Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has long caused angst among Democrats as a conservative-leaning lawmaker frequently wielding unusual power over the legislative process in an evenly divided Senate.
Indeed, Manchin — who retires this year — was sometimes rumored to be leaving the Democratic Party, and was a target of the No Labels movement when it was trying to muster a third party candidate to challenge the Democrat/Republican status quo.
Renowned constitutional scholar and Harvard Law Professor emeritus Laurence Tribe articulates the particular frustration Manchin inspires in his most recent post, which slams the West Virginian. “What a pathetic excuse for a Democrat Manchin is,” Tribe writes.
What a pathetic excuse for a Democrat Manchin is. Calling the filibuster the “holy grail of democracy” and blaming Harris’s advocacy of suspending it to get Roe v. Wade reinstated when Trump is the looming alternative to Harris is sheer idiocy https://t.co/Eg9i0sORHA
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) September 25, 2024
Tribe excoriated Manchin on using the Senator’s support of the filibuster to defend his refusal to back the Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, slamming Manchin’s assertion that Harris’s position on the filibuster is important enough to justify his failure to support his party’s nominee.
Tribe calls Manchin’s machinations “sheer idiocy” and mocks the Senator for calling the filibuster, a procedural delay tactic, the “holy grail of democracy.” (Adding insult to injury for Tribe’s tribe, former President Donald Trump — the “looming alternative” Tribe warns about — predictably praised Manchin’s decision.)
If Tribe’s rhetoric (“sheer idiocy”) sounds extreme, its tone matches that of Manchin, who said of Harris’s proposal to disembowel the filibuster: “I think that basically can destroy our country…I think it’s the most horrible thing.”
New — Joe Manchin, a staunch defender of the filibuster, tells us he WON’T endorse Kamala Harris now over her vow to gut the filibuster to codify Roe.
“Shame on her,” Manchin, who is retiring at year’s end, said in the Capitol. “She knows the filibuster is the Holy Grail of…
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) September 24, 2024
Manchin has made no secret of his respect for the filibuster in the past, even if he has perhaps not been transparent about why he reveres the procedural tactic.
An X account called Eric Blair — the real name of anti-authoritarian author George Orwell — shared the post below in reaction to the news.
Joe Manchin in 2021 got caught on a private call with rightwing billionaires, saying he wanted their money to kill filibuster reform — because the filibuster protects the big money conservative agenda.
Someone leaked the audio.https://t.co/JlnB1ZXpok
— Eric Blair (@protecttruth_) September 24, 2024
[NOTE: For all his contrariness, Manchin — representing a state that has reliably voted Republican in presidential elections since 2000 — voted with President Joe Biden’s agenda nearly 88% of the time.]