With the deadline approaching, Democratic leaders were trying to line up the votes to pass their bill. But they had a problem: Joe Manchin had put his foot down.
The year was 1983, the setting was West Virginia’s statehouse in Charleston, and the deadline was the end of the legislative session at midnight. Democratic leaders wanted to pass a bill creating a board that could cap rates charged by hospitals in the state. Manchin, a 35-year-old first-term state representative, had opposed the proposal.
Dave Lieber, who was then a reporter for the Charleston Gazette, has written about what he saw happen that night. As the House of Delegates — Manchin’s chamber — was taking a series of votes, Manchin was “over in the Senate, he was kneeling at the desk of the Senate clerk, a really in-your-face move,” Lieber told Vox. Manchin, who had been elected just four months ago, was negotiating.
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