Late Wednesday night, Democratic Senators suffered a stinging defeat when their months-long effort to pass sweeping voting-rights reform was torpedoed by the entire Republican caucus—with help from two of their own: Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Democrats had hoped to pass two bills: the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would have restored and reinforced parts of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Freedom to Vote Act, which would have expanded voting access by making Election Day a holiday, required early voting periods of at least 15 days and made it more difficult for states to remove eligible voters from voter rolls, among other measures. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The floor vote was contentious and emotional.