The Morning Dispatch: Republicans Block ‘For the People’ Act With Filibuster

Happy Wednesday! For a midweek pick-me-up, check out this video of Wander Franco’s dad watching the 20-year-old Tampa Bay Rays’ rookie phenom hit a home run in his first major league game.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• A federal appeals court on Monday issued a stay on U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez’s ruling earlier this month that overturned California’s “assault weapons” ban. The move will allow the state to continue enforcing its current gun control regime, at least temporarily.

• The United States will likely fall short of President Joe Biden’s goal of having 70 percent of American adults at least partially vaccinated by July 4, Jeffrey Zients—head of the White House COVID-19 response team—said yesterday. According to Centers for Disease Control, 65.5 percent of Americans older than 18 have received at least one vaccine dose, and 56 percent are fully vaccinated.

• The Democrats’ “For the People Act” stalled in the Senate on Tuesday, with Senate Republicans using the legislative filibuster to prevent the legislation—which would fundamentally overhaul how elections are run nationwide—from advancing to debate.

• Voting in New York City’s mayoral primaries concluded yesterday. Activist and talk show host Curtis Sliwa won the Republican nomination, and former police officer Eric Adams holds an early, substantial lead over Kathryn Garcia and Maya Wiley on the Democratic side—though those results will likely not be finalized for weeks due to the city’s implementation of ranked-choice voting. Erstwhile Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang conceded the race late Tuesday night.

• The Department of Justice on Tuesday seized more than 30 web domains with ties to the Iranian regime due to concerns the sites were part of an ongoing disinformation and propaganda campaign.

• The United States confirmed 10,341 new cases of COVID-19 yesterday per the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 Dashboard, with 1.29 percent of the 802,520 tests reported coming back positive. An additional 363 deaths were attributed to the virus on Tuesday, bringing the pandemic’s American death toll to 602,455. According to the CDC, 12,633 Americans are currently hospitalized with COVID-19. Meanwhile, 647,403 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered yesterday, with 177,635,067 Americans having now received at least one dose.

S.1 For the Money, Two for the Show

The “For the People Act”—a Democratic-backed bill that would massively overhaul how elections are run nationwide—did not survive its encounter with the legislative filibuster on Tuesday, with Democrats failing to pick up the 10 Republican needed to reach the 60-vote threshold required to advance the legislation for debate.

Lawmakers and congressional analysts alike knew well before Tuesday’s vote that the legislation would likely fail entirely along partisan lines, and it did exactly that. Still, both sides tried to claim victory: Republicans, for blocking the “dangerous legislation” from advancing; Democrats, for securing Sen. Joe Manchin’s support and presenting a united front.

“We achieved a preliminary part of our strategy, which was to unite the Democrats,” Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, told The Dispatch.

We broke down the contents of the For the People Act in detail back in March, but the legislation is divided into three main sections: Voting rights, campaign finance, and lawmaker ethics.

The first would create a set of federal requirements mandating how states administer their elections, automatically registering eligible citizens to vote, allowing voters to meet voter ID requirements with a “sworn written statement,” establishing Election Day as a national holiday, implementing no-excuse absentee voting, and requiring states to create independent redistricting commissions to curb gerrymandering, among other things.

The second would require Super PACs to make their donor lists public and establish a six-to-one federal matching program, using taxpayer dollars to supplement candidates’ war chests. The third would require all presidential and vice presidential candidates to disclose at least 10 years of tax returns, and tighten restrictions on lobbyists. 

Manchin—ever the thorn in his party’s side—was the sole Democratic hold-out on S.1, arguing for bipartisan solutions and opting not to join onto the bill as a co-sponsor. But the West Virginian softened his stance last week, releasing a list of narrower election and voting reform provisions he would support. He proposed instituting a nationwide voter ID requirement (with “allowable alternatives” like a utility bill) and scrapping the provision that would fund campaigns with taxpayer money.

Realizing they were going nowhere without him, Democrats said they were open to considering Manchin’s amendments. Prior to the vote on Tuesday, Manchin struck a deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer: If Manchin voted to advance the For the People Act, Schumer would ensure his narrower proposal was the first amendment considered.

The White House Office of Management and Budget put some additional pressure on Democrats (read: Manchin) on Tuesday, issuing a statement declaring democracy to be “in peril” and arguing the “landmark legislation” is “needed to protect the right to vote, ensure the integrity of our elections, and repair and strengthen American democracy.”

Manchin came around—kind of. “Over the past month, I have worked to eliminate the far reaching provisions of S.1, the For the People Act—which I do not support,” he said Tuesday. “I’ve found common ground with my Democratic colleagues on a new version of the bill that ensures our elections are fair, accessible and secure. … Unfortunately, my Republican colleagues refused to allow debate of this legislation despite the reasonable changes made.”

The entire saga is reminiscent of police reform talks last summer, when Democrats—then in the minority—refused to consider Republican Sen. Tim Scott’s legislation, and filibustered it. “If you don’t like what you see, change it,” Scott said in a floor speech at the time. “We offered [Democrats] opportunities, at least 20 [amendments] I offered, to change it.”

But there doesn’t seem to be much room for compromise on S.1, as Republicans are fundamentally against federal legislation overruling states’ abilities to run their own elections. 

“I’m for voting rights, and I’ve supported the extension of the federal Voting Rights Act in the past,” GOP Sen. Roy Blunt, former Missouri secretary of state, told The Dispatch. “I’m against the federal government essentially federalizing the voting process itself.”

Would he support federalizing something he’s in favor of, like strengthening voter ID? “I’m certainly not opposed to a voter ID law,” Blunt said, “but I’m opposed to telling 35 of the states—or at least half of those 35—they have to change their current law, or telling the other 15 what they have to do.”

Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, declared the legislation “dead” in comments to The Dispatch yesterday. What now? “We will continue to handle elections the way we’ve handled elections since the founding of our country,” he said. “And that is through federalism.”

Democrats—predictably—are hoping to chart another path forward: Either work with Sen. Joe Manchin on his counterproposal to S.1, or blow up the filibuster. (Manchin and Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have repeatedly made clear they will not allow their party to do the latter.)

There seemed to be a fair amount of Democratic support for Manchin’s plan on Tuesday. Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Tim Kaine of Virginia both told The Dispatch it’s something they plan to back. Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley told The Atlanticthat Democrats will quickly regroup and try to get 10 Republicans onboard with a proposal based on Manchin’s outline.

The Democrats’ progressive wing, however, is losing patience. “I think Democrats have got to use their majority to end Republican efforts to undermine American democracy and prevent people from voting,” Sen. Bernie Sanders told The Dispatch. “So, to me, that means breaking the filibuster with 50 votes, plus the vice president.”

Vice President Kamala Harris was at the Capitol yesterday, and spoke briefly with reporters after S.1 failed to advance. “The bottom line is that the president and I are very clear,” she said. “We support S.1, we support the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, and the fight is not over.”

Delta Keeps Climbing

Dr. Anthony Fauci didn’t mince words in his virtual press briefing yesterday afternoon: “The Delta variant is currently the greatest threat in the U.S. to our attempt to eliminate COVID-19.” 

Whether that sentence induces panic or an eyeroll, listen to Fauci’s next one: “Good news: Our vaccines are effective against the Delta variant.”

Coronavirus variant B.1.617.2—which was given the “Delta” moniker after being discovered in India several months ago—is “unquestionably” more transmissible than the original SARS-CoV-2 or Alpha variant, Fauci said yesterday. He added that itis “associated with an increased disease severity as reflected by hospitalization risk.”

Don’t believe him? Check out what’s happening in the United Kingdom, where the Delta variant made up approximately 90 percent of new COVID cases confirmed last week. The variant has caused Britain’s first sustained resurgence of the virus since December, which led Prime Minister Boris Johnson to extend into late-July lockdown measures that were originally set to be lifted this week.

The United States is not there yet—we’re currently averaging just more than 11,000 new COVID cases per day, a record low since the pandemic began. But as the total number of new cases falls, the percentage caused by the Delta variant continues to rise: 1.3 percent on May 8, 2.3 percent on May 22, and 9.5 percent on June 5. Fauci said yesterday the latest figure—not yet on the CDC’s website—is 20.6 percent, and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky predicted Friday that Delta will “probably” soon become the United States’ dominant strain.

If you’re fully vaccinated with Pfizer or Moderna, you’re almost assuredly fine. A recent Public Health England study found two doses of Pfizer’s jab to be 88 percent effective against symptomatic disease with the Delta variant, and 96 percent effective against hospitalization. Moderna data is not yet publicly available, but its vaccine relies on a similar technology to Pfizer’s.

U.K. studies also show, however, that the second dose is crucial when it comes to protection against the Delta variant. “After a single dose there was an 18 percent absolute reduction in vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease with Delta compared to Alpha,” one report read. White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain pointed to this phenomenon last week, arguing it justified the United States’ approach to vaccine distribution.

What we don’t know right now is how effective the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine—the United States’ least utilized—is against this new variant. “The J&J vaccine is not as effective,” Dr. William Schaffner, infectious disease and immunization expert at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, told The Dispatch. “I haven’t seen a good number, but it’s lower than [Pfizer and Moderna].” Former FDA Chief Scott Gottlieb pegged his estimate at about 60 percent a few weeks ago.

Dr. Paul Offit—director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia—told The Dispatch that Johnson & Johnson was actually in the midst of a two-dose trial when its single-dose regimen was approved for emergency use back in February. “The reason they were doing a two-dose trial was [in] the Phase I data … you clearly had a boost response with that second dose of that replication defective adenovirus,” he said. “About a 2.5-to-threefold increase in neutralizing antibody titers with that second dose.”

“The question then became, did that correlate with better clinical efficacy?” Offit continued. “I don’t know—one doesn’t know—because that trial hasn’t been completed, it may have been halted. … It’s not a crazy idea to give a second dose. The problem is you have no idea whether that increased neutralizing antibodies really does correlate with better protection.” The National Institutes of Health announced earlier this month it had begun an early stage clinical trial testing fully vaccinated people’s responses to a booster shot from a different company.

Ultimately, however, Johnson & Johnson recipients aren’t at the most risk from the Delta variant—unvaccinated people are. As of yesterday, 65.5 percent of American adults had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 56 percent were fully vaccinated. Tens of millions more, Offit posited, still have some degree of immunity from being naturally infected. “But I do think this is a winter virus,” he said. “I just fear that we’ll have a surge again, because there’s so many things working against us in the winter. I think the variant is one, a solid 25 to 30 percent of the population that refuses to be vaccinated is the other.”

But a winter surge—if it does materialize—may not be dispersed evenly across the country. 

“When you do look at those estimates [of a fall resurgence], you see it varies widely between states,” Gottlieb told CBS News’ Face the Nationlast weekend, estimating on the high end that the country could hit about 20 percent of last January’s peak. “So Connecticut, for example, where I am, shows no upsurge of infection, but Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri show very substantial upsurges of infections. That’s based entirely on how much population wide immunity you have based on vaccination.”

Worth Your Time

• News organizations depicting both Republicans and Democrats in a fair light are few and far between. Fortunately for the “politically homeless,” more Americans have begun to break free of their echo chambers, actively seeking out multiple perspectives on any given issue. Matt Fuchs chronicles this growing phenomenon in a piece for Wired. “The majority of US adults say one-sided information on social media is a major problem, though many might mean only information that counters their own beliefs,” Fuchs writes. “Visitors to sites like AllSides seek out views at odds with their own; they enjoy discussing political differences more than the fleeting satisfaction of tribal disputes on Facebook. Some are troubled by how their friend circles and social media followers mirror their own beliefs. A few… are looking to understand friends or acquaintances with differing political stances.”

• Ross Douthat’s take on the Catholic bishops/President Biden situation is well worth your time. “There are many good reasons to avoid a political confrontation over communion and abortion right now, many reasons to expect that any effort will backfire or just fail,” he writes. “But if, over the next few generations, we move into a world where the liberalism of Catholic politicians requires them to support not just abortion rights but a brave new world of human life manufactured, commodified, vivisected and casually snuffed out—well, then the bishops of tomorrow may look back on today and wish they’d found a way to say ‘enough.’”

• Friend of The Dispatch and Manhattan Institute fellow Andy Smarick takes on the “take it seriously, not literally” line of defense in his latest for National Affairs. “Most people who care about American public life would admit that our political rhetoric is in a bad way. We seem to no longer understand the role veracity should play in the public sphere,” he writes. The “seriously, not literally” phenomenon, he argues, is a key reason why. It “rests on the idea that there exists a difference between fact and gist—that we can advance the latter without obsessing about the former. … Do we look past the factual inaccuracies in the 1619 Project and just take seriously its overarching point about centuries of American racism? Do we ignore the false claims undergirding the Trump campaign’s election lawsuits and just take seriously their primary claim that institutional forces sought to undermine his presidency? Do we discount the lack of evidence for an accusation of sexual assault and simply take seriously the underlying point about sexism, abuse, and privilege?”

Presented Without Comment

Toeing the Company Line

• With voting in New York City’s mayoral race coming to a close yesterday, Sarah wrote her latest Sweep about the trendlines she’ll be looking at—and why we likely won’t know the final results for weeks. Plus, Chris Stirewalt on Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley’s impending retirement decisions, and how they’ll affect the GOP’s chances of retaking the Senate next year.

• Scott Winship, director of poverty studies at the American Enterprise Institute, joined Jonah on Tuesday’s Remnant to discuss the history of poverty in the United States. Is the success sequence outdated? Should America be based on bourgeois morality? And how should conservatives approach solutions to racial disparities?

• On the site today, Tripp takes a look into the surge in murder and violent crime since 2020. While some have cited the pandemic as a cause, statistics show that murder rates have actually been increasing since 2014. What’s going on?

• When Abiy Ahmed became prime minister of Ethiopia in 2018, he was hailed as a reformer and pioneer for democracy. Yet this week he is widely expected to be named the winner of a parliamentary election in which whole regions of the country could not or would not vote. Emma reports.

Let Us Know

How much time have you spent thinking about COVID-19 in recent weeks? Are you still taking precautions, or is the pandemic over as far as you’re concerned?

Reporting by Declan Garvey (@declanpgarvey), Andrew Egger (@EggerDC), Haley Byrd Wilt (@byrdinator), Charlotte Lawson (@charlotteUVA), Ryan Brown (@RyanP_Brown), Harvest Prude (@HarvestPrude), Tripp Grebe (@tripper_grebe), Emma Rogers (@emw_96), Price St. Clair (@PriceStClair1), Jonathan Chew (@JonathanChew19), and Steve Hayes (@stephenfhayes).