The Rev. William Barber II said Monday that the Poor People’s Campaign will hold a Moral March in West Virginia next week to protest Manchin a day after the Democratic senator announced his opposition to a sweeping voting rights bill and reiterated his unwillingness to scrap the filibuster.
“Manchin’s policies hurt poor and low-wealth people,” Barber tweeted Monday. “He’s against $15/hr living wages and expanding voting rights. He is supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and has abandoned the poor and low-wealth ppl of his own state & the nation and they’re tired of it!”
Barber, a civil rights activist based in North Carolina, tweeted that the march would be “led by West Virginians of all colors, creeds, etc. from the hood to the hollers.” His politics fall among the most liberal wing of the Democratic Party.
Manchin justified his lack of support for the Democratic-led For the People Act by calling the legislation too partisan.
“Do we really want to live in an America where one party can dictate and demand everything and anything it wants, whenever it wants,” he wrote Sunday in the Charleston Gazette-Mail. “I have always said, ‘If I can’t go home and explain it, I can’t vote for it.’”
“And I cannot explain strictly partisan election reform or blowing up the Senate rules to expedite one party’s agenda,” Manchin added.
Other left-leaning groups also have announced attempts to persuade him to side with the majority of his party on Democratic priorities. Before the publication of Manchin’s op-ed, NAACP leaders said they were meeting with him Tuesday to encourage him to support the Democrats’ voting rights agenda.
“The right to vote is under attack,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement. “We must do everything we can to protect the American people’s sacred right to participate in the democratic process. Our vote is our voice, and we will not be silenced.”
“Manchin’s policies hurt poor and low-wealth people,” Barber tweeted Monday. “He’s against $15/hr living wages and expanding voting rights. He is supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and has abandoned the poor and low-wealth ppl of his own state & the nation and they’re tired of it!”
Barber, a civil rights activist based in North Carolina, tweeted that the march would be “led by West Virginians of all colors, creeds, etc. from the hood to the hollers.” His politics fall among the most liberal wing of the Democratic Party.
Manchin justified his lack of support for the Democratic-led For the People Act by calling the legislation too partisan.
“Do we really want to live in an America where one party can dictate and demand everything and anything it wants, whenever it wants,” he wrote Sunday in the Charleston Gazette-Mail. “I have always said, ‘If I can’t go home and explain it, I can’t vote for it.’”
“And I cannot explain strictly partisan election reform or blowing up the Senate rules to expedite one party’s agenda,” Manchin added.
Other left-leaning groups also have announced attempts to persuade him to side with the majority of his party on Democratic priorities. Before the publication of Manchin’s op-ed, NAACP leaders said they were meeting with him Tuesday to encourage him to support the Democrats’ voting rights agenda.
“The right to vote is under attack,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement. “We must do everything we can to protect the American people’s sacred right to participate in the democratic process. Our vote is our voice, and we will not be silenced.”
