Senator Manchin Says No

West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin recently announced what he had been hinting for a long time: that he would not and in his words "could not" support the proposed Democratic "Build Back Better" bill (BBB) that would have among other things given more work permits for illegal immigrants, expanded child tax credits, provided universal pre-k, expanded health care coverage, addressed climate change, increased green cards for immigrants, and a whole host of other items which tend to be quite popular with some liberals. 

At Manchin's request, the BBB was cut down quite a bit from the initial bill, so many people were very upset when Manchin went on Fox News and said he still wouldn't support the bill.

And you know, my concerns I had, and I still have these concerns and where I’m at right now, the inflation that I was concerned about, it’s not transitory, it’s real, it’s harming every West Virginian. It’s making it almost difficult for them to continue, to go to their jobs, the cost of gasoline, the cost of groceries, the cost of utility bills — all of these things are hitting in every aspect of their life.
And you start looking at — then you have the debt that we’re carrying, $29 trillion, you have also the geopolitical unrest that we have. 

So when you have these things coming at you the way they are right now, I’ve always said this, Bret, if I can’t go home and explain it to the people of West Virginia, I can’t vote for it. And I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can’t. I’ve tried everything humanly possible. I can’t get there.

BAIER: You’re done? This is — is this a no?
MANCHIN: This is a no on this legislation. I have tried everything I know to do, and the president has worked diligently. He’s been wonderful to work with. He knows I’ve had concerns and the problems I’ve had.

There are things in BBB which I like and things I think are bad. But the reason I wanted to write about this is not to discuss the pros or cons of the bill. Instead I wanted to detail briefly what I think is the counterproductive Democratic response to Manchin. The Democratic reactions generally fell into one of four related categories.

1) Senator Manchin is a corrupt piece of s*** and so are his kids. 

This was in some quarters of twitter and apparently portions of the House and Senate the default position all along. Surprisingly, repeatedly caustically insulting Manchin's integrity and that of his children didn't actually work to bring Manchin onboard with BBB. I am really shocked. I mean who could have foreseen that? If people called you and your family nasty names because you disagreed with them wouldn't you rush to change your position?

2) West Virginia is a (insert stereotypical insult about poverty, teeth, intelligence, or non-forking family trees) state that shouldn't have two Senators.

A favorite scene from the film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane anticipates this objection. When one sister tells her abusive sibling that she wouldn't be able to hurt her if she weren't disabled, the abuser smirks and responds but you are in that chair. In short, reality matters, no matter how much we wish it didn't. 

Equal suffrage for each state in the Senate, no matter how thinly populated, is one of the Constitution's ironclad protections. The Founders considered equal state suffrage so important that they made it impossible to alter via the amendment process. 

That's right. Even if forty-nine states all agree that West Virginia is a drooling dummy who shouldn't be allowed two matchsticks, let alone two Senators, West Virginia can't be denied its two Senators and equal suffrage in the Senate unless it agrees. If you don't like that then you need to start agitating for a completely new Constitution. Cause it's not changing under this one.

3) No one Senator should be able to stop the BBB

I think this is a particularly short-sighted objection. The Democrats do not have a true Senate Majority. The Senate is evenly split. So, because of the filibuster and Republican intransigence, it takes Democrats 60 votes in the Senate to pass legislation under normal order or 50 votes to pass legislation under reconciliation rules. Because the Democrats don't have, say the two-thirds Senate majority that LBJ enjoyed, they can't afford to lose a single vote. Not Sinema's. Not Manchin's. Any Democratic Senator could blow up the Senate "majority". So if you don't want to dance to Manchin's tune you have to either convince some Republicans to come along or you need to elect more Senate Democrats. 

4) The BBB is really popular, even in West Virginia. Manchin doesn't properly represent his constituents and thus is wrong to decline to support the BBB.

We don't govern by polls. The only polls that really count are the polls that take place on election days. And at that point in time Manchin was re-elected. Manchin is the only Democratic statewide office holder in West Virginia. In the 2020 election, Trump won West Virginia with 70% of the vote. Manchin on the other hand squeaked into victory in 2018 with just 49% of the vote. 

Despite this, though you wouldn't know it from MSNBC or twitter, Manchin still votes with Biden's position 97% of the time. Biden has "seen more of his judicial nominees confirmed in his first year than any President since Reagan". Manchin has had his part to play in that.

The paradox is that Democrats do not have the political power that they should, given pure numbers, but neither are their proposals as popular as they seem to believe. The reason of course is our federal system. 

The Democratic overrepresentation and dominance in the heavily populated coastal areas is matched politically by Republican dominance in many lower populated states. But as I wrote above, Senate representation isn't changing any time soon. 

The solution is rather than spending time insulting Manchin or whining about how they could have had it all if weren't for those meddling red states, Democrats need to (1) run better candidates and elect more Democratic Senators and (2) move more Democratic voters from "surplus" Democratic states to lower populated Republican ones.  

The minute you have more than 50 Democratic Senators, or better yet, 60 Democratic Senators, you can tell Manchin to go commit an anatomically impossible act.

But trying to govern as if you have a large majority when you do not is something that is guaranteed to lead to higher and higher levels of frustration. And Senators Manchin and Sinema will likely continue to have opportunities to demonstrate that.