This is the week that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has vowed to bring the voting rights bills back for another vote, and to change the Senate procedural rules if necessary to pass them.
The Sedition Party enemies of democracy remain united in their opposition to voting rights. They want to protect their systematic undermining of American democracy in state legislatures and local election boards in order to steal elections, and to impose their permanent GQP authoritarian tyranny of the minority.
Don’t speak to me of so-called “moderate” GQP Senators like Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski. Neither of them are courageous enough to speak out against the undermining of American democracy by their party. Their silene is consent. They are complict. Their lack of convictions to America democracy are damning.
Two Vichy Democrats who are collaborators with the Sedition Party, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, are appeasing the enemies of democracy by allowing them to destroy American democracy in the name of preserving the Jim Crow relic Senate filibuster rule. This is why democracy dies?
They appear willing to step into the shoes of notorious Southern segregationists like Strom Thurmond and Richard Russell, Jr. who at least had the conviction to stand in the well of the Senate and filibuster civil rights and voting rights bills during the Jim crow era. These two craven coward Democrats simply use a deeply flawed Senate filibuster rule which allows a minority of senators to not even proceed to debate, without ever having to hold the floor and filibuster a bill.
History will condemn those senators who will not do the bare minimum required to save American democracy from a domestic enemy of democracy to pass voting rights legislation. Their traitorous appeasement will not end well for them. Patriotic Americans who will defend American democracy in a popular resistance movement to GQP tyranny will remember who was a traitor to American democracy and eventually hold them accountable.
The Hill reports, This week: Democrats face crunch time on voting rights:
Democrats are hitting a crucial stretch in their push to pass voting rights legislation ahead of the 2022 election.
With Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) vowing to bring up a vote on changing the Senate rules to allow Democrats to pass voting rights on their own by Jan. 17, Democrats have a matter of days to come up with a deal that unifies their entire caucus.
“I believe the Senate needs to be restored to its rightful status as the world’s greatest deliberative body. …If Republicans continue to hijack the rules of the chamber to protect us from protecting our democracy, then the Senate will debate and consider changes to the rules on or before Jan. 17,” Schumer said during a lengthy floor speech on Friday.
“If Senate Republicans continue to abuse the filibuster to prevent this body from acting, then I would plead with the Senate—particularly my colleagues on this side of the aisle—to adapt. And we must adapt for the sake of our democracy,” he added.
President Biden and Vice President Harris are also expected to head to Georgia this week to highlight the push for voting rights as states, including Georgia, are debating or have passed new voting rules in the wake of the 2020 election that former President Trump falsely claimed was stolen.
Republicans have used the 60-vote legislative filibuster to block two sweeping election bills and a third voting bill named after the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) that would expand the 1965 Voting Rights Act after a key section was gutted by a 2013 Supreme Court decision.
Schumer has vowed that he will force a vote again on election-related legislation and if Republicans use the filibuster to block it, as they are expected to, he’ll bring up a potential rules change.
Democrats haven’t outlined what their rules proposal will be as they bat around several ideas. One potential change would involve creating a carve out that would exempt voting-related legislation from the 60-vote threshold while leaving it in place for other legislation. They are also discussing a talking filibuster that would allow opponents to delay a bill as long as they hold the floor but that legislation would eventually be able to pass by a simple majority.
Democrats are also discussing smaller changes like moving the emphasis from needing 60 votes to break a filibuster to needing 41 votes to uphold a filibuster, or getting rid of the 60-vote hurdle currently required to start debate while keeping the same threshold in place on needing to end debate.
But to change the rules without GOP support, Schumer will need total unity from all 50 members of his caucus, something he doesn’t have yet.
Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Angus King (I-Maine) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) have been working to try to sway Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) into changing the legislative filibuster without GOP support despite his previous opposition to using the “nuclear option,” changing the rules along a simple majority.
Vichy Democrats Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have indicated that they remain supportive of a suprmajority requirement for legislation, underscoring the long-shot chances for Democrats to win over both of them in roughly a week.
Manchin, after a meeting with Schumer and the group leading the rules change discussions, floated modest rules changes including getting rid of the 60-vote hurdle for starting debate. But he hasn’t indicated that he’s moved off wanting any rules change discussions to be bipartisan.
Manchin is still asking the enemies of democracy for their permission for a rule change to save American democracy. This ignorant hillbilly is a goddamn fool.
No Sedition Party Republicans would support lowering the 60-vote hurdle needed for most legislation to pass the Senate.
The “Grim Reaper of Democracy,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) staff on Sunday blasted out a memo to reporters accusing Democrats of trying to “make another run at their radical takeover — of the Senate, of elections, and of America.”
Republicans have always excelled at psychological projection in their fascist propaganda. They always project onto their opponents exactly what they are doing. It is a tell as to what their actual motives are.
There is no genuine debate about who the anti-democracy party is, and who the pro-democracy party is. The Republican Party engaged in a violent insurrection aginst the U.S. government on January 6, 2021 to overturn the will of the voters in a fair and free election. 147 Republicans in Congress voted in favor of that seditious insurrection. The 147 Republican lawmakers who still objected to the election results even after the Capitol attack. We know who the enemies of democracy are.
But Democrats view voting rights legislation as a must-pass as Trump’s false claim of widespread election fraud during the 2020 election [the Big Lie] has spread throughout the GOP. Trump’s claims have been dismissed by election experts, as well as Bill Barr, who served as Trump’s attorney general and his legal team lost dozens of court challenges.
Clearly, at least two Vichy Democrats do not view voting rights legislation as must-pass legislation against Trump’s Big Lie. If they did, there would not be any doubt about passage of these bills this week.
As for the president’s and vice president’s trip to Georgia on Tuesday, Voting rights activists are asking them not to come unless they have an actual plan to pass voting rights this week. Don’t come to Atlanta without a plan to pass voting laws, groups tell Biden, Harris:
A coalition of Georgia voting rights groups says President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris should skip traveling to Atlanta next week unless they come with a concrete plan to pass federal voting laws immediately.
The statement [full statement at link above] was signed by the Black Voters Matter Fund, the Asian American Advocacy Fund, the New Georgia Project Action Fund and the GALEO Impact Action Fund, an organization representing Latinos. The groups reference Biden’s win in Georgia, plus Democrats’ victories in the January runoffs that gave the party control of the U.S. Senate.
“Georgia voters made history and made their voices heard, overcoming obstacles, threats, and suppressive laws to deliver the White House and the US Senate,” the statement said. “In return, a visit has been forced on them, requiring them to accept political platitudes and repetitious, bland promises. Such an empty gesture, without concrete action, without signs of real, tangible work, is unacceptable.”
The White House did not have an immediate response to the criticism from the voting groups. Press Secretary Jen Psaki during her daily press briefing reiterated statements Biden said in the past about supporting a Senate rule change to get voting bills passed, which is a priority for him. But the administration has not shared its game plan for overcoming the hurdles that remain.
[T]he statement from the voting rights groups says that they will “reject any visit by President Biden that does not include an announcement of a finalized voting rights plan that will pass both chambers, not be stopped by the filibuster, and be signed into law; anything less is insufficient and unwelcome.”
James Woodall, the former president of the Georgia NAACP, is among the signers of the statement. He said Biden and Harris are welcome to visit Atlanta, but what is really needed is that they work harder on Capitol Hill.
“The White House must respond to this current attack on democracy, and coming to Georgia for discussions is nice, but what we need is urgent action in D.C.,” he said. “We need to see the passage and signing of both the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.”
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Ramping up their pressure, Georgia “Voting Rights Groups Skipping Biden’s Speech in Georgia Over Inaction”, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/10/us/politics/biden-stacey-abrams-voting-rights.html
“[S]everal leading voting rights and civil rights groups are pointedly skipping the speech, protesting what they denounced as months of frustrating inaction by the White House — which they said showed that Mr. Biden did not view Republican attacks on voting rights with sufficient urgency.
“We do not need any more speeches, we don’t need any more platitudes,” said James Woodall, former president of the N.A.A.C.P. of Georgia. “We don’t need any more photo ops. We need action, and that actually is in the form of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, as well as the Freedom to Vote Act — and we need that immediately.”
Exasperation among voting rights groups has been building for months, as 19 states passed 34 new laws creating new restrictions on voting. One of the most sweeping new laws was signed in Georgia nearly 10 months ago.
Voting rights groups looked to Mr. Biden, who had pledged to protect the right to vote, for an aggressive response. He delivered a forceful speech last summer in Philadelphia, and assigned the voting rights portfolio to Ms. Harris. But the administration poured its energy into passing Mr. Biden’s economic agenda, including the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the sweeping Build Back Better plan.
The failure to press as hard for voting rights legislation has soured some of those advocates for voting rights on the administration.”
The main obstacle to passing voting rights legislation is the Senate, where a few Democratic senators remain opposed to modifying rules regarding the filibuster. But voting rights groups have lost patience with the White House for refraining to single out Senator Joe Manchin III or Senator Kyrsten Sinema for their opposition to changing the filibuster rules.
And the dangers of inaction, some advocates say, extend beyond voting rights, as legislation in several states has shifted authority over election administration to partisan officeholders.
“When you’re diagnosed with cancer, you don’t wait a year to start treatment,” said Ian Bassin, executive director of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan group dedicated to resisting authoritarianism. “The White House and Senate are starting to act with greater urgency, and there’s still time, but the president better be bringing a plan for chemo and radiation to Atlanta, because time is running out.”
Jonathan Capehart explains, “Georgia voting activists want to turn Biden away. They’ve got the wrong guy.”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/11/georgia-voting-rights-activists-biden-dont-come/
“After months of justified complaints that the White House was prioritizing everything except preserving voting rights, President Biden and Vice President Harris will head to Georgia on Tuesday to bring their spotlight to the fight. But a high-profile group of Peach State voting rights organizations is saying, “Don’t come.”
While the passion fueling their argument is understandable, their actual argument is not. They’ve got the wrong target, and the wrong tack.
Biden is neither an empowered king nor an autocrat. In our system of equal branches of government, whatever plan the advocates are demanding from Biden will have to stand on its own in Congress. Thanks to Georgia voters and the two Democrats they sent to the Senate, that party does have control of the chamber, but only by Harris’s tiebreaking vote. That dynamic gives recalcitrant Republicans and Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) incredible and irritating sway.
Biden and Harris are going to Georgia to do the one thing they absolutely can do: use the bully pulpit to drum up public support and pressure those standing in the way of progress. Biden must use the occasion to call for a filibuster carve-out for voting rights. And instead of railing against Biden and Harris, advocates should focus on convincing Manchin and Sinema that adherence to a Senate rule in the face of glaring voter suppression and potential voter subversion is a threat to democracy.
More importantly, though, where are the Republicans? Not only are they silent, but they have stopped votes even to debate the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
What advocates in Georgia should be demanding is that Republicans do their part to protect voting rights and help save our teetering democracy. We all should be. According to an analysis by The Post, “At least 163 Republicans who have embraced Trump’s false claims are running for statewide positions that would give them authority over the administration of elections.”
See, “How Republicans became the party of Trump’s election lie after Jan. 6”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/republicans-jan-6-election-lie/2022/01/05/82f4cad4-6cb6-11ec-974b-d1c6de8b26b0_story.html
At least 163 Republicans who have embraced Trump’s false claims are running for statewide positions that would give them authority over the administration of elections, according to a Post tally. The list includes 69 candidates for governor in 30 states, as well as 55 candidates for the U.S. Senate, 13 candidates for state attorney general and 18 candidates for secretary of state in places where that person is the state’s top election official.
“Two Vichy Democrats who are collaborators with the Sedition Party, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, are appeasing the enemies of democracy by allowing them to destroy American democracy in the name of preserving the Jim Crow relic Senate filibuster rule. This is why democracy dies?”
This is where we are, to be sure. Sinema’s defense of the filibuster sounds pretty damn silly while she appeases those on the right who are attempting to move the country toward fascism and authoritarianism. Apparently, she is okay with losing the Republic and blowing up the American Experiment as long as the Senate rules are intact.
Normally, traitors have some obvious motive. Traitors have motives. But I’ll just be hanged if I can figure out what Sinema’s motives might be. The logical explanation is that she’s serving one term and plans to walk away with tens of millions of dollars. But that conflicts with her vision of herself as the second coming of John McCain.
It’s just a really bad situation, really bad. Manchin and Sinema have left no doubt that democracy can die on their watch and it won’t bother them a bit.
“Normally, traitors have some obvious motive. Traitors have motives.” Martha McSinema’s motive seems to be landing a cushy no-show job with one of her major donors. Why should she care about being re-elected if she believes that’s her future?
Their motive is money.
I guess Sinema figures there’s no way for her to get rich by being an honorable person and legislator.
“I am, as you know, a Black person, descended of people who were given the vote by the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The 15th amendment was not a bipartisan vote, it was a single party vote that gave Black people the right to vote. Manchin and others need to stop saying that because that gives me great pain for somebody to imply that the 15th Amendment of the United States Constitution is not legitimate because it did not have bipartisan buy-in.” — Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), quoted by Politico.