Joe Biden heads to UK as Democrats rally in support of voting rights bill – live

With Senate Republicans coming off their second successful filibuster in the Biden era, it appears Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is now looking to up the pressure on his party on ending the filibuster once and for all.

If you’d all be so kind as to jog your memories with me for a moment, you’ll recall that a lot of people in the party are mad at Democratic West Virgina Senator Joe Manchin this week. In a column that ran in the Charleston Gazette-Mail on Sunday, he committed to not voting for the For The People voting rights bill, and defended the filibuster.

The filibuster, which gives 41 of 100 senators the ability to block action by the majority, has been used roughly twice as often by Republicans than Democrats to prevent the other party from passing legislation, according to a study by the Center for American Progress.

Democrats have long called for the end of the filibuster, but in addition to Manchin, they have Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who is against abolishing it.

Read more from Hugo Lowell on Schumer’s plan to get the party in line on this issue.

Democratic members of Congress are rallying on the steps of the Supreme Court for voting rights this morning, urging Senate to pass the For The People Act.

“To secure our democracy for all our children, we have to stand up in this defining moment in America,” said Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock. “We can’t dance around senate procedure. No senate procedure, no senate rule, is more important than people’s constitutional rights.”

Here’s Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on the Paycheck Fairness Act. Basically, instead of it being about the issue of gender pay inequality, it’s about Democrats going after “extreme, left-wing provisions” that no Republican could ever support.

The family of Ashli Babbitt, killed by Capitol police when she stormed the US Capitol in the 6 January attack, is suing to force to hand over records revealing the identity of the officer who shot her, CNBC is reporting.

This litigation is separate from the civil lawsuit seeking upwards of $10m in damages from the Capitol police.

The Justice Department announced in April that it would not pursue criminal charges against the officer who shot and killed Babbitt. Shortly after that, Babbitt’s husband Aaron Babbitt filed a request for records from the the Metropolitan Police Department under the Freedom of Information Act.

According to the lawsuit, the Metropolitan Police Department has not complied with the request, missing a May deadline.

In their second successful filibuster in the Biden era, Senate Republicans blocked legislation targeting pay inequality.

The Paycheck Fairness Act would have built on the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Fair Labor Standards Act in requiring employers to demonstrate that any gap in pay between a man and a woman was due to performance rather than gender.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer indicated that this was not the end.

Speaking of cicadas: the Associated Press is reporting that the chartered plane for reporters traveling with Joe Biden and Jill Biden on the first foreign trip of the administration was actually delayed because it was overrun with the insects.

“Watch out for the cicadas,” Biden told reporters after one landed on him. Seriously.

If you’d like to read more about the Brood X cicadas:

Ahoy there, live blog readers. Happy Wednesday.

As Joe Biden and Jill Biden take off to the United Kingdom on the first foreign trip of the administration, Democrats are keeping the flag raised on a number of issues back home.

This morning, senators Chuck Schumer of New York, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota will be speaking at a rally on the Supreme Court steps alongside other members of Congress to urge the Senate to pass the For The People Act, sweeping legislation on voting rights.

The rally comes after Democratic West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin confirmed in a weekend column that he would not be voting for the bill, citing the need for bipartisan legislation. In an interview with CNN, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders warned that Republicans “will talk and talk” about bipartisanship, but then “nothing happens.”

“I have very limited patience,” Sanders told CNN. “We learned a lesson from the Obama years.”