GOP Can't Win: They Change the Laws & Rules Making It Easy for Them to Win at All Costs

 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) Lunatic Leading the Pack 

My introduction to this rather long but timely article:

When Republicans lose an election like Trump did in 2020 despite all his hype, lies, and BS (including losing 60 court challenges) what do they do? Do they campaign harder, work harder, stay on message and such?

Hell no. They get to work to rewrite voting laws and try and change the very foundation of America that they all profess to want to protect and defend: Our fair, free, and secure voting rights. Tell me that's not true.

A lot more on this topic follows below.

Voting rights (again) under massive Republican assault with the same theme: “Help us, and blame Democrats for all the flaws in the system we so dearly want to protect.”  /s/ Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), now leading this insane assault. The latest here from The AP with this headline:

“An all-hands moment as GOP rallies behind voting limits”

Main Subject: On an invitation-only call last week, Sen. Ted Cruz huddled with Republican state lawmakers to call them to battle on the issue of voting rights.

This article is quite long – the highlights are below with my formatting to fit the blog to make Cruz’s insane points:

Cruz claimed to the Republican audience, organized by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a corporate-backed ultra-conservative group that provides model legislation to state legislators, that they must do all they can to stop them Democrats as they seek to push through far-reaching election legislation (H.R.1), now before the Senate. Cruz said if it passes, the GOP won't win elections again for generations, saying: “The Democrats are trying to expand voting rights to illegal aliens and child molesters and we must do all we can to stop them.”

Cruz was asked if there was room to compromise, and he bluntly said: “No.”

Cruz then said: “H.R. 1 only objective is to ensure that Democrats can never again lose another election, that they will win and maintain control of the House of Representatives and the Senate and of the state legislatures for the next century.”

From statehouses to Washington, the fight over who can vote and how — often cast as “voting integrity” — has galvanized a Republican Party in search of unifying mission in the post-Trump era. For a powerful network of conservatives, voting restrictions are now viewed as a political life-or-death debate.

It even eclipses traditional Republican issues like abortion, gun rights, and tax cuts as their main organizing tool.

That potency is drawing influential figures and money from across the right, ensuring that the clash over the legislation in Washington will be partisan and expensive.

Jessica Anderson, the Executive Director of the Heritage Action, an influential conservative advocacy group in Washington said: “It kind of feels like an all-hands-on-deck moment for the conservative movement, when the movement writ large realizes the sanctity of our elections is paramount and voter distrust is at an all-time high. We’ve had a bit of a battle cry from the grassroots, urging us to pick this fight.”

Several other prominent groups have recently entered the fray: (1) Anti-abortion rights group like the Susan B. Anthony List, has partnered with another conservative Christian groups to fund a new organization, (2) the Election Transparency Initiative, (3) Freedom Works, a group formed to push for smaller government (that replaced the TEA Party now a defunct movement), has initiated a $10 million calling for tighter voting laws in the states. It will be run by Cleta Mitchell, a prominent Republican attorney who advised the former President, and (4) Heritage Action that announced a new effort also focused on changes in state voting laws. It included a $700,000 ad campaign to back GOP-written bills in Georgia, the group's first foray into advocating for state policy.

So far, the states have been the center of this new focused debate. 

For example, more than 250 bills have been introduced in 43 states that would change how Americans vote, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU (experts who backs expanded voting access to protect those rights). Many of those bill include measures that (1) would limit mail voting, (2) cut hours that polling places are open, and (3) impose restrictions that Democrats argue amount to the greatest assault on voting rights since the Jim Crow era.

That GOP push was triggered by Trump's lies that he lost the presidential election due to fraud — claims rejected by over 60 court decisions and numerous and prominent state and congressional Republicans. Trump’s smoke and mirrors and groundless claims triggered the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Now Senate DEMS have H.R.1 that the House passed for full Senate approval with an array of voting changes.

The bill would: (1) would require states to automatically register eligible voters, as well as offering same-day registration, (2) limit states’ ability to purge registered voters from their rolls, (3) restore former felons’ voting rights, (4) require states to offer 15 days of early voting, and (5) allow no-excuse absentee balloting.

Democrats are marshaling their own resources behind the bill, argue it is necessary to block what they describe as voter suppression efforts in the various states.

Republicans on the other hand (like Cruz contend) it's a grab bag of long-sought Democratic goals aimed at tilting elections in their favor by his wild claim it would lead to voting by millions of “criminals and illegal aliens.” Cruz also claims DEMS say: “America would be better off if more murderers were voting, America would be better off if more rapists and child molesters were voting.” He then went on to add that he had recently participated in an all-day strategy call with national conservative leaders to coordinate opposition with those agreeing that Republicans would seek to rebrand the Democratic-backed bill as the “Corrupt Politicians Act.”

Then add this old GOP favorite the mix: This group with no clear interest in the voting debate (via a televised town hall in February) was the leading Christian conservative Tony Perkins fielded several questions about voting before tackling topics on the social issues his Family Research Council typically focuses on. Perkins recalled how voting laws were made stricter in his native Louisiana after a close 1996 Senate race won by DEMS, then noting LA is now solid GOP.

Perkins said before he urged viewers to push their state lawmakers to “restore election integrity” then adding: “When you have free, fair elections, you're going to have outcomes that are positive.”

Stronger voting regulations have long been a conservative goal, driven by old — and some say outdated — conventional wisdom that Republicans thrive in elections with lower turnout, and Democrats in ones with more voters. That has translated to GOP efforts to tighten voter identification laws and require more frequent voter roll purges. Both efforts tend to disproportionally exclude Black and Latino voters, groups that lean Democratic.

In a sign of the increasing attention to the issue last year, Leonard Leo, a Trump advisor and one of the strategists behind the conservative focus on the federal judiciary, formed The Honest Elections Project to push for voting restrictions and coordinate GOP effort to monitor the 2020 vote.

While Leo's group, like other parts of the establishment GOP, kept a distance from such claims, state lawmakers stepped in quickly with bills aimed at fixing phantom problems and restoring confidence in the system. Leo's group has since released a list of its preferred voting law changes.

Other outside groups soon jumped into the debate that's roiling their activists who write the letters, make phone calls and send the small donations that keep the groups relevant.

My 2 cents: Yes, a very long article and very timely, too. The bottom line as I see it and have read and studied this issue to me is simple: The GOP can’t win with their shear voter numbers, so change the rules to favor them – ergo: Allow them to win at any and all costs, and believe me these harsh GOP measures will cost us plenty.

Also, I'm sure you have noticed as I have over the years how the GOP always uses fancy titles for their dirty deeds like “Patriot Party, TEA Party, Freedom Party, USA this or that, and now  MAGA, etc., etc.,” thus appealing to flag waving GOPers who sign on to just about anything their party markets as all-American and sells them. I call it the “Art of the Con.”

Stay tuned and thanks for stopping by.