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Democrats failed to change the Senate rules to pass voting rights legislation after two members of their party, concerned about making the change on a partisan basis, voted with the GOP to fend off the push.

Both Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) lamented the failure to pass the voting package and vowed, along with nearly all House and Senate Democrats, to keep pressing their colleagues on both sides of the aisle. 

“The Senate must find a path forward to secure our fundamental right to vote,” Rosen said in a release after the Senate Democrats’ defeat Wednesday. 

But legislative avenues appear closed for the moment, especially as focus increasingly turns to the midterm election in November, and the chances for passing significant legislation proportionately declines.

Voting rights

The Nevada Democrats supported the voting rights package, which needed 60 votes to end debate under the Senate’s cloture rule. It failed 49 to 51, with all 50 Democrats voting for the measure. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NV) changed his vote to ‘no’ to allow him to bring the bill back up, a quirk of the Senate’s rules.   

The Senate then immediately moved to change the cloture rule specifically for the bill to allow the Senate to end debate on the measure — after all senators seeking to speak have done so — on a simple majority vote. The motion needed all 50 Democratic votes, plus Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote. But Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) voted against the move. In the days leading up to the vote Wednesday night, both had called for the need to keep the cloture threshold at 60 to encourage bipartisanship.

During the day-long debate on the voting rights bill, Rosen gave a speech on the floor arguing for the need for voting protections. She pointed to many Republican-led states that have changed voting regulations and laws to “​​make it harder for tens of millions of eligible citizens to cast their ballot.”

“This is an unprecedented, coordinated attack to make voting harder,” Rosen said.

Concerned for Nevada

Rosen praised Nevada for taking steps to ease voting, including allowing universal mail-in voting for the 2020 election and extending early voting. But she stressed that Nevada is not immune. Rosen pointed out that two of the leading GOP gubernatorial candidates, former Sen. Dean Heller and Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, have pledged to repeal those voting measures. 

She also highlighted the stated positions of former Assemblyman Jim Marchant, who is leading a coalition of so-called “America First” GOP secretary of state candidates with the goal of trying “to fix 2020 like President Trump said.”

She raised concerns that Marchant, if elected, could certify “alternate electors in future presidential elections in Nevada, contrary to the actual election results.” 

Her comments come as the House's select committee investigating the causes of the Jan. 6 insurrection are scrutinizing efforts by Republicans in seven states, including Nevada, where alternate slates of electors, claiming election fraud, sought to be certified. 

The panel contends that the move was part of a plan to give Vice President Mike Pence, who has a ceremonial role in presiding over Congress' certification of presidential elections,  justification not to accept the results. Gov. Steve Sisolak said this week he believes the false electors committed a crime.

The select committee is expecting a new batch of documents from the National Archives related to its false-electors inquiry, according to its panel chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), Politico reported Friday.

Build Back Better

Cortez Masto said she remains optimistic that parts of President Joe Biden’s stalled Build Back Better (BBB) Act can become law.

Among those policies should be lowering health care costs, including lowering prescription drug prices, she said. Cortez Masto mentioned a provision in the BBB that would allow Medicare to negotiate on prescription drug prices. She also cited language that would require pharmaceutical companies to pay the federal government if prices of certain drugs increase higher than the rate of inflation. 

“They should be penalized for that,” Cortez Masto said in a brief interview. “So there's a number of things we can continue to do to not only reduce costs for families, give them tax breaks, but they will be anti inflationary.”

Her comments came after Biden said at a press conference Wednesday that he was confident “big chunks of the Build Back Better” Act could be “signed into law.”

But Manchin, whose opposes  the bill over a sharp rise in inflation, has said he wants to start over. He had negotiated the bill down to $1.7 trillion. Still, he balked at the package, in part over Democrats' attempt to fund several programs, but not for a full 10 years, which is Congress' budget window. That allowed them to keep the cost of the package down while funding more priorities and programs. 

Silva and Traum

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the nominations of Clark County District Court Judge Cristina Silva and UNLV law professor Anne Traum to join the U.S. District Court in Nevada. The nominations now go before the full Senate. 

Titus wants aviation

Bloomberg Government reported recently that Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) would not make a run to become chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), the current chairman, announced last month that he would not seek re-election.  

Instead, Titus' office said she plans to seek the panel's Aviation Subcommittee chair, which oversees airport and aviation policy. The aviation panel is led by Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA), who has expressed interest in taking over the full committee.

Newlands

Rosen supports a bill that would take Sen. Francis Newlands' name off of a traffic circle between Washington D.C. and Maryland. The bill was introduced Tuesday by Maryland's senators and the House version is co-sponsored by Titus. 

Rosen's office said she hopes the plaque honoring Newlands, a white supremacist, "can be replaced with the name of a Nevadan who better exemplifies the state's values."

For a full rundown of the measures the delegates supported or opposed this week, check out The Nevada Independent’s congressional vote tracker and other information below.

SEN. JACKY ROSEN

Legislation co-sponsored:

S.3531 – A bill to require the Federal Government to produce a national climate adaptation and resilience strategy, and for other purposes.

REP. SUSIE LEE

Legislation co-sponsored:

H.R.6448 – To direct the Director of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services of the Department of Justice to carry out a grant program to provide assistance to police departments with fewer than 200 law enforcement officers, and for other purposes.