Democratic congressman arrested with voting rights protesters after Senate demonstration

Progressive congressman has hammered Sinema, Manchin on voting rights, filibuster

Rep Jamaal Bowman (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

A progressive US congressman from New York was arrested in the US Capitol on Thursday as voting rights advocates staged their second demonstration in the building within just a few days.

The congressman, Rep Jamaal Bowman, was arrested alongside activists from UN-PAC, a student-led group that has led hunger strikes with dozens of supporters to persuade senators to pass voting rights legislation.

His spokesman and UN-PAC staff confirmed his arrest on Thursday.

“Today, Congressman Jamaal Bowman joined a voting rights non-violent direct action at the North Barricade of the U.S. Capitol Building and was arrested by the U.S. Capitol Police,” Mr Bowman’s spokesman Marcus Frias told The Washington Post. “We will provide more information and updates as we gather them.”

A college student taking part in the hunger strikes and affiliated with those arrested took aim at Sen Joe Manchin, one of two Democratic senators who voted against changes to the filibuster that would make passage of the legislation in a 50-50 Senate possible on Wednesday in a statement: “My question for Senator Manchin is: what is it going to take for you to actually represent your constituents?”

“The overwhelming majority of West Virginians support the reforms within the Freedom To Vote: John Lewis Act, and we are desperate to end political corruption and for a functional, accountable democracy. Yesterday, you failed to deliver that, Senator Manchin. You are standing aside as our democracy crumbles. I will not give up on West Virginia like you did,” added the student, Rylee Haught of West Virginia University.

Sen Joe Manchin (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

The defeat of Democrats’ effort to amend the Senate filibuster rules likely dooms any chance of passing the Freedom To Vote: John Lewis Act before the midterms, but negotiations have reportedly begun between Mr Manchin and a Republican colleague, Sen Susan Collins, on a bill that would protect the process by which the Electoral College vote is counted.

The divide between Mr Manchin, Ms Sinema, and the rest of the Democratic Party has grown as wide as its even been in recent days as the pair face brutal criticism from all sides.

Sen Bernie Sanders, one of the Senate’s leading progressives and chairman of the powerful Budget Committee, lambasted the pair on Wednesday for supposedly causing five months’ worth of negotiations on the issue of voting right legislation and other bills to be for nothing.

“They have forced us to have five months of discussions that have gone absolutely nowhere,” said Mr Sanders to reporters.

“These are people who I think have undermined the President of the United States” and “can expect to find primary challenges” when they are both up for reelection in 2024, the progressive leader predicted.