Daily US Times: Joe Biden’s far-reaching domestic agenda in the United States is facing serious setbacks on a range of issues as the political quagmire of a tightly contested Senate is seeing Democratic hopes and ambitions sharply curtailed in the face of Republican obstruction.
On a number of key fronts such as voting rights and pushing election reform, efforts to curb gun control and to moving forwards on LGBTQ civil rights, there has been an effective push back by Republicans legislators – and a handful of conservative Democrats – that is forcing president Biden and the wider Democratic party on to the back foot.
The Senate, whom critics deride as an increasingly unrepresentative body that gives undue influence to less diverse and smaller Republican-run states, is scheduled to vote Tuesday on For the People Act, the voting rights bill that’s certain to be defeated having won no support from Republicans.
Republicans are expected to run down the clock, which is a controversial tactical rule known as a filibuster, on the package that requires lawmakers to reach a 60-vote threshold.
Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman on Sunday shot down amendments proposed by West Virginia’s conservative Democrat Joe Manchin, whose rejection of the initial bill all-but scuttled the Democrats’ project.
Portman described the planned agenda as a “federal takeover of our election system”.
Portman said on NBC’s Meet the Press: “The bottom line is we should make it easy to vote in this country. We should also make it hard to cheat.”
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