Five times Joe Manchin has bucked the Democrats

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is the most conservative Democrat in the Senate — and perhaps the most controversial, at least with the rest of his party.

On one hand, Manchin’s willingness to buck his party’s orthodoxies has enabled his political survival. He won reelection to a second full Senate term in 2018, just two years after President Trump carried his state by more than 40 points.

But Manchin’s actions have left many in his party incandescent about his willingness to derail their agenda. To his internal critics, he has single-handedly ruined their best chance in years to enact sweeping change.

“Manchin is not particularly concerned about President Biden succeeding. He’s not particularly concerned about the needs of working people,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told SiriusXM’s “Dean Obeidallah Show” on Friday.  

Manchin is powerful in part because of circumstance — in a 50-50 Senate, his party can pass almost nothing without him.

Here are five of the most dramatic instances of Manchin bucking the party line.

July 2022 — Capsizes the push for action on climate change

Manchin detonated many months of negotiations around climate change on Thursday. 

By his own account, he told Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) that it would not be “prudent” to move ahead. 

Earlier in the week, Manchin had begun to distance himself from the negotiations, arguing that the imperative to lower gas prices weighed against any move to curb fossil fuel production.

Manchin then nudged the door ajar on Friday by telling a West Virginia radio station that he might be able to look again at the proposals when the next inflation numbers come out next month.

But even if other Democrats took him at his word on that — and they are in no mood to do so — they would have an extremely narrow window to pass legislation. For complicated procedural reasons, such legislation would likely have to pass by Sept. 30.

Manchin’s refusal to back any climate proposal could doom action for years to come, given the strong likelihood of Republicans flipping the House in November.

Sens. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) independently used the same term to describe Manchin’s stance this week: “Infuriating.”

October 2018 — Votes to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court

The 2018 confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh were tumultuous even by the standards of the Trump era.

Kavanaugh, a staunch conservative nominated to replace a more centrist figure, Justice Anthony Kennedy, faced sexual assault allegations dating back four decades from Christine Blasey Ford.

Liberal women, in particular, rallied to Ford’s side, demanding Kavanaugh not be confirmed. Kavanaugh responded with tangible fury.

At the time, Republicans held a 51-49 majority in the Senate, but Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) would ultimately refuse to back Kavanaugh. That left Manchin and moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) as the crucial votes.

Within a few hours, both backed Trump’s pick. Manchin was the only Democrat to do so. 

The West Virginia senator said in a statement he had “reservations” about confirming Kavanaugh, given Ford’s allegations and “the temperament [Kavanaugh] displayed in the hearing.” 

But he ultimately concluded that the judge would “rule in a manner consistent with our Constitution.”

The vote came roughly one month before Manchin faced reelection.

Last month, after the Supreme Court struck down the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion decision, Manchin said he was “alarmed” by the actions of Kavanaugh and Justice Neil Gorsuch, the other Trump nominee for whom he voted.

The justices, Manchin said, had testified under oath that they considered Roe “settled legal precedent” only to choose “to reject the stability the ruling has provided for two generations of Americans.”

December 2021 — Sinks President Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ legislation

Manchin’s single most dramatic intervention may have been his announcement that he would sink President Biden’s keystone legislation, the “Build Back Better” bill.

The fact that he chose to announce his opposition on Fox News drove liberal Democrats to even more intense outrage.

“I’ve tried everything humanly possible. I can’t get there,” Manchin told “Fox News Sunday” on Dec. 19, 2021.

Manchin then released a statement reiterating his opposition to the legislation, which would have extended an expanded child tax credit, helped with child care costs, taxed high earners more and taken significant action on climate change, among other things.

His move was especially galling for Democrats who had spent months trying to shepherd a package through Congress. The process often lapsed into intraparty fighting that slowed momentum to a crawl and sapped Biden’s political capital.

Defenders of Manchin point out that he had never said he was on board with the kind of huge plan Democratic leadership floated at the outset — a proposal that in one iteration totaled $3.5 trillion. 

But progressives, always suspicious of Manchin, believed he led them and the president down the garden path. In the eyes of the left, Manchin never really had any intention of backing a broad social spending bill, no matter how many concessions he was offered. The value of the package had been pared back to $1.75 trillion by the time he scuttled the talks.

Even the White House was furious. After Manchin announced his opposition, then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki accused him of “a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position.”

June 2021: Ruins potential party unity on ‘For the People’ voting reform legislation

Voting reform was one of the major goals of Democrats when they won back the White House — and control of the Senate — in the 2020 election.

Many in the party see American democracy as being in existential danger. Schumer declared the protection of voting rights, and of elections themselves, to be a “top priority.”

The answer the party proposed was the “For the People” bill. 

This would have mandated two weeks of early voting in federal elections, made voter registration automatic rather than voluntary, restored voting rights to felons who had served their time and allowed for same-day registration.

The legislation never had a clear path through the Senate, requiring 60 votes to pass in the absence of filibuster reform. But Manchin denied Democrats even the claim that they were unified behind the proposal.

In an op-ed for his home state Charleston Gazette-Mail, Manchin complained that arguments over the right to vote had become “overtly politicized” — and defended Republicans from criticism sent their way by members of his own party. 

“This more than 800-page bill has garnered zero Republican support. Why? Are the very Republican senators who voted to impeach Trump because of actions that led to an attack on our democracy unwilling to support actions to strengthen our democracy?” he wrote.

In the same op-ed, Manchin reiterated his opposition to filibuster reform, driving the final nail in the coffin of the “For the People” proposal.

Manchin returned three months later to help push a more modest measure, the Freedom to Vote Act, which he argued stood a better chance of winning GOP support.

It failed to do so, running aground soon afterward.

2013 – present: Thwarts filibuster reform

Democrats often become enraged with Manchin because they believe he acts in bad faith. 

The skeptics contend he evinces an interest in reaching deals that he has no sincere intention of striking, before walking away in a blaze of publicity.

To be fair to the West Virginia senator, liberals also chafe at a position that he has held with consistency: opposition to filibuster reform.

In one of many statements outlining his position, Manchin’s office detailed his steady stance dating back to 2013, when he opposed such reform while Democrats held the Senate majority.

Progressives argue that the filibuster is anti-democratic by its nature; and that the case for carving out exceptions should carry the day as the nation grapples with grave issues ranging from a rising tide of authoritarianism to the rescinding of the constitutional right to abortion.

Manchin’s answer has always been, “No.”

And, in a 50-50 Senate, that’s the ballgame.