Chuck Schumer's New Year's message sounded like a declaration of war to the Republicans. The Democratic majority leader in the Senate wrote to his colleagues: January 6, a year ago, was an attack on American democracy. Although this had withstood the attack, the attacks continued. Republicans in several states had embraced Donald Trump's "big lie" and wanted to curtail the right to vote on the pretext of safeguarding the integrity of the elections. The group of the Democrats, so Schumer, go against it and have presented proposals for reform of the electoral law. The Republicans would have used the rules of procedure several times to prevent a debate. This was followed by a threat: If the opposing side lifted the blockade by Martin Luther King Day on 17thNot ending January, the Senate will consider changing the Rules of Procedure to defend the foundation of democracy.

Majid Sattar

Political correspondent for North America based in Washington.

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Schumer threatens to use the “nuclear option”, namely to weaken the filibuster, the instrument of long-term speech with which the minority can prevent an item on the agenda from being dealt with.

To end the blockade of the minority, 60 votes are required in the second chamber so far.

The Democrats only have 50, as do the Republicans.

Vice President Kamala Harris tips the scales as Senate President.

The Democrats could change the rules of procedure without a qualified majority.

Of course this is a game with fire.

Majorities can change - and then the minority protection that the founding fathers gave the Senate to prevent legislative zeal would also be gone for the Democrats.

Has Schumer his people behind him?

There are two options under discussion: It is considered to bring the filibuster back to its origins, so that the opposing senators would actually be forced to speak at length, which is currently not the case. That would increase the costs for the minority. Alternatively, one is considering changing the rules of procedure only as an exception in order to ensure that the electoral law reform can be dealt with with a vote of 51 votes. From the point of view of the Democrats, it would be left with a “mini-nuke”, a precision-controlled little atomic bomb. Of course, the Republicans could do the same at any time after an election victory.

The public outrage over Schumer's advance is correspondingly great, also because the Republicans accuse the Democrats of being the one who wanted to politicize the electoral law with their reform. There is not much unrest, however, as minority leader Mitch McConnell, it seems, can once again rely on two senators from the right wing of the Democrats: Joe Manchin from West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona made it clear on Tuesday that they wanted to change the Rather skeptical of rules of procedure. In her opinion, this should only be done by consensus.

Schumer announced talks with the two senators and it was no coincidence that he quoted Robert Byrd: If circumstances changed, the rules would have to change too. Byrd represented Manchin's homeland in the Senate for 51 years. Schumer: "With these new Republicans, the circumstances have clearly changed."

The majority leader is under pressure to deliver something legislative because Manchin has so far blocked Joe Biden's “Build back better” bill, the two trillion dollar social and climate package.

The resistance of the Republicans is directed against two draft reforms of the electoral law: The "Freedom to Vote Act" would set minimum standards, especially for postal voters.

And the "John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act", named after his comrade Martin Luther King who died in 2020, would give the federal government more control over electoral procedures in the states that the Supreme Court had weakened in 2013.