This next month could be everything for the Democrats’ voting rights push

Will Democrats embrace the urgency of this issue, asks John Bowden

Sen Joe Manchin speaks to reporters in the Capitol (Getty)

We’re coming down to the wire on the question of whether the Democrats will pass voting-rights legislation under Joe Biden’s administration.

The president is approaching the end of his first year in office. Technically speaking, Biden will be president for the next three years, but even the most optimistic of Democrats is looking at the 2022 midterms as a major minefield for the party, which cannot afford to drop a single net seat in the Senate without losing control of the chamber.

That means they have another 12 months, optimistically, to pass voting-rights legislation, and less than that if they want the bill’s provisions to take effect before the 2022 midterms.