Senator Manchin and Sinema are the moderates we warned you about
“Everybody is frustrated. That’s part of government, being frustrated,” Biden said, before departing the White House. But he said he was confident that ultimately, the two bills at the center of his “Build Back Better” agenda would pass.”
Democrats were certain they would be able to achieve many of their strategic goals that they had set out to when voters turned out in overwhelming numbers to support the party in elections. Given the nature of this ‘big tent’ party that we were supposed to celebrate, just breaking down and becoming the party of Senator Sinema and Joe Manchin’s obstruction, we’re seeing just how openly two U.S. Senators are opting out from doing the right thing for the American public and help pass priorities that could not only save lives, but also hinges on our ability to fight back against climate change and protect the right to reproductive healthcare for people across this country who depend on lifesaving care.
I attended the Women’s March in Washington D.C. on Saturday to stand against the attacks on a woman’s right to choose what is best for her body and how trans and gender-non binary people can continue to receive the care they need in order to be able to survive and transition the life they want for themselves. It was a fun environment despite the fear activists are holding during this time when it seems like the outlook will be bleak for our movement.
Here are somethings I liked that the organizers did differently this time, that really helped me — as a woman of color — feel more comfortable to attend. I’m sure this provided comfort to others as well as they came to fight for their rights.
- They banned the handmaid tale costumes. This is a big one considering they are a constant sight at protests but now didn’t make it to the 2021 Women’s March. Organizers of the march had this reasoning:
“The use of Handmaid’s Tale imagery to characterize the controlling of women’s reproduction has proliferated, primarily by white women across the country, since the show has gained popularity,” the organizers wrote. “This message continues to create more fragmentation, often around race and class, because it erases the fact that Black women, undocumented women, incarcerated women, poor women and disabled women have always had their reproduction freedom controlled in this country. This is not a dystopian past or future.”
- Many of the posters featured the identities of marginalized women who have never before been featured in protest art.
Many activists came out from across the country to attend this march because they felt the intense urgency of the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments in a case that could potentially end Roe vs Wade -and 50 years of lifesaving legal precedent- and felt that their legislators needed to do more to combat the rise in anti-abortion laws.
The Women’s Rights Network, on their website said:
“We are witnessing the most dire threat to abortion access in our lifetime,” the Women’s March Network said on its website, noting the Supreme Court’s recent refusal to block Texas’ 6-week abortion ban. “We need to send an unmistakable message about our fierce opposition to restricting abortion access and overturning Roe v. Wade before it’s too late.”
Senator Manchin and Senator Play Hide and Seek with their Constituents
Democrats on the national level have been frustrated with Senator Manchin and Sinema, both of whom who have had their constituents either paddle to them (Manchin) or confront them in a bathroom at ASU (Sinema). Both Senators have been cagey on the $3.5 trillion dollar infrastructure investment into American families and our future. For a big tent party, like the Democrats, the moderate democrats have been unwilling to go pass Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda have posed the most resistance to the $3.5 trillion package.
The troubling aspect with Senator Manchin in particular is the fact he does not support repealing the Hyde Amendment which bans federal funding of abortions. Manchin identifies as pro-life.
When it comes to Senator Sinema on the other hand:
The Arizona senator has reportedly left Washington on Friday as the machinations over the two bills — reconciliation and the parallel Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework — continue apace. There appeared a completely disorienting missive in Axios in which anonymous “allies” of “the wine-drinking triathlete” talked up her imperviousness to political pressure. (The article obsesses over the wine thing throughout.) Sinema is apparently opposed to raising taxes on corporations and the rich too much, but she’s also concerned about The National Debt, but she also took a central role crafting the separate bipartisan bill which is “paid for” through accounting witchcraft. Also, nobody cares about The National Debt. They just don’t want to pay taxes to fund social programs.
In response to a lack of meeting with constituents, a barely functioning constituent services office and Sinema’s own lack of care of passing $15/hr for her constituents back home, activists took to confronting Sinema directly at Arizona State University, where she is a professor. Sinema flew back home to attend a big dollar fundraiser where no doubt she took time out to hear the needs of deep pocketed donors who would have the wherewithal to keep her attention.
Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Representative Jayapal has mentioned that she is not willing to go below the $1.5 trillion price tag that moderates like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have been angling for instead of fully funding the $3.5 trillion price that could pay off for Democrats in the mid-term elections. She mentions:
“It’s going to be somewhere between 1.5 and 3.5, and I think the White House is working on that right now because, remember, what we want to deliver is childcare, paid leave and climate change, housing.”
According to Newsweek, President Biden signaled he would be willing to give in to the demands of Senators Sinema and Manchin in lowering the price tag down between $1.9 trillion and $2.2 trillion.
Manchin has suggested he would support a smaller reconciliation package totaling about $1.5 trillion on top of the $1.2 trillion included in the bipartisan infrastructure deal. Biden reportedly expressed a willingness to negotiate the price tag downward in remarks to Democratic lawmakers on Friday. The president reportedly said he expects the final package will spend between $1.9 trillion and $2.2 trillion, instead of $3.5 trillion.
Congress will continue to deliberate in this coming week. What we are going to watch out for is how much the price tag will come out to be and how the Democratic party will reconcile pro-life Democrats who believe that we can bipartisanship our way out of situations and that lowering the threshold for care in a huge crisis point in American history is the right way to go (it isn’t).
One thing is for sure, whatever Congress decides, it will resonate for some time to come, and with the midterm elections kicking into high gear, it is clear that we’re in for troubling waters as Joe Biden faces his party’s biggest test and whether or not his party will be able to tackle the crisis of eroding voting rights, reproductive rights, a west that is on fire and an east that is drowning and the middle of the country that is experiencing everything in between.
