Manchin Again States He Will Not Vote to ‘Eliminate or Weaken’ the Filibuster

Senator Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) reiterated his opposition to ending the filibuster on Thursday afternoon, hours after Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) vowed not to eliminate the filibuster in a Senate floor speech.

“Just four years ago, sixty-one Senators, thirty-three of which were Democrats, sent a letter to Senators Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell warning them of the dangers of eliminating the filibuster….While some of them have changed their position, I have not,” Manchin said in a statement.

“Allowing one part to exert complete control in the Senate with only a simple majority will only pour fuel onto the fire of political whiplash and dysfunction that is tearing this nation apart,” Manchin added. “As such, and as I have said many times before, I will not vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster.”

President Biden and other Democrats have called to suspend the filibuster in order to pass a pair of voting bills in the Senate, however Manchin and Sinema both stated their opposition to doing so on Thursday.

“Has the president accepted that he cannot sway” those two senators, a reporter asked White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday.

“I think we’re going to keep fighting until the votes are had,” Psaki responded.

Sinema stated on the Senate floor earlier Thursday that she is against changing Senate rules to allow the voting bills to pass, just before President Biden arrived at the Capitol in an attempt to persuade Democrats to push the legislation through.

“But what is the legislative filibuster, other than a tool that requires new federal policy to be broadly supported by senators, representing the broader cross-section of Americans?” Sinema said. “Demands to eliminate this threshold from whichever party holds the fleeting majority amount to a group of people separated on two sides of a canyon, shouting that solution to their colleagues.”