schumer calling on his caucus friday in his first session of 2022 to abandon the filibuster to advance voter protection legislation. as the midterms approach, with democrats already shedding incumbents in the face of long odds set by republicans intent on deliberately rigging the system against them, the party may not get another chance. joining me now, congresswoman brenda lawrence, democrat of michigan, who announced this week that she will not seek re-election after 30 years in the u.s. house. congresswoman, first of all, thank you for joining us tonight. after your announcement this week, in addition to that news, we also watched president biden and obama eulogize former senate leader harry reid at funeral services in las vegas today.
implication for the former president. the supreme court rejected trump s effort to block administration s records from being sent to the january 6th committee. we ll have much more on that coming up. we begin tonight with the united states senate, one step closer to putting themselves on the historical record on voting rights. versus embracing the current phone in version of the filibuster. any minute now the senate is expected to begin a series of votes on voter protection legislation. which is expected to fail. teeing up majority leader chuck schumer s plan to move forward with a vote on a proposed filibuster rule change. that, too, is likely to fail since conservative democratic senator joe manchin in the tradition of the bonnie to his clyde krysten sinema reiterating his support for the 60 vote threshold with no requirement to do it in person. the united states senate has never in 233 years been able to end debate on legislation with a
as we all know, last night two nominally democratic united states senators, west virginia s joe manchin and arizona s kyrsten sinema voted with republicans to block a change to filibuster rules to push through voter protection legislation, which we knew would happen after their twin overwrought explanations over the past week. and while i continue to support these bills, i will not support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country. i believe with every finer in my body that every eligible citizen of voting age should have the right to vote and be protected by law. everyone. we re debating a fundamental change in the senate rules that will forever alter way this body functions. the obvious question is if you claim to support voting rights legislation and vote for that legislation, why would you then oppose something that could actually allow it to become law?
US Senate Democrats have again failed to pass voting rights legislation when two senators refused to join their own party in changing Senate rules to overcome a Republican filibuster.
impunity. you know, they don t even try to hide what they re doing. what they re doing is a power grab. they are rigging the game before you can even get on the field to play the game. so that s what the republicans are doing, and the only person who are stopping them i thank all of you, reverend, all of your people and the advocates. we cannot give up and neither can congress. that is why contingency talking filibuster. o let s take that pass to enact voter protection legislation. whatever it takes, we need to take the path. senator, before i let you go, we learned late this afternoon that president biden will deliver a speech on tuesday on the rise of the new variant of covid-19. we know there are many americans who still refuse to get vaccinated, and even people who have gotten their shots are worried about a new wave of cases and more social distancing measures. what are your brief thoughts