Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) takes his seat before introducing Alison Nathan, the Manhattan federal judge who is overseeing the sex abuse trial of British tycoon Ghislaine Maxwell, who is up for a seat on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The coming weeks in the Senate will be important for Democrats who believe in voting rights.
Schumer will try to pass a federal elections bill this month, with the support of his full 50-member caucus. If Republicans block the plan, the Senate will debate possible rules changes to allow a voting-rights measure to pass with a simple majority, Schumer wrote to Democrats on Monday.
The Senate will consider how to perfect this union and confront the historic challenges facing our democracy over the coming weeks. He wrote that they hope Republican colleagues change course and work with them.
If they don't, the Senate will debate and consider changes to Senate rules before Martin Luther King Jr. Day to protect free and fair elections.
The Freedom to Vote Act faces an uphill climb in the Senate despite its unified Democratic support. Changing the rules of the Senate's filibuster is opposed by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.
Democrats would need to win over 10 Republicans to pass the bill. The task is almost impossible as Republicans are against any new legislation that would give the federal government a bigger role in elections.
The country needs a voting-rights bill more than it has in the past, according to Democrats. The renewed push comes about a year after a mob of Donald Trump's supporters, fueled by the former president's conspiracy theories that widespread fraud led to President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory, invaded the U.S. Capitol.
Democrats want to pass legislation before the elections in November.
The party tried and failed to pass voting-rights bills. The Republicans blocked every attempt.
McConnell accused Democrats of trying to take over all of American elections when the Freedom to Vote Act failed.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, which Congress passed, was meant to prevent state and local discrimination in voting.
The Freedom to Vote Act was a compromise. The For the People Act, an earlier elections bill and a top priority for the party, went too far and was too hard to implement.
The current legislation would make it easier for people to comply with state voter ID laws. Automatic voter registration and restoring the right to vote for people who have been sentenced would be made a national standard.
Election Day would be a national holiday under the bill.
Schumer argued that Democrats should approve an elections bill with a simple majority in order to skirt the filibuster.
Democrats changed Senate rules to increase the debt ceiling with a simple majority, which gained traction within the party. Biden supports making a carve out to pass an elections bill.
In December, Sen. Raphael Warnock said that if Democrats were to raise the debt ceiling, they must also raise the ceiling of democracy.
He asked, "How do we justify doing one and not the other?"
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