Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) is at it again, giving senators on both sides of the aisle reason to be upset with him days before he finishes out his final term in the Senate.
The West Virginia independent kept all of Washington guessing on Wednesday ahead of a critical vote that would have handed Democrats a majority on the National Labor Relations Board. He ended up sinking the nomination of Chairwoman Lauren McFerran, meaning the seat will be open for President-elect Donald Trump to appoint when he starts his second term in January.
At the same time, Manchin has disappointed Republicans. He’s voted six times in the last few weeks alone to confirm judicial nominees who lacked GOP support despite a prior promise not to do so. The flip-flop has helped President Joe Biden reach, and likely surpass, the number of judges Trump was able to name to the federal bench.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) didn’t even try to hide his frustration in a statement released shortly following the labor board vote.
“It is deeply disappointing, a direct attack on working people, and incredibly troubling that this highly qualified nominee, with a proven track record of protecting worker rights, did not have the votes,” he said of McFerran.
But Democrats are taking the wins where they can get them. As of Thursday, Democrats had confirmed 233 judicial nominees. In comparison, Trump during his first term confirmed 234.
Manchin, who left the Democratic Party in May but still caucuses with the Democrats, recently voted to confirm Judges Keli Marie Neary, Tiffany Rene Johnson, Anthony J. Brindisi, Gail A. Weilheimer, Catherine Henry, and Sparkle L. Sooknanan. None of these nominees had Republican support.
Manchin defended his votes in a brief interview with the Washington Examiner, emphasizing he made his decisions by looking at each judge’s qualifications.
“I looked at the qualifications based on the person and I knew everything is hyper, everything is hyper at the end — and I said it’s ridiculous to tank somebody because of hyper politics for the last week or two,” Manchin said on Thursday.
“So, we looked at the credits and qualities of each person,” he added.
Manchin also said he believes some of the nominees he supported would have received Republican support if not for the lame-duck session.
“Absolutely, I made sure I was checking with the ones that I always could count on,” Manchin said.
Manchin had previously said a vote he cast to advance the nomination of Kevin Ritz, a Tennessee judge opposed by all Republicans, in September was a “one-off” and claimed he was sticking with his pocket veto policy.
The former West Virginia governor-turned-senator ultimately decided not to run for reelection last year after it became clear that he’d be facing a formidable challenge from current Gov. Jim Justice (R-WV), who ultimately won the seat. The incoming senator said he doesn’t consider Manchin to be a maverick.
“Joe wants to, per se, call himself a centralist, but he seems to very quickly migrate back in a direction that moves away from a lot of the people in West Virginia, and people were not very happy about that in West Virginia,” Justice said in an interview with the Washington Examiner.
However, the 77-year-old was at times on the war path against his own party during Biden’s term. He clashed with the administration on climate policy and effectively blocked the confirmation of acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and Office of Management and Budget nominee Neera Tanden, who now serves as a domestic policy adviser.
Manchin worked with Schumer and the administration for over a year to produce the Inflation Reduction Act, which fell far short of Democrats’ initial effort to put together a sweeping climate and social program law known as the Build Back Better Act. He eventually agreed to support the pared-down Inflation Reduction Act in exchange for a deal on energy permitting reform.
Yet the West Virginia senator’s relationship with the Democrats would sour once again, as he became frustrated with how the legislation was implemented. As the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, he threatened to sue the Biden administration in April 2023 after the Treasury Department unveiled its electric vehicle tax rules.
During his tenure, Manchin also served as a roadblock to prevent the erosion of the filibuster, a 60-vote threshold to end debate that gives the minority party the power to block legislation.
In Manchin’s farewell address on the Senate floor last week, he acknowledged his independent streak tends to cause friction with the entire chamber.
“I’ve had my share of tough votes, and at times I felt like, I feel like, the whole Senate was united in being upset with me,” he said, addressing over 30 senators in the chamber gathering to listen.
Manchin’s colleagues say they have come to expect that he “occasionally votes his conscience against the caucus.”
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“Joe obviously has been really important to getting big things done, and he occasionally votes his conscience against the caucus, like that’s not new. That’s who he has been since I got here,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT).
“He’s often with us and sometimes he’s not with us — I frankly think we would be well-served if we had more people from deep-red states who vote with us a lot and against us sometimes,” Murphy added.
