Who Needs Republicans With Democrats Like Joe Manchin?
Despite holding the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate, it feels like Democrats are still fighting an uphill battle to implement even their most popular policy initiatives. Something like an expanded Covid relief package seems to be getting dragged out and delayed by one thing or another despite being favored by a large majority of the population.
So, when it takes an extra month or two to get your $1400 check, you can thank Joe Manchin.
I already know what the comments are going to be about Manchin. “He’s a Democrat in West Virginia. He can’t be too far left.” To that I say, look at the history of West Virginia senators.
Before Shelley M. Capito was elected in 2014, West Virginia had not had a Republican senator since the 1958 midterm election. Sure Democrats were a bit of a different breed back then, but the Dems held both seats through the Civil Rights movement, through the Reagan Era, all the way up until basically the end of the Obama administration.
While the party changed its identity over time, so did West Virginia senators. The old Blue Dog ideologies gave way to more centrist views to keep pace with the national party and secured what was considered a solidly red state for the blue party in the Senate for decades.
Obviously, things have changed a bit since those days. The uprising of the Tea Party Movement in the Republican base following President Barack Obama’s electoral victory was a direct rebuke of progressive trends and dragged the political center even further right. This happened to be right about the same time that Manchin became a senator for the first time.
While there is certainly something to be said for bipartisanship, there does become a point at which it becomes counterproductive to the party’s political agenda.
According to GovTrack, Manchin is the third most politically right Democrat in 2020, matching Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The only Senate Democrats more right were Doug Jones of Alabama, who was somehow more right than his Alabama Republican counterpart Richard Shelby and still lost his seat, and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who scored in the same range as Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell.
Toeing the centrist line alone isn’t why Manchin has come under heat from more left-leaning critics lately. It’s been the fact that Manchin has been so outspoken in his attempts to undermine the key portions of President Biden’s Covid relief plan, the first large piece of legislation the administration is trying to get through Congress.
The success, or failure, of the package will set the tone for how Biden will be able to implement policies he is unable to do through executive orders. With an even split in the Senate, having Manchin come out and sweep the legs out from any momentum Democrats have after taking back the White House and the Senate could be devastating moving forward.
Days after Joe Biden’s inauguration, Manchin went out of his way to tell anyone that would listen that he is opposed to killing the filibuster, aligning himself with the GOP members of the Senate.
Manchin said in a January 25th interview, “If I haven’t said it very plain, maybe Sen. McConnell hasn’t understood, I want to basically say it for you. That I will not vote in this Congress, that’s two years, right? I will not vote (to change the filibuster).”
Democrats had hoped to avoid using the lengthy budget reconciliation process and pass the Biden Covid relief package with a simple majority to get stimulus checks out to people quickly, but Manchin, as well as Sinema, said they would not be willing to budge on the filibuster and essentially handed negotiating power to Mitch McConnell.
Manchin also objected to the amount of stimulus that was proposed in the package, balking at additional $2,000 checks being sent out. Instead, the Biden administration backed down to $1,400 checks to bring the total to $2,000 when combined with the $600 sent out a few months ago.
“Absolutely not. No. Getting people vaccinated, that’s job number 1.” This is what Manchin told the Washington Post on January 8th when asked about the possibility of $2,000 checks being sent out. “I don’t ever remember FDR recommending sending a damn penny to a human being. We gave ’em a job and gave ’em a paycheck. Do we have to keep sending checks out?”
Most recently, reports have come out that Manchin has spoken with President Biden privately and told him he would not join Democrats in trying to find work arounds for any rulings that go against Democrats in the budget reconciliation process.
This move places portions of the Covid relief package in peril, particularly the proposed increase in the federal minimum wage to $15. A stretch to pass the reconciliation process in the first place thanks to the Byrd Rule, which bars extraneous measures from the budget process, a new minimum wage is almost dead before arrival.
“My only vote is to protect the Byrd Rule: Hell or high water. Everybody knows that. I’m fighting to defend the Byrd Rule. The President knows that,” Manchin told CNN in an interview earlier this week.
So, what good is having a senator with a D next to their name if all they seemingly want to do is stifle their party’s agenda?
In the current political landscape, where the far-right has been emboldened by the likes of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, the only good that someone like Joe Manchin seems to be providing is allowing Vice President Kamala Harris to be the tie breaker in evenly split votes.
With Manchin sitting right of the center, though, how many of those will we actually get?
Perhaps it’s time to cut the Manchins of the party loose and focus on flipping seats and getting real Democrats elected.
