Nancy Pelosi is urging congressional Democrats not to abandon their marquee voting-rights legislation in favor of a narrower bill, as the House speaker attempts to stave off opposition to the embattled measure from members of the party in the Senate. Pelosi said on a caucus call on Thursday that Democrats needed to prioritize HR1 – the sweeping election reform bill known as the For the People Act – to save American democracy, according to a source familiar with the matter. But Pelosi said on the call that she was holding out hope that Senate Democrats could persuade Manchin to support the measure and force the legislation through. “I have not given up on Manchin,” Pelosi told her colleagues, according to the source. In the national struggle for voting rights, Democrats have rested their hopes for rolling back dozens of new voter restrictions passed by Republican state legislatures to limit early and mail-in voting, and empower partisan poll watchers, on HR1.

Source: The Guardian June 12, 2021 06:00 UTC