2021…..
Republican voter suppression on a state level in 3 states and counting…..
Donald Trump presidential lose after effect…..
The Republican-controlled Texas State Senate passed a bill early Sunday that would impose a raft of new voting restrictions in the state, moving a step closer to the expected full passage of what would be among the most far-reaching laws in Republicans’ nationwide drive to overhaul elections systems and limit voting.
The bill would tighten what are already some of the country’s strictest voting laws, and it would specifically target balloting methods that were employed for the first time last year by Harris County, home to Houston.
In addition to banning drive-through voting and 24-hour voting, which were used by nearly 140,000 voters in Harris County during the 2020 election, the bill would prohibit election officials from sending absentee ballots to all voters, regardless of whether they had requested them; ban using tents, garages, mobile units or any temporary structure as a polling location; further limit who could vote absentee; and add new identification requirements for voting by mail.
Partisan poll watchers would also have more access and autonomy under the bill’s provisions, and election officials could be more harshly punished if they make mistakes or otherwise run afoul of election codes and laws…
…
Texas is one of several Republican-led states — including Iowa, Georgia and Florida — that have moved since the 2020 presidential contest to pass new laws governing elections and restricting voting. The impetus is both Republicans’ desire to appease their base, much of which continues to believe former President Donald J. Trump’s lies about a stolen election, and the party’s worries about a changing electorate that could threaten the G.O.P.’s longtime grip on power in places like Texas, the second-biggest state in the country….
Democrats counter….
POLITICO
@politico
House Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries on Sunday slammed proposed voting restrictions in Texas, accusing Republicans of seeking to “make it harder to vote and easier to steal an election”
Post link….
Jeffries is probably the House Dem leader in waiting…..
I do Not think Pelosi will step down until AFTER the 2024 election results…
I could easily be wrong, but I wouldn’t think that the Dems would want both the Senate Majority leader and the House leader from NYC.
Schumer isn’t gonna be the Majority leader…
Try Minority leader…
I’m ralking sbout 2025
I don’t know which party will control either the House or the Senate in the future, but I would think the Dems would want their two leaders to be from different states.
Although it’s a completely different situation, the Republican Conference Chairs in both the House and Senate were, until recently, from Wyoming (John Barrasso and Liz Cheney).
Update on Texas……
Dem lawmakers walked out of the state chamber right before the vote on voting restriction bill ……
That adjourned the session with out a vote…
Stay tuned for more…
Abbot says he will call a special session.
It’s going to pass.
The only question is the date.
I agree….
The Texas situation has gone off the rails…
James, Hakeem Jeffries is not the Majority Leader (2nd in rank to the Speaker, when the Speaker is a Democrat); Jim Clyburn of South Carolina is.
Jeffries, as Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, currently ranks 5th in the Democratic hierarchy, after Reps. Pelosi & Clyburn, House Majority Whip Steny Hoyer (Md) and Assistant Speaker (or Asst Leader) Katharine Clark (Mass.)
But if Nancy Pelosi were no longer Speaker, the Democratic caucus would eventually nominate a new one (for election by the House as a whole) — who could be Rep. Jeffries — and elect whatever other new officers the members chose.
Jefferies IS prominently mentioned as Pelosi’s succorer…..
Therefore?
‘Jeffries is probably the House Dem leader in waiting…..’
Two reasons for this…
Racism and fealty to Donald Trump
The Republican Party 2021
Just hanging onto power (when the electorate is turning away from you) is probably the greatest motivator for the voting restrictions, powerful as Trumpolatry and racism also are.
I have to be careful about being too condemnatory, however, because one of my old Berkeley comrades (arrested in the Free Speech sit-in of December 1964) later moved to Dallas and applied his mathematical training in the 1990’s to drawing lines so as to keep a Democratic majority in the Texas legislature while Bob Bullock (D) was still House Speaker and the statewide sum of individual district votes had turned Republican.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/31/politics/democracy-danger-memorial-day/index.html