'The Senate must pass this bill now'
| Democrats had a dream  (Fight For the Future)  It's the least auspicious MLK day in years.
Democrats hoped to mark the national holiday honoring civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday by passing two bills reversing efforts by state Republicans that make it harder for millions to vote. But cries of frustration rather than freedom were ringing after President Joe Biden and Senate Democrats failed to build a majority for changing the chamber's rules to allow passage of the two voting rights bills. The familiar duo — Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — is the roadblock, just as they have been for Biden's sweeping social spending and climate change legislation.
It's an odd situation since both senators support the voting rights legislation. Manchin even wrote much of one of the bills. But neither senator is willing to vote to change filibuster rules to pass them with a simple majority. Both want to preserve the 60-vote supermajority needed to pass and even debate most major bills in the chamber. Republicans are using the rule to strangle voting rights bills, while Manchin and Sinema insist that the 60-vote threshold actually builds bipartisan coalitions that produce laws acceptable to a majority of Americans. But there's precious little evidence in the last decade that they are right.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, under extreme pressure from his party's grassroots, is expected to try to bring up the bills as early as Tuesday. This will force Manchin and Sinema to cast a public vote in defiance of their own party's President. The debacle will cement impressions that Biden's agenda is fatally stuck, with time running out before midterm elections that could hand Congress to Republicans. The voting rights bills would restore protections against racial discrimination in state voting laws that were gutted by the Supreme Court, allow everyone the right to have a mail-in ballot and make Election Day a public holiday. They are designed to counter multiple state laws, passed by Republicans inspired by ex-President Donald Trump's voter fraud lies, that in many cases erect obstacles for minorities — who disproportionately vote Democratic — to cast their ballots.
Biden and his Democrats have argued that this may the last chance to save American democracy. But their failure means the most serious voting rights legislation in decades will probably remain, in the words of MLK, "a dream."  Voting rights advocates march in Washington, DC, on Monday.  'The Senate must pass this bill now' Vice President Kamala Harris used MLK day to pile pressure on the Senate to pass the voting rights bills – an apparently hopeless task.
"It's time for the United States Senate to do its job," Harris said, during remarks streamed to the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where King was once ordained as a minister.
"The Senate must pass this bill now," Harris said of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in a speech in which she referred to the assassinated civil rights leader as a "prophet."
"To truly honor the legacy of the man we celebrate today, we must continue to fight for the freedom to vote, for freedom for all," Harris said. The world and America Former Ukrainian President lands in Kyiv to face treason case
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Dallas Cowboys fans pelt the refs with trash after playoff loss From Washington with love Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to be deterred by a bunch of US senators turning up in Kyiv amid fears of a Russian invasion.
But that doesn't mean that a bipartisan delegation to Ukraine is pointless. Four Democrats and three Republicans met President Volodymyr Zelensky and other top officials on a visit that they intend to be taken as a signal of US defiance against Russian threats.
"Ukraine continues to defend its territorial integrity against an increasingly aggressive Russia, while also striving to enact critical domestic reforms to solidify its democracy -- it is more important than ever that the U.S. support Ukraine in its efforts," said Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio.
The delegation is notable since it's hard to get Republicans and Democrats to agree on anything in the Senate; the voting rights gridlock is proof of that. And many Republican senators seem to view the Ukraine crisis as mostly an opening to slam Biden for being weak, rather than helping his intense diplomatic effort to preserve Ukraine's independence that made little headway in Europe last week.
For Ukrainians, the visit will come as a welcome show of solidarity from Washington and a sign that whoever runs Congress in the future, support for Ukraine's democracy will not fall foul of US political divides.
More importantly, Capitol Hill will be crucial in Biden's plan to impose immediate and painful sanctions on Russia in the event of an invasion. And some senators are mooting a US-funded insurgency in Ukraine if Russia marches across the border, similar to the one that helped oust the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. So Congress could turn into a pipeline of money and weapons critical to the country's survival. Thanks for reading. On Tuesday, the US Senate is expected to open debate on voting rights legislation. Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in twin attacks in 2011 in Oslo and Utoya, Norway, has a parole hearing after 10 years in prison. A Falcon 9 launch of 49 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida is expected to take place. View in browser | All CNN Newsletters
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