The massive elections reform bill known as the Freedom to Vote Act appears to be headed down the same path as its predecessor: blocked from Senate consideration by a Republican filibuster.
Senate Democrats plan to bring the compromise bill to the floor Wednesday for a procedural vote that would allow lawmakers to begin debating the legislation. However, that debate can only begin if 60 senators vote to stop a filibuster, and Republicans remain staunchly opposed to the bill.
Voting rights advocates expect the legislation to be stymied and have set their sites on eliminating the filibuster rule. They say Wednesday's vote will force Senate Democrats to choose between keeping an "archaic" procedural tool and enacting broad electoral reform.
"I, along with other coalition members, as well as Black and Brown voters across the United States, are disappointed. We are experiencing political theater at the expense of our lives, at the expense of justice for our communities and the work that we have done," said the Rev. Stephany Spaulding of Just Democracy, a coalition of more than 40 Black- and Brown-led social justice groups that support eliminating the Senate filibuster.
Democrats introduced the Freedom to Vote Act last month after the For the People Act was blocked by a GOP filibuster in June. The new, pared-down legislation includes many of the same provisions as the original bill, while making some concessions to appease moderate Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Manchin was the only Democratic holdout on the For the People Act, saying he believed any election reform legislation should have bipartisan support.
- Both bills would require states to allow no-excuse absentee voting and offer automatic voter registration. But the Freedom to Vote Act would also make Election Day a public holiday, a provision that was dropped from the For the People Act.
- The Freedom to Vote Act also includes new protections for election administrators, who have faced heightened threats following the 2020 election. The bill would also empower voters to challenge burdens on their right to vote in court.
- Under this legislation, states with voter identification laws would be required to follow certain standards, such as accepting a broad array of photo and non-photo ID documentation when verifying a voter's identity.
- While the newer bill drops a provision that demands states adopt independent redistricting commissions, the Freedom to Vote Act does add new requirements to curb partisan gerrymandering and ensure the redistricting process is more fair and transparent. The bill also includes some campaign finance provisions, although they are significantly scaled back from what the For the People Act proposed.
These changes were made in response to critiques from election administrators who desired a more streamlined process and in the hopes of swaying Republicans to support the bill. But GOP lawmakers have not budged from their opposition.
Voting rights advocates have expressed frustration that these compromises were made in a fruitless attempt at bipartisanship.
Following Wednesday's anticipated blocking of the Freedom to Vote Act, Senate Democrats will be facing a "make or break" moment for American democracy, advocates say.
"Senate Democrats face a choice clearer than ever before: protect our democracy or protect the outdated, abused Senate filibuster," said Eli Zupnick, spokesperson for the Fix Our Senate coalition. "Despite Sen. Manchin's good faith outreach, there simply aren't 10 Republicans going to work with Democrats on this. Senate Democrats can have the filibuster, or they can defend our democracy. There is no third option, and we're running out of time."
A June poll conducted by Morning Consult and Politico didn't find majority support among voters for keeping or eliminating the filibuster. When voters were asked if the current Senate rule should be kept, 48 percent indicated support. But when voters were given a choice between whether legislation should pass with 60 votes or a simple 51-vote majority, 45 percent said the latter.
Another poll, this one conducted last month by Data For Progress, found supermajority support across party lines for the Freedom to Vote Act. Seven in 10 Americans overall indicated support. Democrats were most enthusiastic with 85 percent backing the legislation, followed by two-thirds of independents and 54 percent of Republicans.
"Americans overwhelmingly support the Freedom to Vote Act because they believe that every one of us should have the freedom to vote so that we all have an equal say in the future for our family and community, regardless of our age, our political party, our background or our zip code," said Common Cause president Karen Hobert Flynn.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.