Chuck Schumer’s loophole strategy will allow the Senate to bypass an initial filibuster and at least get the Democrats’ voting reform proposals onto the floor for debate.

But the tactic won’t get Senate Democrats past a 60-vote requirement to end debate pass the reforms. Instead, when Republicans move inevitably to block a motion to close debate, Schumer could then propose to establish a new precedent to move ahead with a simple majority.

Joe Biden has endorsed filibuster rule changes to get Democrats’ voting rights bills passed, as states enact unprecedented voting restrictions.

My colleagues Sam Levine and Jewel Wicker covered the speech the president gave in Atlanta yesterday, in which he endorsed filibuster reforms:

Biden did not endorse a specific change to the rules but said he backed changing the filibuster, which currently requires 60 votes to advance legislation – an insurmountable challenge for the voting rights legislation given lack of support from Republicans.

Biden did not mention Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the staunchest defenders of the filibuster from the Democratic side of the chamber, by name in his speech.

But he made it clear his patience has run out after months of negotiations at the White House and on Capitol Hill within his caucus to try to find a way forward on voting rights.

“I’ve been having these quiet conversations with members of Congress for the last two months. I’m tired of being quiet,” he said, his voice rising. He also appealed to senators’ legacies, saying that those who did not stand up at this moment for voting rights would be remembered on the side of some of the most infamous racist political leaders in US history, including those supporting segregation or the Confederacy, as opposed to civil rights proponents.

“How do you want to be remembered? Do you want to be on the side of Dr King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? On the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?” he said.

Read more:

The US is turning to Wendy Sherman, its veteran negotiator, to safeguard peace in Europe.

No one in government has spent more time in high-stakes talks with hostile states than the 72-year-old deputy secretary of state, who has represented the US at two rounds of critical discussions with Russia this week.

She was part of an extraordinary mission 23 years ago, led by the former defence secretary William Perry, to try to do a deal with North Korea.

For many North Koreans, it was the first time they had seen an American, and the regime went all-out to put on a show of a joyfully contented country. At one point, a bus stopped in front of the delegation, seemingly by chance, and its passengers poured out and went straight into a dance routine.

“Everything was supposed to be ‘spontaneous’,” Sherman later told the Guardian. “And there was a cameraman following everything we did with a 1950s hand-cranked camera. It was all rather surreal.

“When we wanted to talk, we walked outside, even knowing there might be bugs in the trees. When we wanted to get a message across and were not sure who we should be talking to, we would sit in a waiting room and speak, knowing we were being listened to.”

Read more:

The ruling striking down Ohio’s legislative districts is perhaps the most significant ruling of the redistricting cycle.
That’s because this is the first time the Ohio supreme court is stepping in to enforce anti-gerrymandering provisions Ohio voters adopted in 2015. This redistricting cycle was the first time those provisions were in effect and the Republicans on the 7-person panel charged with drawing districts in Ohio essentially ignored it.
The amendment requires the support of members of both parties on the panel to pass a map that will be in effect for 10 years. But Republicans made little effort to work with Democrats, drew maps in secret, and passed their own plan on partisan lines. Under the state constitution, that plan could only be in effect for four years. They also made little effort to comply with the more explicit requirements that districts reflect the partisan makeup of Ohio. In one piece of particularly baffling logic, Republicans said they could be entitled to as much of 81% of seats in the legislature because they had won 81% of statewide elections in the last decade. Advocates had expressed deep frustration that lawmakers had so blatantly ignored the amendment. But their last hope was that the supreme court would stop the plan from going into effect, sending a message to future lawmakers that blatant efforts to gerrymander would not be tolerated. The supreme court sent such a message on Wednesday.

The Ohio supreme court has struck down new maps for the state legislature, saying they were so skewed to benefit Republicans that they violated the state constitution.

The ruling was 4-3. Maureen O’Connor, a Republican and the court’s chief justice, broke with Republican colleagues to cast the deciding swing vote. A panel of seven lawmakers tasked with drawing districts in Ohio now has 10 days to come up with a new map.

The court found that the plan, which would have given Republicans a 62-37 advantage in the Ohio House and a 23-10 advantage in the state senate, provisions of the Ohio constitution that require partisan fairness in mapmaking.

Those provisions say that districts cannot be drawn to “primarily to favor or disfavor a political party” and that the partisan makeup of districts should reflect the partisan results of statewide races over the last 10 years. Voters overwhelmingly approved the changes in a 2015 ballot referendum.

Republicans have won about 54% of the vote over the last decade in Ohio. But would have controlled nearly two thirds of each chamber in the legislature.

There is still a separate lawsuit pending before the court challenging Ohio’s congressional districts, which are also heavily distorted to benefit the GOP.

House minority leader Kevin McCarthy was recently asked whether he would be willing to share information with the select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection.

“I don’t really have anything to add. I have been very public, but I wouldn’t hide from anything,” the Republican congressman said late last month.

That statement will be put to the test now that the select committee has formally requested information from McCarthy, who will have to decide whether he will join other Republican congressmen in refusing to speak to investigators.

Bennie Thompson, the chair of the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection, said in his letter to Kevin McCarthy that the panel is interested in “how the President’s plans for January 6th came together, and all the other ways he attempted to alter the results of the election”.

“For example, in advance of January 6th, you reportedly explained to Mark Meadows and the former President that objections to the certification of the electoral votes on January 6th ‘was doomed to fail,’” Thompson said.

“How did they respond? Why were they nevertheless so confident that the election result would be overturned?”

The House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection shared a letter that chair Bennie Thompson sent to minority leader Kevin McCarthy requesting information from him.

“We write to request your voluntary cooperation with our investigation on a range of critical topics, including your conversations with President Trump before, during and after the violent January 6th attack,” Thompson said in the letter.

“You have acknowledged speaking directly with the former President while the violence was underway on January 6th.”

Thompson argued that McCarthy could provide insight into “President Trump’s state of mind during the January 6th attack,” as well as after the insurrection occurred.

Thompson proposed a date of February 3 or February 4 for McCarthy to appear before the panel, but again, it seems unlikely that the Republican leader will voluntarily agree to speak to investigators.

Joe Biden made an unscheduled stop at the US Capitol to pay his respects to Harry Reid, the late Senate majority leader who is lying in state today.

The president also spoke at Reid’s funeral in Nevada on Saturday, saying of his former Senate colleague, “His story was unmistakably American. He was proof that there is nothing ordinary about America, and that Americans can do anything given half a chance.”

Schools going virtual, airlines canceling flights, pharmacies and testing centers closing temporarily, shelves emptying in grocery stores because of transportation delays, blood donations dropping to crisis levels for the first time ever and the country’s hospitals are becoming stretched. This is the US in the grip of the Omicron variant.

Omicron may cause milder symptoms in some people, but its effects are ricocheting throughout America and creating some of the greatest challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We have supply shortages, we have transportation shortages, that are a result of people being out because of Covid, and especially Omicron being so infectious. And that is obviously limiting the workforce, and limiting the workforce is creating some of the havoc that we’re all experiencing,” said Ezekiel Emanuel, vice-provost at the University of Pennsylvania.

Joe Biden has vowed to keep businesses and schools open, but some experts wonder if that’s possible given the nature of Omicron and the lack of adequate measures to combat it.

“The economy cannot stay open and schools cannot stay open when so many people are getting sick,” said Margaret Thornton, an educational researcher at Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. “We must take action to slow the spread in order to keep schools running, to keep businesses running,” she said – but much of that action has been slow to happen.

On a non-filibuster topic, Joe Biden attempted to downplay the labor department’s latest report on inflation, which showed that US prices increased by 7% from December 2020 to December 2021. That marks the sharpest rise since 1982.

“Today’s report—which shows a meaningful reduction in headline inflation over last month, with gas prices and food prices falling—demonstrates that we are making progress in slowing the rate of price increases,” Biden said in a statement.

“At the same time, this report underscores that we still have more work to do, with price increases still too high and squeezing family budgets.”

The US president described inflation as a “global challenge,” noting that many other nations around the world are struggling with rising prices as well.

“America is fortunate that we have one of the fastest growing economies—thanks in part to the American Rescue Plan—which enables us to address price increases and maintain strong, sustainable economic growth,” Biden said. “That is my goal and I am focused on reaching it every day.”

Meanwhile, Republicans pointed to the report as the latest sign that Biden’s economic agenda is failing American families struggling to financially recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

“This trend isn’t ‘transitory,’ and it’s all happening under Democrats’ one-party control,” House minority leader Kevin McCarthy said.

Senator Jon Tester said repeatedly that the filibuster had been weaponized and bemoaned the fact that it made it possible for any one senator to essentially kill legislation and then fundraise off it.

“They have a different perspective on what the long-term impacts are,” Tester said during an event hosted by the left-leaning Center for American Progress Action Fund.

“Some of the folks in the caucus think we need to keep doing what we’ve been doing because that’s what we’ve been doing in the past,” he said.

Tester, who himself was at one point hesitant about changing the filibuster, made it clear Wednesday he supports creating a carveout from the rule for voting rights legislation.

“I do think that bipartisan is always the best. But at some point in time … you have to say this is important for democracy, important for our country, maybe the most important thing I’ll ever do for our country,” he said.

“My preferred solution is to do the filibuster change for everything. The truth is, if we need a carveout to protect voting rights. I’m there and I will do it.”

Senator Joe Manchin, a key Democrat who is a staunch defender of the filibuster rule, still isn’t on board with changing the filibuster rules.

Senator Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat who has been part of a small group trying to reach an agreement to change the filibuster with Manchin, said they were still searching for some kind of solution.

“As of this morning, we’re not where we need to be to have them on board,” Tester said during an event hosted by the left-leaning Center for American Progress Action Fund.

He added, “But I continue to be hopeful. Continue to use every persuasion power that I have to move the ball forward, to get everybody, all 50 of us, to a point where we can get this freedom to vote act passed.”

Chuck Schumer, the senate majority leader, has pledged his caucus will hold a vote on sweeping voting rights legislation and filibuster changes no later than Monday. But the comments from Tester underscore how far the party still has to go to reach some kind of consensus.

Schumer said Tuesday evening that Democrats faced an “uphill battle.” Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are set to visit senate Democrats and “work the phones” over the next few days to try and get agreement on the issue.

Senate Republicans are rallying round Senator Mike Rounds, after Donald Trump rounded on him.

Roundly speaking, this block exists merely so I could write that sentence. But now it’s here, here’s what Rounds said, a taste of how he was rounded upon simply for being fair and … square … with the truth, and some expressions of support.

Rounds, to ABC: “The election was fair, as fair as we have seen. We simply did not win the election, as Republicans, for the presidency.”

Trump, in a statement: “Is he crazy or just stupid? … I will never endorse this jerk again.”

Mitt Romney: “Mike Rounds speaks truth knowing that our republic depends upon it.”

Mitch McConnell, Republican leader, to CNN: “I think Senator Rounds told the truth about what happened in the 2020 election. And I agree with him.”

John Thune, senior Republican from South Dakota, also to CNN: “I say to my colleague, welcome to the club.”

Trump’s endorsement threat may just have become irrelevant – or of course been conveniently forgotten – when Rounds next runs for re-election. In 2026.

The White House confirmed that Joe Biden will attend Senate Democrats’ meeting tomorrow to discuss voting rights and filibuster reform.

“On the heels of the President’s speech yesterday, he and the vice-president will be working the phones over the next several days pushing members of the Senate to support voting rights legislation and changes to Senate rules,” the White House told the press pool.

“In addition, tomorrow afternoon, the president will meet with the Senate Democratic caucus to discuss the urgent need to pass legislation to protect the constitutional right to vote and the integrity of our elections against un-American attacks based on the Big Lie, and to again underline that doing so requires changing the rules of the Senate to make the institution work again.”

In his speech in Atlanta, Georgia, Biden called on Senate Democrats to change rules to allow voting rights bills to advance, but some centrist holdouts – namely Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema – are withholding their support.

Because of the 50-50 split in the Senate, majority leader Chuck Schumer needs the support of every Democrat before he can move forward.

Mitch McConnell, of course, did not like Biden’s speech.

Calling it “profoundly unpresidential”, the Senate minority leader said today: “I have known, liked, and personally respected Joe Biden for many years. I did not recognize the man at the podium yesterday.”

The MSNBC anchor Mehdi Hasan might’ve come up with the most succinct among many appalled reactions to the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s suggestion that Democrats consider a Joe Biden-Liz Cheney ticket in 2024, to promote national unity and keep Donald Trump out of power.

Hasan tweeted: “Kill. Me. Now.”

Using the example of the right-left national unity government in office in Israel in succession to that country’s own Trumpish leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, Friedman enlisted the help of Steven Levitsky, a political scientist and co-author of How Democracies Die:

America is facing an existential moment, Levitsky told me, noting that the Republican party has shown that it isn’t committed any longer to playing by democratic rules, leaving the US uniquely threatened among western democracies.

… So Biden-Cheney is not such a crazy idea? I asked.

“Not at all,” said Levitsky. “We should be ready to talk about Liz Cheney as part of a blow-your-mind Israeli-style fusion coalition with Democrats. It is a coalition that says: ‘There is only one overriding goal right now – that is saving our democratic system.’”

Cheney, from Wyoming, is one of two anti-Trump Republicans on the 6 January House committee. She is also the daughter of Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney, the former vice-president with whom she stood, otherwise alone on her side of the House, through a commemoration of the Capitol attack last week.

Some on the left found the sight of the architect of the Iraq war in common cause with Democrats … disturbing. Oddly enough, Hasan didn’t much like Friedman’s suggestion either.

The Times man, Hasan wrote, was “also one of Obama’s favorite columnists. If you want to understand why US politics, and especially Democratic party politics, is so messed up, consider that the current and previous Democratic presidents have both taken advice from Thomas Friedman. Kill. Me. Now.”

For what it’s worth, Levitsky has been warning of the dangers of Republican fascism, now at a high pitch, for some time. Here’s a Guardian piece with his co-author Daniel Ziblatt from January 2018:

House speaker Nancy Pelosi argued it was fitting for Harry Reid to receive a final honor at the US Capitol, where he represented Nevada for more than three decades.

“From his humble roots in Searchlight to the spotlight of Capitol Hill, his entire life was defined by defying long odds,” the Democratic speaker said.

“The twelve years that he and I served together as leaders in our respective houses allowed me the privilege of watching him defy those odds every day. Indeed, to see him lead and legislate was to see a master at work.”

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer praised Harry Reid for dedicating his life to public service and helping to shape the modern-day Congress.

Speaking at the Capitol ceremony to honor the late Senate majority leader, Schumer said, “We celebrate Harry Mason Reid’s final return to the Capitol because we must.

“Few have shaped the workings of this building like our dear friend from Nevada. Few have dedicated their lives to the work of the people quite like Harry did. Today, our feelings of both loss and gratitude are immense.”

One reporter asked Joe Manchin for his response to Joe Biden’s speech on voting rights legislation and Senate filibuster reform.

Biden said in Atlanta, Georgia, yesterday, “When it comes to protecting majority rule in America, the majority should rule in the United States Senate.”

Manchin told CNN, “He understands. We all understand how the Senate works.” He did not provide any further insight into what Senate rule changes he may support.

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has met with both Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema in the past day, since Joe Biden called on Democrats to change the filibuster to pass voting rights bills.

Speaking to reporters after his meetings with the centrist senators, Schumer said Democrats are “not there yet” on agreeing to rule changes.

Asked by NBC News whether he still planned to hold a vote in the coming days, Schumer replied, “The answer is we’re going to hold a vote, yes.”

The Democratic leader has set a deadline of 17 January, Martin Luther King Day, to vote on rule changes that would clear the way for voting rights bills.

Despite the focus on centrists Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, it’s unclear whether the other 48 members of the Senate Democratic caucus support changing the filibuster.

Politico reported on Monday:

Mark Kelly is not yet committed to a change in the Senate rules that would allow elections reform legislation to pass by a simple majority. A centrist who is up for reelection in November, Kelly said Monday he is still undecided just days before he may have to vote on proposals to weaken the filibuster. ...

For a caucus that prides itself on unity, there’s plenty of nuance in Democrats’ views.

Some, like Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) like a talking filibuster but are ‘not crazy’ about making an exception for voting rights. Meanwhile, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) says reform is needed but is promoting more modest changes. She cites the near-impossible odds the party faces in getting all 50 Democrats on board for changing the filibuster unilaterally, also known as the ‘nuclear option.’

And with the 50-50 split in the Senate, majority leader Chuck Schumer cannot afford a single defection within the caucus if he wants to get rule changes approved and pass voting rights bills.

The Guardian’s Sam Levine and Jewel Wicker report:

Joe Biden on Tuesday gave his most forceful endorsement to date of changing the Senate filibuster rule in order to pass sweeping voting rights legislation, saying he was “tired of being quiet” in a high-profile speech in Georgia.

In one of the most significant speeches of his presidency so far, Biden drew a connection in history between the civil rights movement, the 6 January attack on the US Capitol by extremist supporters of Donald Trump, and the unprecedented efforts in many states to restrict the vote over the last year.

He said America was at a moment to choose “democracy over autocracy”.

But despite the passion, some prominent Georgia civil rights activists, proclaiming themselves more interested in action than speeches, declined to attend the event in Atlanta on Tuesday where Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris spoke and urged progress in Congress to pass key legislation currently stalled there.