Vox Sentences - Voting rights meltdown

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calls for a talking filibuster on the voting rights bill; Tonga's volcano explosion will have some serious environmental fallout.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Ellen Ioanes.

Democrats’ Hail Mary on voting rights bill

Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

• On Wednesday, the Senate is debating a massive voting rights bill that would reinstate some protections overturned by the Supreme Court in 2013, among other measures to protect and expand voting rights. However, the For the People Act, as the legislation is called, is unlikely to pass the Senate without doing away with the filibuster — a move Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) have said they won’t support. [AP / Lisa Mascaro]
• The filibuster, theoretically, allows for a debate over the bill in question when it's up for a vote; if a bill has 60 yea votes or more, it automatically bypasses the filibuster. The voting rights bill won't get that majority — hence the Democrats' attempt to change the filibuster rule for this vote. [PBS / Lisa Desjardins]
• Some Democratic legislators who initially opposed the rules change or expressed ambivalence about it have since come around to the necessity of the rules change, given the fact that 19 states have introduced legislation restricting voting rights. Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly (AZ) and Mark Warner (VA) say they’ve changed their minds, with Warner attributing his shift to his “personal growing astonishment” over the proliferation of such legislation. [CNN / Lauren Fox]
• In the likely event that the legislation fails, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has a backup plan: using Senate rules to hold a vote on creating a one-time "talking filibuster" that could be overcome by a simple majority. The vote needs only a majority of senators to be successful. [Chad Pergram]
• The so-called talking filibuster would require the Republican legislators opposed to the bill to be physically present in the chamber to debate the bill. Each Senator can speak twice under these rules; once the GOP has finished the debate, the bill would go up for a simple majority vote. [US News / Lisa Hagen]
• Should that fail, “the best prospects for the measures in the [For the People] Act is for Democrats in states that they control to enact progressive voting rules,” Harvard Law School professor Guy-Uriel Charles told Vox via email. However, “there are limits because the same partisan objections that we see at the federal level, we’ll see it at the state level.”
• The bill “sets a floor for voting access, not a ceiling,” as Dan Weiner, director of elections and government at the Brennan Center for Justice, told Vox in a phone call. “State reforms to expand voting rights in lines with best practices is a good thing.” As of Wednesday, Weiner said, “The voting rights bill is still being debated in the Senate. I’m not naive, but I think that it’s not over till it’s over; I wouldn’t count it out.”

The environmental aftermath of the Tonga volcano eruption

• A number of weather and environmental changes have been detected in the wake of the partially underwater Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai volcano on Saturday, in addition to as-yet-unknown humanitarian fallout. While the eruption only lasted 10 minutes, it caused tsunamis in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well as the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas, and waves from the tsunami caused two people to drown off the coast of Peru. [NYT / Henry Fountain]
• The volcano released two gases — sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide — that create acid rain when they combine with oxygen and water, which could cause crop damage in Tonga or surrounding areas. The volcanic ash spewing over the ocean will likely poison marine life and smother coral reefs, a mainstay of Tonga tourism. [Reuters / Gloria Dickie]
• But the blast wasn’t large enough to cool the global temperature, as some previous large eruptions — like Mt. Pinatubo, which erupted in the Philippines in 1991. But despite the short-term environmental impacts and humanitarian consequences for the Tongan people, Saturday’s eruption wasn’t large enough to cause that kind of impact. [Axios / Andrew Freedman]
• The eruption completely destroyed the island of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai and all the houses on nearby Mango Island. The extent of the human toll is yet unknown, as aid planes haven’t been able to land in the capital of Nuku’alofa because its airport is covered in ash, and underwater communications cables were apparently cut by the blast. [NPR / Geoff Brumfiel]

New York state Attorney General Tish James has subpoenaed former president Donald Trump and his children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, to produce testimony based on evidence that the Trump Organization “used fraudulent or misleading asset valuations to obtain a host of economic benefits, including loans, insurance coverage, and tax deductions.” [New York State Office of the Attorney General]

• A Syrian doctor accused of torturing Syrian revolutionaries and opponents of the regime of Bashar al-Assad is standing trial in Germany. [Reuters / Riham Alkousaa and Patricia Uhlig]
• Israeli citizens were reportedly targeted with Pegasus spyware by the Israeli police. [Guardian / Peter Beaumont]
• The White House launched its Covid-19 test request website, and will distribute N95 masks starting next week. [AP / Zeke Miller and Matt O’Brien]

“My eyes are starving for beauty!” 

[André Leon Talley, iconoclastic Black fashion editor and creative director, who died on Tuesday after having fought his way from Jim Crow-era North Carolina to the highest echelons of the fashion world]

To look into deep space is to look back in time. Ahead of the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, Vox's Unexplainable talked to scientists who hope to see “cosmic dawn,” a period long ago when the first starlight transformed the universe. [Spotify]

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