Senate Republicans block landmark voting rights bill in significant setback for Democrats – as it happened

• Republican senators voted against debating Democrats’ election and voting reform legislation, as expected. Sixty votes are required to open debate on any measure under the Senate’s filibuster rules – and in a 50-50, evenly divided Senate – all 50 Republicans voted against advancing and debating the legislation.
• “Make no mistake about it: it will not be the last time that voting rights come up for a debate in this Senate,” Chuck Schumer said following the vote. “We are going to explore every last one of our options. We have to. Voting rights are too important.”
• Joe Biden is “absolutely revolted” by voter suppression legislation being passed in many Republican-controlled states, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said at today’s media briefing. Biden, who had made voting rights a key issue during the presidential campaign, is running out of options for pushing forward voter protections.
• Republicans have dismissed the need for any such legislation as state legislators from their party move forward with rules making it harder for Black people, young people and poor people to vote. Moderate Democrats have rejected calls to eliminate the filibuster and pass voting rights legislation without Republican support.
• Pressure is building on Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris (who has taken control of border policies) to end the Title 42 rule. The Trump administration adopted the rule during the coronavirus pandemic – it allows the authorities to expel summarily migrants crossing the US-Mexico border seeking sanctuary.

More than 150 healthcare workers who refused to abide by Houston Methodist hospital’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate have resigned or been fired, the hospital said.

The Texas hospital had suspended 178 employees after announcing a vaccine mandate. In mid-June, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging the mandate.

The US district judge Lynn Hughes, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan ruled: “Methodist is trying to do their business of saving lives without giving them the Covid-19 virus. It is a choice made to keep staff, patients, and their families safer.”

Amanda Holpuch and agencies:

US deaths from Covid-19 have dipped below 300 a day for the first time since March last year during the first wave of the pandemic.

Data from federal sources also showed the drive to put shots in arms at home approaching an encouraging milestone: 150 million Americans fully vaccinated.

Joe Biden was however expected to fall short of his commitment to shipping 80m Covid-19 vaccine doses abroad by the end of June, because of regulatory and other hurdles.

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters getting the shots shipped was proving to be “a Herculean logistical challenge” – which the administration has been unable to meet.

The US death toll from Covid-19 stands at more than 601,000. The worldwide count is close to 3.9m. The real figures in both cases are believed to be markedly higher.

About 45% of the US population has been fully vaccinated, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 53% of Americans have received at least one dose, the CDC also said on Monday.

New cases are at about 11,400 a day, down from more than 250,000 in early January during the most recent US surge of coronavirus. US deaths per day are down to 293, according to Johns Hopkins University, after topping out at more than 3,400 in mid-January.

The coronavirus was the third-leading cause of death in the US in 2020, behind heart disease and cancer, according to the CDC. Now CDC data suggests more Americans are dying every day from accidents, chronic lower respiratory diseases, strokes or Alzheimer’s disease than from Covid-19.

“When we’re talking about the right to vote, it is not a Republican concern or a Democratic concern – it’s an American concern,” said Kamala Harris, as she left the Senate chamber after presiding over the procedural vote.

It is unusual for a vice-president to be so vocal about Senate matters – veeps tend to stay removed as they preside over the chamber. But the White House has made voting rights a key issue, even as it runs up against massive barriers to advancing voter protections.

Harris has been put in charge of overseeing the administration’s push on voting rights. So far, she has met with activists and civil rights leaders and used her position to elevate the issue – but it remains unclear what else she can do to help advance legislation.

“And make no mistake about it: it will not be the last time that voting rights come up for a debate in this Senate,” Chuck Schumer said following the vote. “We are going to explore every last one of our options. We have to. Voting rights are too important.”

Here’s what’s at stake, per my colleague David Smith:

The For the People Act is seen as a crucial counterweight to hundreds of voting bills introduced by Republican-controlled states, many of which include measures that would make it harder for Black people, young people and poor people to vote. Fourteen states had enacted 22 of these laws by mid-May, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Republican senators voted against debating Democrats’ election and voting reform legislation, as expected.

Sixty votes are required to open debate on any measure under the Senate’s filibuster rules – and in a 50-50, evenly divided Senate – all 50 Republicans voted against advancing and debating the legislation.

“We can argue what should be done to protect voting rights and safeguard our democracy, but don’t you think we should be able to debate the issue?” said Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer.

It’s unclear where Democrats can go from here. Progressives have pushed to end the filibuster, which would allow them to vote and narrowly pass voting rights reform without Republican support. But moderate Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have rejected the idea.

The Senate is now voting on whether to advance Democrats’ voting and election reform bill.

Sixty senators need to vote to advance the measure in order to begin debate on it – but all 50 Republicans have committed to voting against doing so.

Democrats on the Senate floor are using today as an opportunity to make their broader case for voting rights reform.

In a circular argument, Republicans have accused Democrats of using the procedural vote today to show that Republicans are unwilling to work with them, and to make a case for eliminating the filibuster – and thus justifying their votes to kill debate on the For the People Act

“Today’s show vote is about Democrats building their case to blow up the filibuster and destroy this institution if they don’t get their way – which is exactly why we must preserve the filibuster,” said Republican senator Mitt Romney, calling the bill “divisive”.

1:47

The governor of Texas has pulled a surprise move, vetoing a bipartisan bill that would have provided greater protections for dogs against human abuse.

The Republican governor, Greg Abbott, vetoed a bill on Friday that would have made unlawful restraint of a dog a criminal offense, sending animal rights activists and legislators on both sides of the aisle into a fray and spurring the hashtag #AbbottHatesDogs.

State senate bill 474, dubbed the Safe Outdoor Dogs Act, aimed to ban the use of heavy chains to keep dogs tethered. The bill had bipartisan support in the legislature, passing the house 83-32 and the senate 28-3.

In his veto, Abbott said state statutes already existed to protect dogs from animal cruelty, and the penalties proposed in the bill of $500 to $2,000, and jail time of up to 180 days, were excessive. The bill said that dog owners could have dogs outside but could not restrain them with short lines and chains or anything that could cause injury and pain to the dog.

Dog owners would have faced a $500 penalty for a first offense and class C misdemeanor, and the next penalty would have been a class B misdemeanor, for a fine of up to $2,000 and up to three months in jail.

“Texans love their dogs, so it is no surprise that our statutes already protect them by outlawing true animal cruelty,” he wrote. He said the bill would compel every dog owner, on pain of criminal penalties, to monitor how much time a dog spends in the bed of a truck, leash length and other things.

Abbott said Texas was not a place for that kind of “micro-managing and over-criminalization”.

Read more:

It’s been a lively day so far and there is plenty more action coming up, especially as the US Senate prepares in about half an hour to hold the procedural vote on the For the People Act, the sweeping legislation designed to counter voter suppression efforts sweeping many Republican-controlled states of late.

My colleague Maanvi Singh on the US west coast will take over from here and bring you all the developments.

Here are some of the main news items in US politics up to this point.

• Democratic West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin issued a statement that he will vote this afternoon in favor of advancing the For the People Act voting rights legislation. It’s symbolic, as the Republicans will filibuster it and block the bill, but the prospect of Democratic unanimity on this after weeks of strife is a step forward for that party.
• Pressure is building on Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris (who has taken control of border policies) to end the Title 42 rule adopted by the Trump administration in the coronavirus pandemic that allows the authorities to expel summarily migrants crossing the US-Mexico border seeking sanctuary.
• Vice president Kamala Harris will preside over the vote today in the Senate over the voting rights legislation. This is an unusual move which Senator Richard Blumenthal called a “powerful” symbol of the importance given this issue by the White House.
• Joe Biden is “absolutely revolted” by voter suppression legislation being passed in many Republican controlled states, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at today’s media briefing.

Interior secretary Deb Haaland announced today in remarks to the National Congress of American Indians 2021 mid year conference, a Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, a comprehensive review of the troubled legacy of federal boarding school policies.

Today’s announcement is accompanied by a secretarial memo in which Haaland directs the department, under the supervision of the assistant secretary for Indian Affairs, to prepare a report detailing available historical records, with an emphasis on cemeteries or potential burial sites, relating to the federal boarding school programs, NBC in Oklahoma reports.

Haaland recently reflected on the inter-generational trauma created by these policies in an op-ed for the Washington Post titled “My grandparents were stolen from their families as children. We must learn about this history.”

She said: “The interior department will address the inter-generational impact of Indian boarding schools to shed light on the unspoken traumas of the past, no matter how hard it will be. I know that this process will be long and difficult. I know that this process will be painful. It won’t undo the heartbreak and loss we feel. But only by acknowledging the past can we work toward a future that we’re all proud to embrace.”

NBC continued:

Beginning with the Indian Civilization Act of 1819, the United States enacted laws and implemented policies establishing and supporting Indian boarding schools across the nation. The purpose of Indian boarding schools was to culturally assimilate Indigenous children by forcibly relocating them from their families and communities to distant residential facilities where their American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian identities, languages, and beliefs were to be forcibly suppressed. For over 150 years, hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their communities.

The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative will serve as an investigation about the loss of human life and the lasting consequences of residential Indian boarding schools.

Interior Department officials say the work will proceed in several phases and include the identification and collection of records and information related to the Department of Interior’s own oversight and implementation of the Indian boarding school program, as well as formal consultations with Tribal Nations, Alaska Native corporations, and Native Hawaiian organizations to clarify the processes and procedures for protecting identified burial sites and associated information.

Secretary Haaland will receive the final written report on the investigation by April 1, 2022.

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Vice-president Kamala Harris will preside over the US Senate for this evening’s procedural vote on the For the People Act.

Democratic hold-out Joe Manchin has now said he will vote with the rest of the Democrats in the chamber to advance the legislation to the debate stage.

This won’t happen, because the Republicans are expected to filibuster the bill and prevent Democrats getting the 60 votes needed to move the bill on.

But the prospect of unanimity from the Democrats in the vote, expected at 5.30pm, has brightened the skies for them and Harris gracing the chamber, in a slightly unusual move, to preside over the vote is a striking one.

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Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, just popped up on CNN, telling Jake Tapper:

“It’s symbolic but it’s a powerful symbol and a sign of the White House’s engagement,” Blumenthal said.

“It’s only an opening round, it’s a vote to move forward to talk about the bill.”

Republicans will be unanimous in opposition, Blumenthal predicted, and the bill will be blocked.

“Make no mistake, we are by no means done after today, it’s just the beginning,” he said, prior to future versions of the legislation coming to the floor – including if that means persuading Manchin and other moderate Democrats to support reforming the filibuster rule.

“I’m in favor of abolishing it,” he said.

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Joe Biden denounced, while he was campaigning for the White House, a program put in place under Donald Trump that returned tens of thousands of Central American asylum seekers to violent Mexican border cities to wait as their cases wound through US courts.

It was known as the Remain in Mexico policy and on his first day in office Biden halted the program, allowing some who had been waiting in danger for a long time to enter the US to go through their legal applications.

Yet, Reuters reports, he kept in place a Trump-era health order, known as Title 42, that allows US officials to rapidly expel migrants at US borders during the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, five months into Biden’s presidency, the scenes at the Mexican border are little changed.

Many of the families living in tents in Reynosa - just across from McAllen, Texas - arrived after they were expelled by U.S. officials to Mexico without a chance to present their asylum claims.

Since Biden took office, U.S. border authorities have recorded more than 400,000 expulsions under Title 42, according to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency. The vast majority of those expelled are Mexicans and Central Americans. Repeat crossings are common.

A White House spokesperson said Title 42 was a public health directive, not an immigration enforcement tool, and was necessary on health grounds. The Biden administration says it is working to strengthen the asylum system along the border.

But advocate groups, U.N. officials and even some fellow Democrats here say the continuation of Title 42 is subjecting migrants to the same dangers - kidnapping, extortion, and sexual violence - as the policies of the Trump administration.

Nearly 3,300 migrants and asylum seekers stranded in Mexico since Biden took office have been kidnapped, raped, trafficked or assaulted, according to a report here by the New York-based group Human Rights First released Tuesday.

“We believe that it is time to end Title 42,” Kelly Clements, the deputy high commissioner for the United Nations refugee agency, told Reuters. “We think now it is having the effect of sending more people, and children in this case, into harm’s way.”

The Reuters report has some more detail on this and also features the harrowing account of Salvadoran asylum seeker Liset Ortiz, who was kidnapped in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, on her way to the United States. You can read the full story here.

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The vote in the US Senate is just under two hours away. Here’s Joe Biden.

Here’s Senate majority leader and New York Democrat Chuck Schumer welcoming Joe Manchin’s agreement to vote this afternoon in favor of advancing the voting rights For the People Act to the debate stage.

Republicans will block this, but if things now go as expected, Schumer will at least be able to display party unity on the Senate side of the Hill.

He’s flanked here by Senators Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

And here’s more of Manchin.