Democrats in the U.S. Senate Wednesday failed to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a sweeping proposal billed as an effort to counteract Republican efforts in nearly 20 states to roll back voting access. But the debate that went late into the evening highlighted a contrast between Republican Sen. Susan Collins and independent Sen. Angus King on an issue that's animated national and local politics ever since the riots at the U.S. Capitol took place a year ago.
The Senate bill was a mashup of two voting rights proposals that Republicans had successfully blocked, each time by using the filibuster rule that requires 60 votes to pass most legislation.
Sen. King has previously backed keeping the filibuster, arguing that it protects the minority party and sometimes encourages bipartisan cooperation.
But on the issue of voting rights, he said, the filibuster has been used for something else entirely.
"If one side or other doesn't want to talk about the subject, what you're talking about is stone, cold obstruction," he said. "And that's where we are today."
As he has for the past several months, King argued that, in the case of voting rights, the Senate should do away with what he called the "no-effort filibuster" and return to the talking filibuster, thereby making senators stand and debate rather than simply declaring their opposition.
King argued that American democracy is in peril.
He cited last year's storming of the Capitol, an act spurred by false claims by former President Trump that the election was stolen and now prompting GOP-controlled states to pass laws that the independent says could lead other voters to question the legitimacy of future elections.
"And if you can't trust elections what do you do? I would submit that we saw it on Jan. 6.," he said. "Those people had been told that something was stolen from them and they couldn't trust elections, they couldn't trust the courts, they couldn't trust the media, so they took the law into their own hands."
The bill debated by the Senate would create nationwide standards for ballot access — nullifying new restrictions passed by the GOP in several states — and establish 15 days of early voting, the ability to vote by mail and automatic voter registration programs.
And it also would have beefed up provisions in the 1965 Voting Rights Act, including one removed by the Supreme Court that required states with a history of discrimination to get approval by the Justice Department or federal courts before new voting laws can be enacted, also known as preclearance.
Georgia Democrat Sen. Jon Ossoff noted that several Republican senators who voted to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act in 2006 were now united in blocking debate on a bill that would strengthen it.
He specifically cited Collins for being inconsistent and not joining Democrats to support the bill, touching off an exchange between the two senators.
"Not my friend, the senator from Maine, Sen. Collins, who previously said this bill will ensure that the voting rights afforded to all Americans are protected," Ossoff said.
Irked by Ossoff's comments, Collins acknowledged that she did back the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act.
But at 735 pages, she said, the current bill is not the same as the 2006 reauthorization bill.
"But to equate that to the legislation that is before us now is simply not worthy," she said.
Collins has described the Democratic voting rights bill as a federal takeover of state elections, and some of the rhetoric accompanying it, as “harmful alarmism” that could further erode public trust in elections.
She also tried to counter Ossoff's assertion that the Justice Department can't challenge state voting laws by noting that the DOJ has filed lawsuits against new voting laws in Georgia and Texas.
"So the idea that somehow the Justice Department no longer has a authority to challenge laws with which it disagrees, or regulations, or practices, is simply not accurate," she said.
Ossoff and other Democrats said restoring the preclearance provision is important because it stops voting law changes before they go into effect. Currently the DOJ can only try to stop such laws after they're implemented.
Still, Collins joined the GOP in blocking debate on the bill and Democrats were unable to convince two of their own members to change the filibuster to pass it.
The debate is certain to continue.
Sens. Collins and King have both expressed a willingness to overhaul the Electoral Count Act, the ambiguities of which led Trump supporters to believe that Congress can override state election results in presidential elections.
But for now, Collins and King are working on different proposals.
