Will Joe Manchin Be a Voting Rights Hero?

Senator Joe Manchin carries a fateful burden. By quirk of gridlock, he is literally the swing vote between two warring visions for the vote itself. If he gives his decisive 50th vote in the Senate to pass S. 1 — the For the People Act — millions are sure to revolt against perceived tyranny from Democrats expanding the franchise with national standards. If he votes no, millions are sure to revolt against perceived tyranny from Republicans restricting the franchise with new state laws. Poisonous division will intensify either way, at least for a time.

Senator Manchin correctly believes that extreme partisanship is a danger signal for American democracy. By the Founders’ design, our “experiment” in republican self-government rests on public trust in votes, which President Lyndon Johnson once called “the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice.” Yet confidence in republican institutions has frayed for decades by every objective measure, and vote-based American democracy is disparaged or helpless in many countries ruled by autocrats, armies and coups. Wherever democracy weakens, appeals to violence break loose.