poll worker responds to an angry heckler.
To the man who shouted at me about stolen elections,
Just thought I’d follow up about our recent encounter at the polling place where I’m a poll worker.
First, I’m glad you took the time to come to the fire station and cast your vote for mayor of Pass Christian, our beautiful little gem on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Good on you for making the effort.
Second, how dare you say, When do you start stuffing the ballot box?
Seriously?
Let me explain how this works. During our election on June 8, I worked the polls for our ward. My fellow poll workers (all women—go figure) and I had been in that hot fire station garage since 6 a.m., when we started setting up to open the polls at 7. All of us (even ones like me with years of experience) had gone through half a day of training, re-read and highlighted our voting manuals, and brought our own food and water knowing we’d be on our own for the next fourteen hours.
Keith Boykin/CNN:
Why Stacey Abrams is open to Joe Manchin's voting rights proposal
Unfortunately, without filibuster reform, even the limited Manchin compromise has no chance of passage in the Senate. But by supporting a compromise with him, Abrams demonstrates that Democrats have exhausted all options to find common ground on voting rights, and this may finally give the West Virginia senator a nudge to reconsider his emphasis on bipartisanship. Perhaps this explains Manchin's
reported willingness to consider lowering the filibuster threshold.
Still, Abrams's unexpected openness for the Manchin compromise exposed both politicians to criticism from the right and left. Despite Manchin's
bewildering fantasy of bipartisanship, Republicans quickly began to attack his plan as hers. "When Stacey Abrams immediately endorsed Senator Manchin's proposal," Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri
said, "it became the Stacey Abrams substitute, not the Joe Manchin substitute."
Brian Kaylor/Word and Way:
The Revolution at the SBC Annual Meeting
After Ed Litton emerged victorious in the Southern Baptist Convention’s presidential election on Tuesday (June 15), reports and analysis quickly portrayed the news as a defeat for the denomination’s fundamentalist wing. The messengers (i.e. delegates) rejected the attempt to shift the convention further to the right. While the contest for the SBC’s top office tells that story, other votes reveal something else at play throughout the annual meeting. Rather than fundamentalism being dismissed, anti-elitism was embraced.