Some reluctant Democrats consider ditching filibuster for voting bill despite grim prospects over changing rules

Some defenders of the Senate's filibuster rules are reconsidering their past refusal to gut the potent stall tactic if Republicans carry through with their plans to block Democratic legislation to rewrite the nation's voting and campaign finance laws.

Democrats say they expect growing demands to change the filibuster rules later this month when the battle over voting rights heads to the Senate floor, hoping that the pressure will be enough to convince their party's most stalwart filibuster defender, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, to buckle and agree to gut the filibuster -- though he's showing no signs of caving. Adding to that pressure is the expectation in the Senate that other long-time backers of the existing rules will change their views and back killing the requirement that 60 votes are needed to overcome a filibuster in order to ease passage of a measure Democrats argue would combat efforts to restrict access to voting.