Month: January 2022

DailyBeast

McConnell’s Threat to Go Nuclear on Democrats Is Nonsense

Casey Burgat January 14, 2022

After President Joe Biden appealed to Senate Democrats this week to eliminate the filibuster, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell played a familiar card: If Democrats eliminate the filibuster now they will regret it when Republicans control the Senate later.

McConnell’s threats of political retribution have long made Democrats uneasy, and the looming specter of legislative payback is central to the arguments of Democratic centrist senators in favor of preserving the 60-vote threshold.

But McConnell’s threats of political payback shouldn’t even register in Democrats’ minds as a reason to keep the filibuster around. In fact, they are largely empty.

First off, a lot has to go right for the GOP in order for McConnell to make good on his threat. Sure, he may put some bills on the floor some Democrats would rather not vote on, but a Republican Senate won’t be able to turn bills into laws without a Republican House and White House willing to pass and sign them. That scenario is certainly possible after 2024—a lifetime away in political-years—but it’s far from guaranteed.

This is why Democrats are so laser-focused on tossing out the filibuster right now: the clock on guaranteed unified control for Democrats is ticking down to zero fast. They’re terrified of the damage Republicans could do to the country when in charge, and almost just as terrified of how long they could soon be out of power without changes to voting and elections.

Joe Biden Was Elected to Be Less Divisive Than Trump and He’s Failing Miserably at It

But even if Republicans do hit the federal trifecta soon, it’s unlikely they will win large enough majorities for them to push the kind of transformative legislation that so frightens Democrats. It’s one thing to maintain the appearance of party unity on broad policy themes and campaign slogans, particularly when in the minority—it’s another thing entirely to negotiate palatable compromises across an entire caucus at the level of detail federal legislation requires. Just ask the Democrats.

The bills McConnell is threatening—like immigration crackdowns or abortion restrictions—are ones that will both rile up the GOP base and make some Democrats queasy. They’re also precisely the ones that would have the weakest support from the vulnerable GOP senators their majority is all but certain to depend upon. Senators at risk of losing their seats won’t want to upset their fragile electoral security by taking a recorded vote that may trigger voter backlash, and the party won’t want to jeopardize their majority status by forcing them to do so.

Party leaders like McConnell know full well that pursuing base-pleasing but nationally unpopular issues can often do the party more harm than good. Remember the Obamacare replacement fiasco the last time the GOP controlled Congress and the White House? Not only did they fail to write a bill that satisfied enough members of their own party despite it being a major campaign pillar, their very public activity on the issue focused voter attention and stimulated subsequent turnout that ultimately cost the GOP their House majority.

This political reality actually underpins a major counterintuitive reason the filibuster has stuck around so long: the filibuster is convenient political cover for the majority party, and particularly its most vulnerable members.

It helps them avoid politically tough votes, which is why Senator Joe Manchin is dead set against its elimination. He represents uber-red West Virginia; he’s not looking to stick his neck out for the most progressive legislation.

The filibuster allows the majority to blame the rules and an obstructionist minority for holding them back from passing something they actually don’t have the votes to do on a party-line basis. Without the filibuster, the parties will have no defensible obstacle to enacting their sweeping campaign promises; voters will expect that they do even more than they do now.

McConnell understands this. It’s why he was unmoved even by former President Donald Trump’s demands to end the filibuster when he served as majority leader. He certainly didn’t keep it around because he’s an institutionalist who reveres Senate collegiality or custom. He’s gleefully proven time and time again he’ll do whatever it takes to win. If at some point he feels comfortable enough that his caucus is united behind goals that are politically advantageous, he won’t bat an eye at tossing the filibuster himself to achieve them. He’d gladly welcome the dysfunction he’s threatening now if it means GOP victories legislation with lasting consequences.

The filibuster, like most things in politics, is a question of tradeoffs. At its most fundamental level, Democrats have to decide whether the policy gains they can lock in now by eliminating the filibuster will outweigh the downsides of what the GOP might do and undo when they take back a no-filibuster Senate. After all, if the GOP wins unified government in a post-filibuster world, they will reap policy wins, perhaps a great many. They should. They won. That’s how a responsive government is supposed to work.

The Only Way to Stop Cocaine Mitch Is to Kill the Filibuster

But will they be able to navigate the various political minefields within a diverse caucus made up of countless members who want to be the face of the Republican Party? Will they be unified enough on the most politically controversial issues to achieve the type of substantive wins they are threatening? Maybe, maybe not.

On something as important as voting rights, access, and fairness, the gains Democrats would make would be monumental and immediate. The political discomfort or policy losses that might result down the line are much more uncertain. Democrats are united enough to chalk up at least one hugely important win now. And if this bill is necessary to save democracy, as they have shouted for months, it should be a no-brainer.

There are simply too many unknowns for McConnell’s threat of political vengeance to be the reason Democrats won’t act. If his threat of forcing tough votes at some later date is enough to scare them off from realizing such a critically important win, they just might be in the wrong business.

HuffPoat

Washington Post Torches Kevin McCarthy: ‘Thrown In His Lot With Enemies Of Democracy’

Lee Moran – January 14, 2022

The Washington Post tore into House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) refusal to cooperate with a House select committee’s investigation into the U.S. Capitol riot.

In an editorial published Thursday, the newspaper said the probe into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress by a violent mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters was “indispensable not only for history, but also to bolster the nation’s democratic procedures against another attempt to subvert them, which could come as early as 2024.”

“No patriotic American should oppose such a probe,” the newspaper’s editorial board wrote.

The Post called for the subpoena of key Trump ally McCarthy, a move it described as “unprecedented” but necessary because “his behavior amounts to a dereliction of his oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

“In his quest to become the next GOP House speaker, Mr. McCarthy has instead thrown in his lot with the enemies of democracy,” the editorial declared.

Read the full editorial here.

Los Angeles Times

Letters to the Editor: Our soldiers fight for democracy, not the Senate filibuster

January 13, 2022

To the editor: The politicians today who undermine democracy by supporting the Senate filibuster dishonor the memory of every American soldier who fought and died at Normandy in France and the other World War II battlefields. Those soldiers knew very well who the enemy was — and it wasn’t democracy. (“President Biden urges filibuster changes to protect voting rights,” Jan. 11)

These same politicians should be required to visit the graves of the soldiers who died in Europe defending the world against the nightmare that fascist leaders unleashed.

The gravestones at the Normandy American Cemetery stretch into the horizon in neat rows of white marble stone. They are reminders of the ultimate sacrifice these brave men and women made so future generations would have the freedoms and liberties enshrined in our democratic institutions.

These brave soldiers fought and many of them died to preserve democracy. They did not fight and die to preserve the filibuster.

Dennis Clausen, Escondido

..

To the editor: This isn’t just about voting rights or President Biden keeping a campaign promise to his base. Changing the Senate’s filibuster rule to allow a simple vote on a bill protecting ballot access will safeguard our democracy, which is currently under assault, literally as well as politically.

Whatever one’s political persuasion, it should not be contested that the filibuster can be, and is being, weaponized. A carve-out for voting rights will only set a precedent for future exploitation by an opposing party.

But, will a failure to try to enact voting protections make the task of preserving our democracy a higher and steeper climb?

Dan Mariscal, Montebello

..

To the editor: Biden spoke of needing to change voting rules.

So tell me, who has been disenfranchised from voting? Who, actually, was just not interested in voting? I ask because I keep hearing more and more people are voting, which makes it a lie that people are being disenfranchised.

And tell me also, if demanding an ID to vote is so onerous, why are we asked to show an ID with our vaccination cards?

Barry Levy, Hawthorne

Palm Beach Daily News

Florida must warn the public of sewage-tainted waterfronts | Commentary

Howard L. Simon January 12, 2022

The Florida Legislature has had a hard time maneuvering through the politics of clean water to curb pollution and protect our waterways — and public health.

With great fanfare, the Legislature enacted the “Clean Waterways Act of 2020,” but though penalties were increased, it was light on enforceable regulations to curb pollution, continued to rely on largely voluntary and presumed compliance with state regulations and ignored many of the principal recommendations of the Governor’s Blue-Green Algae Task Force.

But as the Legislature convenes for its 2022 Session, it will have another opportunity, thanks to Sen. Lori Berman of Delray Beach and Rep. Yvonne Hayes Hinson of Gainesville. The legislators have introduced the “Safe Waterways Act,” Senate Bill 604 and House Bill 393.- ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf-flx.html

More: Protect districts that protect soil and water

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The proposal requires, rather than just authorizes, the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) to issue health advisories and, through the network of county health departments, specifically to post and maintain warning notices at “public bathing places” (whether fresh, salt or brackish water) that are used for swimming and other recreational activities and where the water has been verified impaired for fecal indicator bacteria.

The proposed “Safe Waterways Act” also requires FDOH to notify a municipality or county if a health advisory due to elevated bacteria levels is issued for swimming in a public bathing place within the municipality’s or county’s jurisdiction. The department would also be required to maintain such signage until state water quality standards are met.

The FDOH does monitor and post advisories at some coastal beaches and other areas that are designated as “public swimming areas” under the Healthy Beaches Program but not at other areas used by the public for swimming, kayak launches and other recreational activities.

It is inconceivable that Floridians and visitors to our state could be recreating in water contaminated with fecal bacteria.

The Legislature must act on this urgently needed proposal.

It is alarming that contamination of Florida’s rivers and streams by fecal bacteria is so widespread. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection, based on years of monitoring, have determined that nearly 9,000 miles of streams and rivers designated for recreation are impaired for fecal bacteria.

This situation has continued for decades with no signage, or inadequate signage, warning the public of the contamination.

High counts of bacteria indicate that the water is not safe. Fecal bacteria are indicators of dangerous pathogens that can cause ailments that include diarrhea, nausea, rashes and eye irritation. Swimming or wading in contaminated water exposes individuals to risk of infections and gastrointestinal illnesses.

The sources of fecal contamination in our waterways are numerous. They include untreated stormwater, leaks from aging or poorly functioning sewage treatment plants, leaching septic tanks, and runoff from fields that contain animal waste.

Occasionally, advisories are posted, but as the law currently stands, there is no requirement in Florida law for any state, county or municipal agency to inform the public of this health threat.

Imposing a duty on government to warn the public of a health threat should not be a heavy lift. Tornado watches and storm warnings are routinely issued by the National Weather Service when dangerous weather activity is possible. Since 1966, the U.S. Surgeon General has affixed health warnings on cigarette packages informing consumers that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease and emphysema, as well as complications for pregnancies such as fetal injury, premature birth, and low birth weight.

And Gov. DeSantis’ Blue-Green Algae Task Force urged that health advisories be developed by the Departments of Health and Environmental Protection “to inform the public about the potential health impacts associated with exposure to algae and/or algae toxins.”

Of course, policy-makers should focus on the sources of pollution and impose responsibility on polluters to clean up their mess. But both prevention and warning are necessary strategies to protect public health.

Curbing pollution at its source, rather than dealing with its consequences, clearly is both more effective and cost efficient. But in the real world, recognizing the public’s right to know about health hazards and imposing a duty on government agencies to inform the public of a threat constitutes some progress.

If the state continues to fail to enact enforceable measures to curb pollution, or vigorously and effectively enforce current anti-pollution regulations, the least it can do is provide warnings to the public so people can make informed decisions about whether to go in the water or avoid risking their health.

For more information on the campaign for a “Right To Know,” go to right2knowfl.org.

Howard L. Simon, Ph.D., who served as Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida from 1997–2018, wrote this piece for The Palm Beach Post. He is president of Clean Okeechobee Waters Foundation and a board member of Calusa Waterkeeper.

Insider

After 6 years in Los Angeles, I moved my family to a 5,000-person town in Illinois. We can now afford the life our children deserve.

Renee Childs January 11, 2022

• After six years of living in Los Angeles with two young children, my family decided to move to a small town.
• Having our kids grow up near their grandparents was very important for all of us. 
• In L.A., we felt like we couldn’t really enjoy the things the city has to offer. 

“This place is alive,” I thought as I stepped out of the car at 11 p.m. in a southern Illinois town of 5,000 people.

In August 2015, my family left Los Angeles, which was alive with busy freeways and bustling restaurants. But this small community was alive with the sound of crickets, owls, and blowing trees. It was literally alive.

My husband and I spent years contemplating staying in Southern California, with its high cost of living, hit-or-miss public schools, and distance from family — we spent thousands of dollars flying back and forth to the Midwest to visit them. At a certain point, it became unrealistic for us to keep chasing what we thought was our dream. 

L.A. has a lot to offer, but we weren’t doing much

We lived in L.A. for six years and loved the cultural diversity, the endless places to explore, and my husband especially loved the idea of being able to surf the Pacific in the morning and ski down Mt. Baldy in the afternoon.

I, too, liked the idea of having outdoor adventures, Disneyland, and the beach nearby to visit with the kids. But even though we lived 20 miles from some of these wonders, it could take hours to arrive.

Animated map shows best and worst states to raise a family

Where you decide to live can be crucial to raising a family. There are so many decisions to weigh from education to safety to cost of living.

At times, it felt like we were imprisoned in paradise. We were close enough to have the allure but practically couldn’t drive anywhere between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. Then we’d need to head home before 2 p.m., otherwise we’d be stuck in hours of horrendous traffic.

One of the more traumatic days of my life was after a single-parenting attempt at Disneyland. We missed the 2 p.m. “avoid traffic” deadline and left at 2:45. We sat in traffic for hours. My children, a 2 -year-old and 6-month-old, were strapped in their car seats, helplessly screaming hard enough to blow their vocal cords and my sanity.

We couldn’t afford the life our children deserved

The cost of living added financial stress that made us wonder how we could afford to stay long term and how everyone else seemed to make it work. The financial benefit of staying included a soaring appreciation of home values. But leaving meant we could use that lofty down payment on more stable and cash-flowing investments.

The real kicker was our stage of life. We had two small children in an apartment with no yard and our families 30 driving hours away. After losing one of our parents unexpectedly, we wanted our kids and parents to have rich experiences with one another during this precious phase. 

My husband found a work-from-home job, and I was able to start a master’s degree with the support of my parents nearby.

We do miss the friendships and fascinating people we became close to in L.A., the pop-up opportunities to sit in on a movie screening, and the impressive hiking. My daughter says she wants to be a ballerina and an actress, and sometimes I wonder if we moved from the right place to the wrong place for her dreams.

The emotions of leaving on that one-way flight were exhausting. Change is not easy. But we are enjoying the novelties of the Midwest, like hanging with live pigs at the farm store, hosting baby goats in our yard, and visiting the local creamery, where we eat lots of artisan cheese and ice cream.

We get to share the four seasons of thunderstorm watching, snowball fights, the flowering of spring, and pontoon-boat rides in the summer. And, of course, grandma and grandpa’s love goes a long way.

NBC News

Schumer eyes final reckoning over voting rights and filibuster rule

Sahil Kapur, Frank Thorp V and Garrett Haake January 12, 2022

WASHINGTON — For voting rights legislation, a major showdown is drawing near.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told Democratic colleagues in a letter Wednesday that he will force a procedural vote on the Freedom To Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

To make that happen, he’ll use a quirk in the rules to allow floor debate on the bills, both of which have majority support in the 50-50 Senate. But advancing the measures to a vote on final passage requires 60 senators to break a filibuster, which Democrats have no realistic hope of achieving due to Republican opposition.

Once the bills are filibustered, Schumer said, “we will need to change the Senate rules as has been done many times before,” according to the letter obtained by NBC News.

But Democrats don’t have the 50 votes they need to pierce the filibuster rule using the so-called nuclear option. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., remain reluctant to changing the rules, and there is scant evidence that they’re likely to budge.

Still, Democratic leaders are focusing their rhetoric on Republicans.

“If the right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, then how can we in good conscience allow for a situation in which the Republican Party can debate and pass voter suppression laws at the State level with only a simple majority vote, but not allow the United States Senate to do the same?” Schumer said in Wednesday’s letter. “In the coming days, we will most likely confront this sobering question – together.”

The Freedom To Vote Act doesn’t have any Republican support in the Senate. The John Lewis bill has one GOP backer: Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Schumer’s letter to colleagues comes one day after President Joe Biden gave a fiery speech calling for changing the filibuster, if necessary, to pass the two election overhaul bills and overcome former President Donald Trump’s “big lie” about a stolen 2020 election that has fueled voting restrictions at the state level.

“As an institutionalist, I believe that the threat to our democracy is so grave that we must find a way to pass these voting rights bills, debate them, vote. Let the majority prevail,” Biden said. “And if that bare minimum is blocked, we have no option but to change the Senate rules, including getting rid of the filibuster for this.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., fiercely opposes the two bills and has said states should be able to set their own election rules. Unlike Democrats, he has said there’s no problem with the voting limits being enacted in numerous Republican-led states around the country.

McConnell said Biden’s speech featured “rhetoric unbecoming of a president of the United States.”

‘A critical issue of our time’

Manchin said Wednesday that Biden gave a “good speech,” but offered no indication that he has changed his mind on the filibuster. “We’re all still talking,” he said. “He understands — we all understand how the Senate works.”

Sinema’s office declined to comment.

Both of their positions will become clear in the next few days. Schumer has said he wants to hold the votes no later than Martin Luther King Jr. Day, on Monday.

Schumer’s strategy for forcing the votes utilizes a little-used congressional procedure where the House can send a bill to the Senate in a way that allows Democrats to bypass one of two 60-vote-threshold filibuster votes that most legislation is subject to in the upper chamber.

The House kicked off that process Wednesday evening with a meeting in the Rules Committee to send the legislative vehicle to the Senate.

Once the House sends the bill across the Capitol, Senate Democrats will be able to start debate on the voting rights bills with a simple majority, something they have been blocked by Republicans from doing in the past.

“We will finally be able to get on the bill,” Sen Tim Kaine, D-Va., told reporters. “What happens next is still TBD, but the Republicans cannot filibuster us getting on the bill anymore.”

Republicans are guaranteed to filibuster an end to floor debate on the bill, which would prevent a final vote on the legislation.

“I’m just trying to figure out if he wants to lose once or twice,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said of Schumer’s gambit. “But I think we know what the outcome is going to be.”

Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., acknowledged the challenges facing Democrats.

“There’s a growing consensus among Democrats and Republicans on the need for rules changes. It’s difficult to do during a debate on one bill,” he said.

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the No. 3 Democrat in the chamber, hasn’t given up on winning.

“I think everybody realizes that this is a critical issue of our time,” she told NBC News. “It is important that we find a way to make sure that when history is on our shoulders right now, we have a way to move forward. I don’t think we can prejudge the outcome of this at all.”

Reuters

Explainer-Why does Joe Biden want to scrap the U.S. Senate’s ‘filibuster’ rule?

By Andy Sullivan January 11, 2022

Activists push for voting rights legislation during news conference near the White House in Washington.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden on Tuesday said the U.S. Senate should consider scrapping a longstanding supermajority rule known as the “filibuster” if necessary to pass voting-rights legislation that is opposed by Republicans.

Critics say the filibuster, which requires 60 of the 100 senators to agree on most legislation, is an anti-democratic hurdle that prevents Washington from addressing pressing problems.

Supporters say it forces lawmakers to seek consensus, serves as important check on the party in power and ensures that major laws that affect American life don’t change radically with every election.

Once a rarity, the filibuster is now routinely invoked. In recent months, Republicans have used it to block voting-rights bills and bring the United States perilously close to a crippling debt default.

Democrats could use their razor-thin Senate majority to eliminate the filibuster altogether. But centrist Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema oppose this move, saying that it will shatter the few bipartisan bonds that remain and give Republicans free rein if they take a majority in the Nov. 8 midterm elections.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has warned that his party would use other tactics to bring the chamber to a halt if the filibuster is eliminated.

WHAT IS THE FILIBUSTER?

Unlike the House of Representatives, the Senate was set up to allow for unlimited debate. In the 19th century, lawmakers developed the filibuster – a word derived from Dutch and Spanish terms for Caribbean pirates – as a way to talk a bill to death.

Then-Democratic Senator Strom Thurmond set the record in 1957, when spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes to block a major civil rights bill. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy spoke for nearly 15 hours in 2016 to press for gun-control legislation and Republican Senator Ted Cruz spoke for more than 21 hours in 2013 to protest President Barack Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act. None of those efforts were successful.

Senators agreed in 1917 that a vote by a two-thirds majority could end debate on a given bill. That majority was reduced in 1975 to three-fifths of the Senate, currently 60 senators.

Under current rules, senators don’t need to talk to gum up the works — they merely need to register their objection to initiate a filibuster.

Over the past 50 years, the number of filibusters has skyrocketed as Democrats and Republicans have become more politically polarized. From 1969 to 1970 there were six votes to overcome a filibuster, the nearest reliable proxy. There were 298 such votes in the 2019-2020 legislative session.

WHY IS THIS A PROBLEM FOR DEMOCRATS?

Democrats control 50 seats in the Senate, which allows them to eke together a majority with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking 51st vote when needed. They can’t overcome filibusters unless at least 10 Republicans vote with them.

Democrats were able to bypass the filibuster to pass Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus plan using a special process known as “reconciliation” that only requires a simple majority for certain budget bills. But that process is subject to complex limitations and cannot be used regularly.

Republicans have blocked many other Democratic priorities, though 19 of them did vote for a $1 trillion package to revamp the nation’s roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

CAN THE FILIBUSTER BE CHANGED?

There have already been changes.

In 2013, Democrats removed the 60-vote threshold for voting on most nominees for administration jobs, apart from the Supreme Court, allowing them to advance on a simple majority vote.

In 2017, Republicans did the same thing for Supreme Court nominees. Both the 2013 and 2017 Senate rule changes were made by simple majority votes.

Some Democrats have called for eliminating the filibuster entirely, but they lack the 50 votes needed to take that step.

Democrats plan to vote sometime over the next week to scale back the filibuster so it would not apply to voting-related legislation. But it’s not clear whether they have the votes for this either; Manchin said last week that he would prefer to get some Republican buy-in for that change.

On Sunday he said he might support making the tactic more “painful” by requiring senators to keep talking on the Senate floor.

Biden, who spent 36 years in the Senate, long supported the filibuster but has grown more open to changing it as Republicans have blocked several of his major initiatives over the past year.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan, additional reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

Senate Battle for America’s Democracy Heats up. President Biden and McConnell trade jabs.

The Hill

Ocasio-Cortez: Democrats need to to ‘crack down’ on ‘old boys club’ in Senate

December 20, 2021

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Monday called on Democrats to “crack down on the Senate,” which she likened to “an old boys club.”

The progressive lawmaker in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” slammed the chamber’s inability to pass voting rights legislation because of GOP-led filibusters.- ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf-flx.html

Ocasio-Cortez has previously called on the Senate to abolish the filibuster, a move that moderate Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have opposed.

“What we really need to do is crack down on the Senate, which operates like an old boys club that has a couple of gals in it that have managed to break through, and we need to actually institute some, we actually need implementing institutional discipline,” Ocasio-Cortez said on Monday.

“If people want to threaten to block ambassadorships, if they want to threaten dysfunction, they actually need to show up and do it, need to show up and do a talking filibuster, when – and by the way, that is a compromise because there shouldn’t even be a filibuster in the first place. And they need to really make sure that we are actually calling people to her threats,” she added.

The House has already passed the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, both of which have been stalled in the Senate because of GOP opposition.

“Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough, a former GOP congressman from Florida, asserted that the Senate is “operating in bad faith” and does not want to pass voting rights. He pointed to a deal struck in the chamber between both parties that allowed for a one-time exemption of the filibuster to raise the debt ceiling earlier this month.

Ocasio-Cortez agreed with Scarborough’s analysis before knocking Republicans for threatening filibusters.

“This idea that again, over time, has switched from talking filibuster to now just being able to stand up and posture and make a threat, God forbid that they might actually have to show up and stand or sit and actually have to talk and actually live out the threat of their filibuster,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

“It is unconscionable, the way that the Senate operates, it’s fundamentally undemocratic,” she added.

“We are in a crisis. Nineteen states have passed over 33 laws to limit or restrict the right to vote in the United States of America. We are beyond the time for something to pass. And my concern is that even Manchin’s compromise, or the fact that he was making statements just this past week that he was just having conversations with the parliamentarian about voting rights that were illuminating. How has this not happened all year long,” she added.

Ocasio-Cortez also said President Biden needs to “be more forceful on the filibuster” and lean “on his executive authority and say, ‘if you’re going to get in the way, we’re going to find other ways to do this,’ and it’s either you’re either with us or you’re not with us, but this train is moving and we need to govern because the United States House of Representatives is delivering an agenda for the people.”

“We cannot blame Mitch McConnell, and we cannot blame Joe Manchin either, because we have tools at our disposal with a trifecta,” she added.

The Guardian

Republicans are shamelessly working to subvert democracy. Are Democrats paying attention?

Sam Levine and David Smith December 19, 2021

A dry run. A dress rehearsal. A practice coup. As the first anniversary of the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol approaches, there is no shortage of warnings about the danger of a repeat by Republicans.

But even as Donald Trump loyalists lay siege to democracy with voting restrictions and attempts to take over the running of elections, there are fears that Democrats in Washington have not fully woken up to the threat.

“At the state level we’re raising hell about it but the Democrats on the national level are talking about Build Back Better, the infrastructure bill, lots of other things,” said Tony Evers, the Democratic governor of Wisconsin. “When we think about voting rights and democracy, I would hope we would hear a little bit more about that from the national level.”

Hopes that the attack on the Capitol would break the fever of Trumpism in the Republican party were soon dashed. All but a handful of its members in Congress voted against a 9/11-style commission to investigate the riot and many at national level have downplayed it, rallying to the former president’s defense.

But it is an attritional battle playing out state by state, county by county and precinct by precinct that could pose the bigger menace to the next election in 2024, a potential rematch between Trump and Joe Biden.

An avalanche of voter suppression laws is being pushed through in Republican-led states, from Arizona to Florida to Georgia to New Hampshire. Gerrymandered maps are being drawn up to form districts where demographics favour Republican candidates.

Backers of Trump’s big lie of a stolen election are running to be the secretary of state in many places, a position from which they would serve as the chief election official in their state. Trump has endorsed such candidates in Michigan, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada – all crucial swing states.

The all-out assault suggests that Trump and his allies learned lessons from their failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election, identifying weak points in the system and laying the groundwork for a different outcome next time.

Dean Phillips, a Democratic congressman from Minnesota, said: “It looks like Plan B is populating state elected offices with believers of the big lie and morally corrupt candidates. We should all be concerned about that and, by the way, not just Democrats: everybody.”

Yet despite waves of media coverage – recently including the Atlantic magazine and the Guardian and New York Times newspapers – Democrats face the challenge of getting their voters to care. Many are confronting inflation, crime and other priorities and may assume that, having defeated Trump last year, they can stop paying attention.

Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington state, said: “It’s still very difficult to imagine the severity and depth of what Donald Trump tried to pull off. It’s hard sometimes to recognise something when it’s new. For the president of the United States to try and stage a coup is unprecedented. It’s hard for people to wrap their heads around it.”

Inslee described Trump as “a clear and present danger” who is “trying to remove the impediments that rescued democracy last time”. State governors are not the only ones sounding the alarm about the dangers of complacency or assuming that normal service has resumed.

Jena Griswold, a Colorado Democrat seeking re-election, is chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, which focuses on electing Democrats to those positions. She said while there’s been a surge of attention from activists and donors to those races, “it is not enough.”

“I think one of the issues happening is that because this is the United States, the idea that our most fundamental freedom of living in a democracy is under attack, is hard to really grasp,” she said. “It’s important that we keep leaning in because the folks on the other side are definitely leaning in.”

In Michigan, one of the leading candidates in the Republican field is Kristina Kamaro, who has spread lies about 6 January and the election. She is seeking to oust Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat who became one of the most high profile secretaries of state in 2020 when she took steps to make it easier to vote by mail in her state.

Like Griswold, Benson, who describes herself as “avowedly not a partisan”, said she noticed increased interest from voters and independent donors, but not from the national Democratic party.

“We’re not seeing the same sense of urgency that perhaps ‘the other side’ has shown in investing in these offices,” she said. “With the exception of the vice-president, who’s been enormously supportive and gets the importance of these offices from a voting rights standpoint, I have seen no significant increase in support from national party leaders than what we experienced in 2018, which wasn’t insignificant.”

Acolytes of the so-called “Stop the Steal” movement are drilling down even deeper, targeting local election oversight positions that have traditionally been nonpartisan and little noticed, with only a few hundred votes at stake and candidates often running unopposed. Yet these too could pull at the threads of the democratic fabric.

In Pennsylvania, for example, there is concern that election deniers are running for a position called judge of elections, a little-known office that plays a huge role in determining how things are run on election day.

Scott Seeborg, Pennsylvania state director of All Voting is Local, a voting advocacy group, said the role is essentially the top position at the precinct polling place on election day. They could cause huge disruptions at the polls based on how the office holder interprets rules around ID and spoiling mail-in ballots, he added.

Seeborg agreed that not enough attention has been paid to these local races. “There’s no precedent for this, as far as we know in sort of the modern history of elections,” he said. “I don’t think folks anticipated this, I’m not sure how seriously entities like the Democratic party are taking this, but they ought to.”

Similar anxieties emerged earlier this week when the grassroots movement Indivisible ran a focus group with members from Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina and elsewhere.

Ezra Levin, the group’s co-founder and co-executive director, said: “They’re worried about their governors, they’re worried about their secretaries of state and they’re worried even at a more local level about previously nonpartisan or uncontroversial election administration officials being taken over by a well-funded and very focused operation led by people who have embraced the big lie.

“These are not positions, especially at the local level, that are getting as much attention but it’s real. We see Steve Bannon [former White House chief of staff, now a rightwing podcaster] trying to lead the charge, getting folks to take up the lowest level spots in the election administration ecosystem. It’s happening right in front of our eyes.”

Levin, a former congressional staffer, noted that the Democratic party is not a monolith but warned that Biden has devoted his political capital – traveling the country to make speeches, holding meetings on Capitol Hill – to causes such as infrastructure rather than the future of democracy.

“The big missing puzzle piece in this entire fight for the last 11 months has been the president.”

Pressure on the Senate to act intensified this week when 17 governors wrote a joint letter expressing concern over threats to the nation’s democracy. Evers of Wisconsin was among them.

In a phone interview, he said Democrats in his crucial battleground state are highlighting the “full throated attack on voting rights” but acknowledged that voters have numerous other concerns.

“Everybody’s talking about it but when they go home from the capital and they’re visiting with people, I’m guessing that the conversation talks about more bread and butter things like ‘I want my roads fixed,’ and ‘Thank you for reducing taxes,” Evers added.

What would the Supreme Court’s “originalists” think of the filibuster?

If they were honest, they’d find it unconstitutional

By Robert Reich January 11, 2022

Yesterday, a member of our group named Emmet Bondurant, a distinguished constitutional lawyer from Georgia, commented on this page about the filibuster:

The biggest lie of all is the Senate’s claim that it “is the greatest deliberative body in the world.” The filibuster makes the Senate the least deliberative legislative and least democratic legislative body by allowing a minority of Senators to prevent the Senate from debating, much less voting on, any legislation that is opposed by the minority party.

A decade ago, when Emmet and I served on the board of Common Cause, he brought a case before federal courts, arguing that the filibuster is unconstitutional. He didn’t get very far. (The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia decided against Common Cause on dubious grounds, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case.) But this was before the high court became crammed with so-called “originalists” who believe the Constitution should be interpreted to mean what the Framers thought when they drafted it.

Originalism is an absurd position, of course. American society is so different today from what it was in the eighteenth century that any attempt to apply precepts from that time to this time is doomed to failure. But why not test the sincerity of the originalists sitting on today’s Supreme Court with an issue that the Framers would find a no-brainer? All evidence suggests they would agree with Emmet that the filibuster violates the Constitution.

The Framers went to great lengths to ensure that a minority of senators could not thwart the wishes of the majority. After all, a major reason they convened the Constitutional Convention in 1787 was because the Articles of Confederation (the precursor to the Constitution) required a super-majority vote of nine of the thirteen states, making the government weak and ineffective.Subscribe

This led James Madison to argue against any super-majority requirement in the Constitution the Framers were then designing, writing that otherwise “the fundamental principle of free government would be reversed,“ and “It would be no longer the majority that would rule: the power would be transferred to the minority.” And it led Alexander Hamilton to note “how much good may be prevented, and how much ill may be produced” if a minority in either house of Congress had “the power of hindering the doing what may be necessary.”

This is why the Framers required no more than a simple majority in both houses of Congress to pass legislation.

They carved out only five specific exceptions requiring a super-majority vote only in rare, high-stakes decisions: (1) impeachments, (2) expulsion of members, (3) overriding a presidential veto, (4) ratification of treaties, and (5) amendments to the Constitution. By being explicit about these five exceptions to majority rule, the Framers underscored their commitment to majority rule for the normal business of the nation. They would have rejected the filibuster, through which a minority of senators continually obstructs the majority.

So where did the filibuster come from? The Senate needed a mechanism to end debate on proposed laws and move to a vote. The Framers didn’t anticipate this problem. But in 1841, a small group of senators took advantage of this oversight to stage the first filibuster. They hoped to force their opponents to give in by prolonging debate and delaying a vote. 

This was what became known as the “talking filibuster” — as popularized in Frank Capra’s other great film, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (a perfect compliment to his “It’s a Wonderful Life”). But contrary to the admirable character Jimmy Stewart plays in that film, the result was hardly admirable.

After the Civil War, the filibuster was used by Southern politicians to defeat Reconstruction legislation, including bills to protect the voting rights of Black Americans. Finally, in 1917, as a result of pressure from President Woodrow Wilson and the public, the Senate adopted a procedure for limiting debate and ending filibusters with a two-thirds vote of the Senate (67 votes). In the 1970s, the Senate reduced the number of votes required to end debate down to 60, and no longer required constant talking to delay a vote. 41 votes would do it.

Throughout much of the 20th century, filibusters remained rare. (Southern senators mainly used them to block anti-lynching, fair employment, voting rights, and other critical civil rights bills.) But that changed in 2007, after Democrats took over the Senate. Senate Republicans, now in the minority, used the 60-vote requirement with unprecedented frequency.

After Barack Obama moved into the Oval Office in 2009, the Republican minority — led by Mitch McConnell — blocked virtually every significant piece of legislation. Nothing could move without 60 votes. A record 67 filibusters occurred during the first half of the 111th Congress — double the entire 20-year period between 1950 and 1969. By the time Congress adjourned in December 2010, the filibuster count had ballooned to 137. Between 2010 and 2020, there were as many cloture motions (959) as during the entire 60-year period from 1947 to 2006 (960).

Now we have a total mockery of majority rule. McConnell and his Republicans are stopping almost everything in its tracks. Just 41 Senate Republicans, representing only 21 percent of the country, are now blocking laws supported by the vast majority of Americans. This is exactly the opposite of what the Framers of the Constitution intended. To repeat: They unequivocally rejected the notion that a minority of Senators could obstruct the majority. 

My humble suggestion, therefore: Senators whose votes have been blocked by the senate minority should themselves take the issue to the Supreme Court. If anyone has standing to make this argument, they surely do. If the conservative majority on the Court stands by its “originalist” principles, they’ll abolish the filibuster as violating the Constitution. (At the very least, the filibuster should not be allowed to block laws that are required to preserve democratic rules and norms. It must be lifted to enact voting rights legislation, such as the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.)

If you like my argument — which is essentially Emmet’s — please suggest it to your favorite Senator.

What do you think?