The US Senate Majority Leader…Senator Schumer admits he’s got a hard job getting support to drop the filibuster rule in his chamber to get a Voting Rights piece of legislation passed that would help Democrats counter Republican voter suppression efforts across the country…..
With this and a stalled Biden social spending package?
The Democrats and President Biden maybe finished for any meaningful legislation passing for the rest of Biden’s term in office….
And?
Democrats can’t blame the Republicans who are watching this from the sidelines with amusement …..
Speaking at a Center for American Progress event on Tuesday evening, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer acknowledged that Senate Democrats are not there yet in trying to woo Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) to change chamber rules enough that election reform legislation can pass.
“I don’t want to delude your listeners: This is an uphill fight, because Manchin and Sinema both do not believe in changing the rules.”
— Majority Leader Chuck Schumer
Schumer’s promise remains: Votes on legislation dealing with elections reform and beefing up the Voting Rights Act, as well as changes to the Senate’s rules. He also promised not to give up if this week’s push fell flat, though didn’t outline what any future efforts would entail.
His plea: Schumer called for public pressure on Manchin and Sinema to accept some of these changes. “Getting as many calls and emails and everything else to both Senators Manchin and Sinema telling them how important this is in this last hour is important,” he said.
Our read: Democrats have framed this issue as one where they can’t fail — and yet they lack the votes or a clear path to get it done. Schumer’s offering a dose of real talk about the odds of success — and perhaps trying to lessen the blow if they do come up short….
Since the 2020 election, hundreds of new voter restriction bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the country, and dozens were enacted into law. In many cases, these bills were a response to the Big Lie. Those incessant claims of fraud created an appetite among Republican voters for answers, solutions and, most importantly, justice. In response, a vast network of right-wing influencers — both emergent and established — began feeding that appetite by investigating dubious claims and concocting new election laws.
State legislators have heeded the call. FiveThirtyEight created a database cataloging these acts at the state level, including every voter restriction bill introduced and every third-party partisan audit conducted.2 (We have fun around here — you can join in by seeing the full data set on our Github.) What’s revealed is an anti-democratic shift among the GOP, catalyzed by the Big Lie and ushered in by a network of right-wing power brokers….
Voting Rights Update….
Unless Manchin or Sinema have Progressive ‘mind melt’?
This is just ‘show’ to satisfy the Progressive’s ….
No Bill?
IS NO BILL…..
Senate Democrats plan to press ahead this week with an effort to push new voting rights protections through Congress, in an all but doomed attempt to enact a key piece of President Biden’s agenda that has been undercut by members of his own party.
The Senate on Tuesday will begin to debate legislation that combines two separate bills already passed by the House — the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act — and folds them into an unrelated measure. The move would allow the Senate to bring the bill directly to the floor, avoiding an initial filibuster.
But that strategy would still allow Republicans to block it from coming to a final vote, and Democrats lack the unanimous support needed in their party to change Senate rules to muscle through the legislation themselves. Still, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said late last week that Democrats would forge ahead anyway, forcing Republicans to publicly declare their opposition to the bill.
“We all have to be recorded at this moment in time about where are we in protecting the right to vote,” Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “Right now, it doesn’t look like it has the votes to pass, but we’re going to cancel our Martin Luther King Day recess and be there this week because we think it’s so important for the country.”….
More….
Harris wasting her breath…
She does NOT count on dealing with Sinema and Manchin
Harris ‘Not Going to Absolve’ Manchin and Sinema
Vice President Kamala Harris said that she is “not going to absolve” any member of the Senate who will not take action to pass voting rights legislation when she was asked specifically about Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Axios reports.
Said Harris: “As I’ve said before, there are a hundred members of the United States Senate, and I’m not going to absolve — nor should any of us — absolve any member of the United States Senate from taking on a responsibility to follow through on the oath that they all took to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Big Lie # 1: the election was stolen from Trump
Big Lie #2 : that there is anything going on in America that remotely resembles “voter suppression.”
Now, there is a problem with how some people want to dishonestly or inaccurately count votes and that needs to be addressed (such as reforming the Electoral COUNT Act) but it is simply not true that eligible voters cannot cast a legitimate vote. Voting is easier than it ever has been.
Politicians prefer to campaign and raise money on outrage and grievance though. We see it on both sides. They lie to their bases in order to try gin up turnout, (instead of trying to appeal to voters in the middle) and to raise money for themselves.
Astounding, but understandable, that our resident Republican Corey would deny the existence of voter suppression efforts on this day of all days. Dr. King lost his life in part for his efforts to end voter suppression here in the United States.
The only Republican in the United States Senate willing to support the John Lewis Voter Protection Act is Senator Murkowski of Alaska, just one, but I am sure that Senator Collins is concerned. Voter access used to be non-partisan before it became too dangerous for Republican office holders.
Are there voter suppression efforts in the United States? Well, there are in at least 20 red states, and this shit has been going on for years, and it is almost exclusively from the Republican side.
I would argue that last January’s efforts by Republicans to overthrow a legal election was the ultimate voter suppression activity. The fake Electoral College submissions also qualify as voter suppression. The majority of the Republican Party sought to overturn a legitimately elected President, reversing the decision of the American voters, and they haven’t even apologized for that effort.
Today I noticed that this “nothing to see here” voter suppression refrain was very popular on social media among those of the right wing persuasion. But there is something to see.
Right now Republican Legislatures are busy taking the control of the election process away from local authorities and giving themselves the final decision making ability to nullify election results. Does anyone, except maybe Corey, believe they wouldn’t suddenly change election results for future elections — especially for President?
Today, states like Georgia, Arizona, Florida, and Texas have taken steps to curtail early voting, eliminate ballot drop boxes, and stop Sunday voting. That’s voter suppression and these states are turning up the heat. For example, Texas has a strict voter ID law and a federal court has found that some residents, many of them poor, have to travel up to 250 miles to get the proper identification — that is voter suppression. In fact, Texas won’t accept a state issued university ID to vote, but will accept a state gun permit — really, why do we think that would be?
As far as Georgia is concerned, the current Governor won his office three years ago by disqualifying thousands of new black voters on the most flimsy of technicalities. That’s voter suppression.
We cannot forget polling place consolidation, that only appears to happen in predominately black communities. Last year, Texas closed more polling places than any other state in the country – in mostly minority communities. Who can never forget the efforts of the Texas Attorney General and Governor to limit or even eliminate absentee drop boxes. Just recently Georgia’s new and “improved” election authority closed all but one polling place in a small majority black county, I wonder why?
Florida Republicans, after the voters of the State returned the voting rights of felons who have completed their prison sentences, decided that before they could really vote they had to pay restitution for their crimes, keeping thousands of black and brown people from the polls by finding a very clever new 21st Century poll tax. Better than guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar.
I can go on, there is plenty of evidence that Republicans specifically have worked to limit access to the ballot box. Mitch McConnell, in a moment of candor, admitted that Republicans lose when more people vote. Lindsay Graham and Donald Trump, the head of the Republican Party, have said similar things.
Is it any wonder that the same blogger who has, for over a decade, denied that Republicans have used race and white resentment to win elections would now claim that voter suppression doesn’t exist?
Keith is right.
I don’t pay more attention to CG as I do to James. In my opinion, Neither are serious people (although I doubt this view is not shared by everyone here). Both think they are actually reasonably intelligent, but neither is able to effectively explain why they believe what they do. As the most. Partisan Republican I personally know, CG would never be tolerant of efforts to replace election officials in areas that Republicans won with elected Democratic officials from another part of the state – and he shouldn’t. Instead, he will say”nothing to see here” as he does with most Republican mischief.
Jack is right. CG should get those GOP license plates back.
Here’s a simple question…
Most election officials in the country conceded that the 2020 election was one of the best run in their memory.They noted that what problems existed were relatively minor ..
The there was Donald Trumps lies, blatant ,with not even the veneer of legitimacy.
And ,all of a sudden ,and responding directly to the perceived directive of their “boss,” Republican legislators began falling all over each other to adopt so called “reforms.”The question is ,where was the need for this “reform?”Certainly not from election officials,you know the people who actually ran the election.No the cry for “reform” came from Republican political hacks acting on the perceived “order” of Boss Trump.
That fact alone makes all of these so called “reforms”highly suspect and ,done for no other reason than to make it more difficult for certain people to vote.