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US Major Voting Reforms: HR1

ZiprHead said:
76% of W Virginians support HR1. 68% support the infrastructure bill. I don't understand what Manchin is thinking.
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I think all those times he was made to sing kumbaya in elementary school are catching up with him.
 
Gotta admit; Trausti has a point. McCain's thumbs-down moment helped the democrats. The Manchin kumbaya songs are helping republicans.
 
Gospel said:
Gotta admit; Trausti has a point. McCain's thumbs-down moment helped the democrats. The Manchin kumbaya songs are helping republicans.
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The differences are profound. For one thing Manchin has not yet cast any decisive votes. For another, the leader of McCain’s party condemned and vilified him.
If Manchin ever stood up to those tests and Repugs praised him, that would be fair. But I sense that unlike McCain, Manchin is an opportunistic weenie milking the moment of fame for his personal benefit, and to the detriment of American democracy.
 
Standing in the way of this, however, are Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). In his column, Manchin says he opposes the For The People Act because it is not bipartisan legislation.

[P]artisan policymaking won’t instill confidence in our democracy — it will destroy it.

As such, congressional action on federal voting rights legislation must be the result of both Democrats and Republicans coming together to find a pathway forward or we risk further dividing and destroying the republic we swore to protect and defend as elected officials.

...Democrats in Congress have proposed a sweeping election reform bill called the For the People Act. This more than 800-page bill has garnered zero Republican support.

This argument is very strange. On an entirely partisan basis, Republicans in the states are taking steps that Manchin himself acknowledges "needlessly restrict voting." But Manchin says he will only agree to stop this partisan power grab if Republicans agree to join him.

This is the exact same argument the Chamber used in talking points it sent to Senators in April opposing the legislation.

The Chamber believes the ability of Americans to exercise their right to vote in accessible and secure elections and to be able to trust in a free and fair outcome is fundamental to who we are as a nation. The Chamber is deeply troubled by efforts at the state and federal level to enact election law changes on a partisan basis. Changes enacted on a partisan basis are the most likely to erode access and security and undermine public confidence and the willingness of the American people to trust and accept future election outcomes.

The Chamber acknowledges that state laws, like Texas' SB 7, are being advanced by Republicans alone. The Chamber, however, has not opposed SB 7 or any other state legislation. But it insists federal legislation to stop this Republican power grab must be bipartisan.

While the argument crafted by the Chamber and adopted by Manchin is designed to seem centrist and reasonable, it has the same practical effect as opposing all federal legislation to protect voting rights. Why? Because there do not appear to be ten Republicans that will support any federal law to protect voting rights.
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The Heritage Foundation is actually running commercials in support of Manchin in WV. So it's coming down to money.
 
ZiprHead said:
Republicans in the states are taking steps that Manchin himself acknowledges "needlessly restrict voting." But Manchin says he will only agree to stop this partisan power grab if Republicans agree to join him.
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IOW he's grandstanding. Call his bluff, Chuck.
 
ZiprHead said:
View attachment 34003
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Sheesh - I hate cartoon physics.
Actually, as drawn, he WOULD be helping - his feet are either firmly affixed to the plank, or he'd topple onto the Dem side of the seesaw.
I do suspect that the latter is the actual case, and he'll cave when the rest of the Party gets sick enough of his grandstanding.

E3U-3XUWQAEtrYR.jpg
 
laughing dog said:
Trausti said:
lpetrich said:
On Cloture on the Motion to Proceed (Motion to Invoke Cloture: Motion to Proceed to S. 2093)
for
S.2093 - 117th Congress (2021-2022): For the People Act of 2021 | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

The vote: 50-50 on partisan lines. Not enough to overcome the Republicans' filibuster.
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Hah, hah.
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Seems a bit hypocritical to whine about free speech while applauding efforts to have debate on a bill.
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Yeah. As the Dems did this quite a lot when Trump was President, super hypocritical for them to complain.
 
Trausti said:
laughing dog said:
Seems a bit hypocritical to whine about free speech while applauding efforts to have debate on a bill.
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Yeah. As the Dems did this quite a lot when Trump was President, super hypocritical for them to complain.
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It is. I used to be in favor of keeping the actual filibuster and dumping the procedural one. I am leaning now to just getting rid of them.
 
Rep. Pramila Jayapal on Twitter: "Your daily reminder: the 50 Democratic Senators represent 41,549,808 more people than the 50 Republican Senators who filibustered critical voting rights legislation last night.

We need to end the tyranny of the minority by ending the filibuster." / Twitter

-

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Call me radical, but I do not believe a minority of Senators should be able to block voting rights for millions of people.

But I guess I’m just from that far-left school of thought that legislation should pass when a majority of legislators vote for it" / Twitter

-

Someone grumbled that AOC changed her mind. This is from

NBC News on Twitter: "JUST IN: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has "set the record for the longest continuous speech in the House since at least 1909," House Historian says. Pelosi has been speaking for more than 7 hours about Dreamers and DACA. Watch live: (links)" / Twitter
Time: 2:19 PM · Feb 7, 2018

Then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "
Seven hour filibuster 🕰
in 4 inch heels, 👠
without water, 🗣
and no bathroom breaks? 🙅🏽*♀️

This is the spirited defense DREAMers have earned.

Now let’s translate it to results. (link)" / Twitter

But that was the old-fashioned kind of filibuster, where one gets up and talks and talks and talks. The Senate's current version is that any Senator can call in a hold, and that is only a few decades old. Sort of like the fake war in Star Trek TOS "A Taste of Armageddon", done out of fear of a real war.
 
What I'm confused about is this whole State having the right to decide how to conduct its own elections thingy. I get it when talking about state elections (all levels) but isn't the presidential election a federal election? If it's a federal election why wouldn't the Fed's have a say in how their election goes in every state?
 
laughing dog said:
Trausti said:
lpetrich said:
On Cloture on the Motion to Proceed (Motion to Invoke Cloture: Motion to Proceed to S. 2093)
for
S.2093 - 117th Congress (2021-2022): For the People Act of 2021 | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

The vote: 50-50 on partisan lines. Not enough to overcome the Republicans' filibuster.
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Hah, hah.
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Was this it? :confused: Why did you quote it, laughing dog? Afraid that some of us would miss out on Trausti's brilliancy?

Gospel said:
What I'm confused about is this whole State having the right to decide how to conduct its own elections thingy. I get it when talking about state elections (all levels) but isn't the presidential election a federal election? If it's a federal election why wouldn't the Fed's have a say in how their election goes in every state?
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"Wouldn't" or "Shouldn't"?

There was the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but that was annulled several decades later by Chief Justice Roberts and four other GOP stooges. (That Act was passed when it was the Ds — not the Rs — which was the party of anti-black racism. "On May 26, the Senate passed the bill by a 77-19 vote (Democrats 47-16, Republicans 30-2); only senators representing Southern states voted against it." The Ds knew they needed racist voters to win elections — sure enough, they lost the next Presidential election — but voted for the good of democracy. Contrast that with present-day Rs, some of whom may not actually hate Blacks, but make such hatreds their guiding principles anyway.)

There was also a consent decree from the early 1980s directed against GOP mischief which was allowed to expire a few years ago.

Finally, 50 Senators is not enough to pass a law, and won't be until Joe Manchin gets tired of suckling at Charles Koch's teet.
 
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