Sen. Joe Manchin has made it clear on a number of occasions that he’s not supportive of ending the chamber’s filibuster rule, which requires a 60-vote majority to advance most legislation.
And yet, his Democratic colleagues refuse to get the message.
Following the unprecedented leak of a draft Supreme Court ruling written by Justice Samuel Alito in February signaling majority support for overturning the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade decision, Democrats quickly announced they wanted to codify the right to kill unborn babies all the way up to right before the time of birth in federal law.
But to do that, they would need the West Virginia Democrat’s vote, and they didn’t get it.
“Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) was the lone Democrat to vote against the Women’s Health Protection Act — and he explained his vote to reporters, saying that the proposed bill was not the codification of Roe v. Wade that many Democrats were claiming it was,” The Daily Wire reported Wednesday evening.
“Manchin addressed the issue just hours before the Senate took a vote on the WHPA — a vote that was forced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) despite the knowledge that without Manchin’s support it would not even garner 50 votes, much less the necessary 60 to get past the filibuster,” the report added.
In an interview, Manchin also noted that, as usual, his party wasn’t being honest about the legislation in the first place.
“Make no mistake. It is not Roe v. Wade codification. It’s an expansion. It wipes 500 state laws off the books. It expands abortion,” he said
MANCHIN: “Make no mistake. It is not Roe v. Wade codification. It’s an expansion. It wipes 500 state laws off the books. It expands abortion.” pic.twitter.com/yfj6w3gTXU
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 11, 2022
“The bill we have today to vote on, the Women’s Health Protection Act, and I respect people who support it — but make no mistake, it is not Roe v. Wade codification,” Manchin told reporters. “It’s an expansion. It wipes 500 — 500 state laws off the books — it expands abortion. And with that, that’s not where we are today. We should not be dividing this country further than we’re already divided.”
“It’s really — the politics of Congress that’s dividing the country, it’s not the people,” Manchin added. “They — they’re telling us what they want. And it’s just disappointing that we’re going to be voting on a piece of legislation that I will not vote for today.”
Sen. Susan Collins, a GOP moderate from Maine who has proposed her own legislation to codify the right to an abortion in federal law along with fellow moderate Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, also voted against the Democrat measure for the same reason as Manchin: It was way too broad.
“It supersedes all other federal and state laws, including the conscience protections that are in the Affordable Care Act,” Collins said, adding, “It doesn’t protect the right of a Catholic hospital to not perform abortions. That right has been enshrined in law for a long time.”
The measure would go on to fail 51-49, but with Manchin’s ‘nay’ vote, rejecting it was bipartisan — a fact that earned him renewed condemnation from the far Democrat left.
