Congress returns to work on Monday for a week of reckoning as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer seeks to kill the filibuster in order to pass voting rights legislation.
This week marks the first time since mid-December the House and Senate are both in session at the same time. Lawmakers return to a packed to-do list, including funding the federal government.
But their return to govern comes amid an increase in COVID cases on Capitol Hill and heightened partisan rhetoric ahead of this year's midterm election, where Republicans are looking to win back control of Congress.
The clock is ticking to pass President Joe Biden's legislative agenda before lawmakers switch to fulltime campaign mode.
Schumer has vowed to pass voting rights legislation by January 17th - Martin Luther King Jr. Day - making this a critical week for Democrats.
But his plan to go 'nuclear' and change the Senate rules to allow the legislation to proceed with a simple majority vote faces opposition from two of his own: Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
Congress returns to work on Monday for a week of reckoning as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer seeks to kill the filibuster in order to pass voting rights legislation
Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema oppose changing Senate rules to end the filibuster and Schumer needs their votes to make it happen
Republicans are solidly opposed to the voting rights legislation, calling it an attempt to federalize elections they argue should be run by states.
Thay have said they will filibuster any attempt to pass federal legislation. That means Schumer would have to take the so-called 'nuclear' option, in which he holds a vote to change the rules to bypass the 60-vote threshhold to advance the legislation.
'If Republicans continue to hijack the rules of the chamber to protect us from protecting our democracy, then the Senate will debate and consider changes to the rules on or before Jan. 17,' Schumer warned on the Senate floor last week.
But Manchin and Sinema don't want to kill the filibuster without buy-in from Republicans, who are opposed.
And the GOP is prepared to hit back hard, calling Democrats' assertion that voting rights are being suppressed a 'big lie.'
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's office sent out a memo to reporters this weekend slamming Democrats for trying to change Senate rules. They argued their party has 'repeatedly stood up to the left and their Big Lie that there is some evil anti-voting conspiracy sweeping America.'
Last week, McConnell accused Schumer of being 'hellbent' on trying to break the Senate.
'It appears as if the majority leader is hellbent to try to break the Senate. His argument is that somehow state legislatures across the country are
