End or Modify the Filibuster & Protect Voting Rights: Two Senate Issues the GOP Totally Hates

 

Civil Rights Bill (1964) Passed After Filibuster

(DEMS win after 75-day battle)

A long standing GOP voting rights goal

(Been that way for ages)

More on GOP voting rights and their efforts to make it harder, not easier; more difficult, not fair; and controlled, not safe for their benefit from NBC News here with this headline vis-à-vis the filibuster and voting rights:

“Scorched-earth Senate filibuster threat from Sen. McConnell needs to be tested”

There are certain principles that are too important, too essential, to allow a minority to hold them hostage. Voting rights and ballot access are among them.

Question: Should the senate filibuster be eliminated at least rewritten with a modern feel to it? The answer should be a resounding yes.

For example, the Senate (under McConnell) carved out plenty of other filibuster exceptions for special concerns, like (1) judicial nominees and (2) budgetary bills, which are now decided by simple majority votes (when the GOP had the majority, but now – the shoe is on the DEM foot and the GOP can’t stand that). What could be more special than the very foundation of our entire system of government than simply winning or losing an election?

The long-standing argument for maintaining the filibuster is that it encourages bipartisan compromise, the kind that ensures better and more sustainable legislation, because that legislation is more moderate and has more buy-in across the political spectrum.

Okay, but right now, our democracy is collapsing into a crisis of escalating battles over who can vote, where, when and how, undermining the basic legitimacy of our entire system, while bipartisanship is going away.

Bipartisanship over election rules is rational only when the rules of elections for each party's representatives are stable, fair, and in line with basic constitutional principles of democracy that treat all voters equally, regardless of their party affiliation, or the color of their skin.

Bipartisanship becomes irrational when these fundamental principles of democracy are contested and all politics is subsumed to bitter trench warfare over narrow majority control. Now context is everything.

For example: We are barely two months away from a violent mob attack on the Capitol (January 65) that was supported by then President Donald J. Trump, who had spent months falsely claiming that the 2020 election was “rigged, stolen and fraudulent and caused him to lose” to Joe Biden. That is all false across all states and courts.

Now, motivated by the “Big Lie,” re: Republican-controlled states are  moving aggressively  to change the basic rules of democracy with the increasingly explicit purpose of making it harder for Democrats to win and for people of color who support Democrats to exercise the right to vote.

For example:

In Texas, GOP lawmakers are proposing (1) to close polling places earlier, (2) to make it harder to vote by mail, and (3) to eliminate mass voting sites, which BTW many Democrats avail themselves to that as well as numerous Republicans.

In Georgia, Republican legislation would (1) restrict weekend voting and (2) mail voting, and again targeting methods used disproportionately by Democrats and minorities at that.

Republicans are expected to gain a big boost in the 2022 congressional elections in part by redrawing district lines like in Texas, Florida, Georgia, and several other RED-run states. 

If they succeed, Republicans could regularly win control of the House, the Senate, and the White House for at least a decade, if not longer, despite Democrats winning more votes nationwide for all three offices – a proven statistical fact.

Therefore keep this quip in mind: “Extended minority rule is the most dangerous kind of tyranny.”

Plus, our democracy is a fragile agreement, because it depends on the legitimacy of elections that all competing parties can agree are fair.

More specifically, winning parties don't abuse their victories to make it impossible for their opponents to ever win and that losing parties accept the results – then compete again in the next election through the ballot box rather than reject them through the barrel of a gun or rule changing we see right now and those proposed.

The existential danger here is that elected Republicans are now violating both precepts: (1) abusing their power wildly in the states they control through efforts like limiting voting and (2) aggressive gerrymandering, while tacitly (and sometimes explicitly) supporting violent rhetoric when they lose, calls that are clearly resonating with some Republican voters (e.g., the Capitol rioting).

If this isn't a screeching code red for American democracy, it's hard to imagine what would be.

Now, enter the For the People Act, the democracy reform bill that passed the House and now heads to the Senate. 

By laying down strong national baselines on voting rights and mandating independent redistricting commissions, the legislation would eliminate the kinds of democracy rollbacks state-level Republicans are contemplating, applying the brakes to the mad rush to rig the vote.

My 2 cents: DEMS must stand strong and united on the two main issues discussed above – do not give on inch to McConnell, otherwise the next he has the majority, he will take many extra miles and toss aside any inches. 

His history as pointed out above proves my point as does the three USSC nominees he ramrodded through the process. A well-known historical fact.

My earlier recent post on this same topic is here.

So, stay tuned and thanks for stopping by.