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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Democrats' "Killer App" Against Voter Suppression Unveiled
Last edited Tue May 11, 2021, 11:54 AM - Edit history (2)
With all their new voter suppression laws in the states, Republicans are working to keep and improve a corrupt system thats put them in power and keeps them in power, despite only representing a minority of Americans nationwide.
Thats why theyre trying to change our election law with little tweaks like making it harder to get a mail-in ballot or preventing people from bringing a drink of water to somebody in line.
This is not about making genuinely new law. The bigger picture, for them, is hanging onto to the power they and their billionaire supporters have already grabbed.
In fact, theyre trying to solidify, cement, deepen and broaden an already corrupted system that got them power in the first place and has kept them in power for the better part of at least two decades since the Supreme Court Bush v Gore decision in 2001 and the later Shelby County decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013. Billionaires were brought into the act with Citizens United in 2010.
In several states, like Michigan and Wisconsin (among others), the majority of voters in the state vote for Democrats resulting in Democrats as governors and in other statewide offices but Republicans, because of the corrupt system that includes things like gerrymanders, still control the state House and Senate as well as sending a majority of Republicans to Congress in DC.
Theyre trying to maintain this larger status quo while tweaking and tightening it with these new laws.
Which is why when state officials and even Trump-appointed judges concluded, in Red state after Red state, that the 2020 election was clean, fair and accurate, the GOP decided to do something about the new crisis they now confront.
That crisis is that they repeatedly lost even more elections in 2020.
Georgia lost two Senate seats, numerous formerly Republican states went for Joe Biden instead of the previous guy, and Democrats got elected to state legislatures and as governors.
Republicans lost the House, the Senate, and the White House. Emergency! Its not supposed to work this way!
The Republican solution to this, of course, is to make it harder to vote, harder to register to vote, and harder to mail-in vote. But while those are the things that get the headlines, the really insidious stuff is rarely mentioned.
It comes in two parts.
The first is that theyre replacing professional, long-term, non-partisan polling officials and election referees with Republican partisan hacks, so they can decide which votes the state is going to count and which votes theyre going to throw out.
The second is that theyre inviting goons into the polling places to harass, intimidate and threaten people whose only crime is that they want to participate in their own democracy. They call these goons poll watchers, and in the past such people have shown up with baseball bats, Confederate flags, and even video recording equipment.
This poll-watching thing used to be a big deal across the country before it was first outlawed in 1965: former Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist actually got his start in Republican politics in the early 1960s doing this with something called Operation Eagle Eye in Arizona. Mostly it was stopped by the Voting Rights Act, but the US Supreme Court has since gutted that so now the GOP wants to get back to it.
Thus, Republicans are now reviving a pair of strategies that Democrats used to use in the Old South, before 1964/1965 when Lyndon Johnson pushed through the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, which flipped the white-racist vote from Democratic to Republican in a single decade.
Republicans are now trying to stop people from voting or having their votes counted pretty much any way they can.
And theyre picking up steam! As of a bit over a month ago, the Brennen Center for Justice noted:
As of March 24, legislators have introduced 361 bills with restrictive provisions in 47 states. Thats 108 more than the 253 restrictive bills tallied as of February 19, 2021 a 43 percent increase in little more than a month.
These measures have begun to be enacted. Five restrictive bills have already been signed into law. In addition, at least 55 restrictive bills in 24 states are moving through legislatures: 29 have passed at least one chamber, while another 26 have had some sort of committee action (e.g., a hearing, an amendment, or a committee vote).
Democrats, however, have a killer app that will stop these Republican voter suppression and election-rigging efforts dead in their tracks.
Its the first piece of legislation passed out of the House of Representatives and the first put on the floor of the United States Senate, HR1 and SB1, with the official name of the For The People Act.
Outside of reducing the ability of states to mail out absentee ballots, every one of the dozen-plus strategies Republicans are building into their laws to rig the vote would be blocked or outlawed by this legislation.
Its the giant killer. (Theres a good explainer here.)
As Vox noted:
More than 80 percent of respondents said they supported preventing foreign interference in elections, limiting the influence of money in politics, and modernizing election infrastructure to increase election security. More than 60 percent of respondents supported requiring nonpartisan redistricting commissions, a 15-day early voting period for all federal elections, same-day registration for all eligible voters, automatic voter registration for all eligible voters, and giving every voter the option to vote by mail.
It will guarantee that every citizen in this country, regardless of their race or economic status, will have an equal right to vote in all elections that have any federal component whatsoever. (Most Americans dont realize that there is no affirmative right to vote in the Constitution, so we need laws like this to protect that right.)
It also means that the small number of billionaires who spend the largest amount of money on our elections will have to identify themselves, something they strongly object to.
As People for the American Way President Ben Jealous noted, in the 2016 election alone, just 400 political donors gave a combined $1.5 billion more than five million small donors combined. This law will will require transparency on their part and give campaigns that rely on smaller donors a boost.
And the majority of the people want it! Multiple studies and polls have shown that when the provisions of the law are explained to voters, an overwhelming majority of Democrats and a solid majority of Republicans are heartily in favor of it.
The For The People Act is also co-sponsored by 49 out of the 50 senators who caucus with the Democrats; the lone holdout is a West Virginia multimillionaire who shows up on Fox News a lot.
Its a 100% certainty that Republicans will filibuster this legislation, which means 50 senators who caucus with the Democrats need to get together and either end the filibuster or, as Ive frequently suggested, convert it into a Jimmy Stewart Filibuster, where senators can talk as long as they want and as long as they have 40 colleagues with them on the Senate floor, but when theyre done or their number of colleagues drops below 40, a vote will happen.
Its unlikely that you or I will have much influence on Joe Manchin (unless you live in West Virginia or are a major campaign donor of his), but we can make our opinions known to President Biden and Senator Schumer, who have a variety of options, both carrots and sticks, when it comes to dealing with recalcitrant or attention-seeking senators. We can also let our own senators know our opinion so they can speak with Manchin.
The way to send a message to President Biden is through the portal at www.whitehouse.gov/contact, and you can call Senator Schumers office and your senators offices via the Capitol buildings switchboard at 202-224-3121.
Tag - youre it!
Original post with links to sources at: HartmannReport.com
nuxvomica
(12,429 posts)There's one typo, though. Take out "White House" from the phrase " via the White House Capitol buildings switchboard"
thomhartmann
(3,979 posts)I'll fix that on the original post, too...
DENVERPOPS
(8,835 posts)mjvpi
(1,388 posts)There is so much good stuff in it. Thom Hartman, as always, lays it out well. Its the first step to disassemble Citizens United. For the People lays bare the differences between our two political parties..
andym
(5,444 posts)You allude to it several times: the Supreme Court. It's current conservative version could use State's rights arguments to gut HR1 after passage, which would require Manchin and a return to the old fashioned talking filibuster. Between gutting the Voting Rights Act and Citizens United under more moderate versions of the SC, what can we expect under what might be the most conservative Supreme Court since the 1930's? How do we prevent that?
Pepsidog
(6,254 posts)election we say this is the most important election of our lifetime. It was absolutely true in 2020 and the 2022 mid-terms which will become the next most important election of our lifetime. The only hope I see to combat the structural inequities of the electoral college and gerrymandered state legislative districts that maintain R power while being outvoted at the ballot box is to end the filibuster. Short of that, we must win every election by enormous numbers and even that may not be good enough in some states that are gerrymandered that even when Dems win the popular vote Rs still send more reps to congress. The window to act is closing, the filibuster must go.
LymphocyteLover
(5,644 posts)because otherwise it seem partisan-- but when why the fuck would Republicans vote for voting rights when they are trying to restrict voting rights in the most partisan way possible?
So we need to bipartisanship to stop a partisan attack on voting rights. He is fucking insane.
KS Toronado
(17,259 posts)LymphocyteLover
(5,644 posts)samsingh
(17,599 posts)LymphocyteLover
(5,644 posts)AZ8theist
(5,477 posts)StClone
(11,684 posts)A Republican.
calimary
(81,322 posts)Dan
(3,570 posts)As they shared, racism is dead in America, so voter suppression is not based on race, but....
ananda
(28,866 posts)begging him to make securing voting rights
though legislation a high priority.
NoMoreRepugs
(9,435 posts)I think theres a possibility Romney votes yes.
After seeing the crowd reaction in his home state when he tried to speak I would imagine he knows re-election may be difficult. Hes a somewhat principled individual who MIGHT vote country before party.
AZ8theist
(5,477 posts)Romney is a Mormon. Utah is a Mormon state.
He will be re-elected in a landslide no matter who or what he supports. They only way he would lose is if he switched parties.
Pinback
(12,157 posts)Link didn't get copied into the OP, so here it is:
The For the People Act - Brennan Center for Justice
Here's the URL of the link:
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/for-the-people-act
Thanks for the post. The For The People Act is probably the most important piece of congressional legislation for Democracy since 1965.
JudyM
(29,251 posts)Really well laid out info - thanks!
argyl
(3,064 posts)She actually used a catheter so she didn't have to use the bathroom.
AZ8theist
(5,477 posts)But always knew she was a badass.....that just confirms it!!!
cannabis_flower
(3,764 posts)Ted Cruz and John Cornyn will be about as effective as shouting down the wind!