After Senate Democrats approved the $3.5 trillion budget resolution, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer brought up a Motion to Discharge S. 1, the For The People Act. The Motion to Discharge S. 1 was also a party-line vote of 50-49.
The anti-democratic insurrectionist Sedition Party remains committed to destroying American democracy with GQP Jim Crow 2.0 voter suppression and voter disenfranchisement laws, and extreme gerrymandering.
The Associated Press reports, Dems renew push on elections bill that GOP vows to block:
First, Democrats tried to take up the For the People Act, which Republicans blocked.
After that, Schumer [took a piecemeal approach] to advance other popular provisions from the bill, which would limit partisan gerrymandering and force so-called dark money groups to disclose their donors. The provisions were broken into two separate bills that Republicans also blocked.
“It’s publicly proving that the Republicans are going to obstruct everything,” said Fred Wertheimer, the founder of the nonprofit group Democracy 21, who helped write the initial bill. “It sets the stage for when they come back (from recess) and figure out how to move forward.”
Time is of the essence if Democrats want to get the measure signed into law before 2022 midterm elections.
I beg to differ. Time is of the essence right now. Census data for redistricting becomes available in August, and Republican state legislatures are not taking any August recess. They intend to pass extreme gerrymandering while Congress dithers on voting rights legislation to prohibit this. Cancel recess, Congress needs to act now.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced early Wednesday his plan for floor action in September on the bill, known as the For the People Act, which Democrats have tried to pass for months. The measure, blocked by Republicans from debate in June, would affect virtually every aspect of the electoral process, curbing the influence of big money in politics, limiting the partisan considerations in the drawing of congressional districts and expanding options for voting.
Democrats acknowledge that their latest effort is doomed to fail — and that’s the point. They are looking to show that Republicans will not waver in their opposition to voting and election legislation, which Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has called “a solution looking for a problem.”
That could help make a case to moderate [corporate] Democrats that there is little chance of making headway on this key issue for the party unless changes are made to Senate rules that require 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.
“Republicans have formed a total wall of opposition against progress on voting rights,” Schumer said just after 4:30 a.m. “That’s what we have come to: total Republican intransigence.”
His remarks came after a marathon voting session that paved the way for Democrats’ big-ticket spending goals before the Senate adjourned for its August recess.
Democratic leaders have said the voting legislation would serve as a powerful counterbalance to a wave of new restrictive voting laws approved in Republican-controlled states after the 2020 election. But the effort stalled in the Senate months ago.
Liberal Voting rights activists have advocated for the elimination of the filibuster, though a handful of moderate [corporate] Democrats, including Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have rejected such an approach, denying Democrats the votes needed to make the change.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is a key obstructionist to reforming the Senate filibuster rule. MSNBC’s Joy Reid has had enough of our prima donna diva senator.
“The Arizona senator has been one of the lead negotiators of said deal for the Democrats. Until recently, she has scrupulously avoided the press, but has suddenly found her voice, telling everyone why bipartisanship matters. We invited her to appear on the show, but she has declined. Oddly, in her interview, she doesn’t address some glaring issues. Let’s start with the fact that not one of the 20 bipartisan senators negotiating the infrastructure bill was a person of color. Not even one. You’d think maybe, just maybe, they would have noticed a thing like that. She was asked about that omission and here is what she said — or rather, didn’t say to NPR.”
“You know what, Senator, telling us you co-sponsored the bill while also telling us that you’ll defend the Jim Crow filibuster is frankly insulting. It’s like saying ‘I have a black friend’ or ‘John Lewis is my hero’ while you’re stabbing him in the back. It’s also galling to hear the lack of urgency in her voice when it comes to disenfranchising thousands of black and brown Americans. I mean, tellingly, during the same NPR interview, she said her constituents would reward her hard work by re-electing her,” Reid said.
“So tell me, Senator, how does that work when your state is already purging voters? Some of your voters, too. I guess sacrificing democracy is worth it as long as Tempe and Tucson [she meant Phoenix] get a couple of new roads, eh? And so for all of that, Senator Sinema, you, my dear, are the absolute worst.”
That’s where the early Wednesday push to take up the legislation came.
“These are important points to build a case that Republicans are going to filibuster everything and are bad-faith actors on this topic,” said Adam Bozzi, a longtime Senate aide who is now helping lead a $30 million campaign to build support for the bill.
We already know this – a seditious insurrection to overthrow American democracy on January 6 forever cemented the GQP as the Sedition Party. They are anti-democratic, anti-majoritarian, and anti-American. A tyranny of the minority.
President Joe Biden has faced increasing pressure from the party’s base to get more involved in the fight over voting legislation. Many activists say Biden has only paid lip service to the issue, instead prioritizing a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package, which the Senate approved Tuesday.
With that done, they hope he will be more engaged on the issue.
“The White House must now prioritize voting rights legislation with the same level of urgency and commitment as the bipartisan infrastructure bill,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said. “Time is running out.”
“There is a tight deadline for getting all this done,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga.
[I]t’s also proved difficult for Senate Democrats to unify their own caucus around the issue. Manchin initially balked at voting for the bill, though he agreed to do so after Senate leaders pledged to work with him to narrow the measure’s focus.
After weeks of work, they have neared completion of a bill. But that’s not what they voted on Wednesday.
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Keep writing Sinema. Her ads on TV here in AZ are sickening. She is a total fraud. Phone her office repeatedly so she knows she is going to pay for her obstructionist stance.
“Senator Sinema, you, my dear, are the absolute worst.”
Verified.