An Open Letter to Senator Joe Manchin

May 18, 2021

The Honorable Joe Manchin
306 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington D.C. 20510

Dear Senator Manchin

I write to you today to appeal to your sense of duty, your sense of right and wrong.  I write to ask you to please help pass the For the People Act (HR1) to boost election integrity and reduce the influence of money in politics.  Your proposal to improve on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act notwithstanding, if nonpartisan legislative guardrails addressing some of the most egregious aspects of our federal election system are not installed immediately, as HR1 would do, our 245-year experiment with democracy may soon end.

In East Tennessee, we are strongly connected to the land and each other in a shared heritage that is dear to us.  We hold true to our traditional values and would rather work with our neighbors than fight.  We are patriotic, we support our troops, and we proudly place our hands over our hearts when we say the Pledge of Allegiance.  But we are also Democrats.  And as Democrats, we are strong advocates of fairness and justice – not just for ourselves but for everyone in our community.  I hope you can identify with that.

The Democratic Party is a big tent with room for most everyone.  Our core beliefs of justice and fairness directly translate into fighting for clean and fair elections – something I think all Americans support.  Passing HR1 – legislation that does not favor one party over another but instead favors the equitable application of fairness – will do just that.  The provision on ending partisan gerrymandering alone is a big step toward achieving a fairer system that will reward candidates for having the best ideas.  Other provisions, such as the ones ending dark money and modernizing the voting system to protect the rights of all eligible American voters to vote – Republican, Democratic, or other – is what can and will make America genuinely great once again.

 We recognize the value of bipartisanship and applaud your efforts to find 10 Republicans who will negotiate in good faith on this and other policies.  However, your efforts to date have proven unfruitful.  When will enough be enough?  Are any Republican Senators independent-minded enough to engage in good-faith debates?  Just recently in the House of Representatives, Republicans punished and demoted Liz Cheney, a staunch conservative who has never been accused of being a liberal or even a moderate, because she refuses to parrot the “Big Lie.”  Where, in the caucus of deranged conspiracy theorists that is the Senate Republican Conference, are 10 senators you can reason and dialogue with?  Only a master of bipartisanship could find and secure 10 Republican votes in this climate.

 Here in Anderson County, deep in the red state of Tennessee, we are represented in the U.S. Senate by two rabid right-wing Trump acolytes, Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, and in the U.S. House by the vivaciously vacuous Chuck Fleischmann.  Randy McNally, our state senator, has served in the Tennessee General Assembly since 1979 and is a textbook example of the good-old-boy network taking care of its own.  And our state representative, John Ragan, continues to embarrass us every time he speaks.  Each a proud Republican.  Each in a “safe” seat because of partisan gerrymandering.

 Perhaps you are one of those Democrats that does not believe fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy; I doubt it.  Perhaps you think Republicans will not again gerrymander their way to power for the next decade; again, doubtful.  Or, perhaps, you believe the reason Republicans in 47 states have passed laws to make voting more difficult, less safe, and far more favorable to Republican candidates is to better support free and fair elections.  I surely hope you do not.  

The ACLU, in a January 2021 letter, aptly describes why HR1 and why now:  

After the non-stop assault on the integrity of our elections by the Trump Administration, culminating in a mob of his white supremacist supporters storming the Capitol building to disrupt the counting of the electoral votes that certified President Biden’s election, it is more important than ever for Congress to pass legislation to restore and expand voting rights and strengthen our democracy. The For the People Act, at its heart, seeks to serve those goals and we applaud Congress for setting this important legislation as a priority.

So why not pass this “important legislation” that sets a basic minimum – a ground floor – of rules that takes on some of the most flagrant aspects of the current voting system by eliminating dark money, protecting the right of every eligible citizen to vote unmolested, and ending partisan gerrymandering?  All we ask for is a level playing field, and HR1 will accomplish that.

I recognize West Virginians elected you to represent West Virginia.  I also recognize that you are a Democrat representing a rural, non-coastal state with strong ties to Appalachia and traditional values.  Even if you ignore all the rural Democrats across the nation who look to you to do the right thing by them, do you not owe it to your own constituents to make our voting system the best it can be?  Don’t West Virginians deserve to live in a country where the election system is fair, modern, and transparent?  The answer, of course, is yes.  Yes, they do.  We all do.

That is why I write to you, to ask, nay, to beg you to do what is necessary to save our country: pass the For the People Act.  If you can find 10 Senate Republicans to vote for HR1, you will indeed be a hero and celebrated as a master of bipartisanship.  But absent those 10 Republicans, you must support eliminating the filibuster, if only for this one vote.  There is no other rational way forward.

I thank you for your time and service.

Sincerely,

Jon Roth
Anderson County Democratic Party
Oak Ridge, TN