Senate fails to change filibuster rule for passage of voting rights legislation
ABC News
The chamber was unable earlier to end debate on the election reform measure.
The Senate on Wednesday night failed to change the filibuster rule to allow voting rights legislation to pass with a simple majority.
The rule change would have required 51 votes to pass but did not have the support of all Democrats, whose leader had pushed for it. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., joined all Republicans in opposing the change.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said prior to the vote that the Senate would be "saved" by the opposition.
"Tonight, for the first time in history almost an entire political party will write in permanent ink that they would shatter the soul of the Senate for short-term power," McConnell said. "But the brave bipartisan majority of this body is about to stop them."
