OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
California Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters blistered members of her own party by suggesting they were racist because they do not support several far-left measures the party is pushing.
During an interview on MSNBC, Waters attacked Democrat Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, claiming they “don’t care” about black people and minorities.
Waters’ comments were in reference to Manchin and Sinema publicly declaring that they oppose Democrats’ efforts to eliminate the Senate filibuster so that they can ram through their partisan agenda.
“They have sent the signal. They have been clear about it. They don’t care about minorities. They don’t care about blacks. They don’t care about people in their own districts who they’re going to deny their voting rights and undermine their voting rights,” Waters said. “I must always be optimistic. But this is a very difficult time for Democrats.”
“We have two Democrats, Manchin and Sinema, and they are holding up the Democratic agenda. They have decided that they are going to stick with support of the filibuster, and they don’t care whether or not they undermine the rights of minorities and blacks in this country,” she continued.
“It’s not what Democrats need to do. We’re doing everything that can be done,” she claimed. “It’s what Republicans need to do. Why is it we don’t have one Republican, not one that will stand up for the voting rights for people in this country? And so I hear a lot of talk about our president. He’s fighting as hard as he can. I don’t know why people think that he can make Manchin and make Sinema do what is right.”
WATCH:
Kamala Harris used an interview with NBC News last week as an opportunity to bash the two Democratic senators over their refusal to go along with ditching the filibuster rule to pass a federal voting bill that Republicans universally oppose.
In addition to attacking Republicans, Harris suggested that Manchin and Sinema were somehow violating their oaths of office to protect and defend the Constitution by opposing the filibuster rule change to pass the “For the People Act,” a massive voting reform bill Republicans have blasted as an attempt to federalize all elections.
Both Manchin and Sinema have expressed support for aspects of the voting reform legislation, but their biggest peeve is their party’s push to scrap a century-old procedural rule that transformed the upper chamber of Congress into one of the world’s most deliberative bodies.
In a statement, Sinema reiterated her opposition to changing the rule, suggesting that if Democrats can do so now with a thin majority, Republicans can — and would — do so when they have one.
As for Republicans, they argue that the Democrat voting bill will eliminate state-passed measures that provide for better ballot integrity such as voter ID, cleaning up voter registration rolls (which is already a federal requirement under the ‘motor-voter’ law Bill Clinton signed), and limit mail-in balloting, among other things.
