Here's a heartening statistic from this month's stunning Democratic wave: Democrats have a 7.8 point lead, so far, in the popular vote for the House. It's inching its way toward an 8-point lead as the final races are being called.
That, and the nearly 16 million more votes Democrats got in Senate races makes Trump an even greater popular vote loser. But still in power, and still with a Republican Senate. The system is rigged. It's rigged against the huge majority of American people.
That's something that House Democrats know too well, and are going to spend the next two years highlighting. They're developing a whole package of reforms designed to make the House more small-d democratic in a return to old norms and procedures that gave individual members more voice. But they're also going to push voting reforms, and have given them the symbolic importance of reserving the special designation of House Resolution 1 for legislation that restore the Voting Rights Act and establish automatic voter registration, along with other reforms.
Their legislation would take redistricting power away from state legislatures and give it to independent commissions. It would require more campaign finance disclosure. It would require presidential candidates release their tax returns. It would close a loophole that exempts the president from the ban on conflicts of interest that applies to other federally elected officials. They also intend to give voting rights to the House delegates and the Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico, giving 4.5 million American citizens a voice with a vote in Congress.
It's a blueprint for action that Democrats can rally around for the next two years, a touchstone for all of the people in the majority who voted for Democrats this year but still have Republican representation because of gerrymandering, voter suppression, and a profoundly un-democratic Senate.