I’m not much of an optimist these days about our Democratic leadership. Yes, they are better than fascism, but that’s not much of an inspiration for a liberal progressive. I’m as pragmatic as the endlessly compromising progressive wing in Congress, but some things just have to get done. No matter what, they matter. Voting Rights is the only thing that matters.
So here’s my contribution to keeping spirits up. According to www.electoral-vote.com, there is still a way for the Democratic Senate to pass Voting Rights without corporate-owned, democracy -hating Senator Manchin and soon-to-be-former senator Sinema. Meet Senate Rule XIX. This is the rule concerning how debates occur. You can read on their site, but I’ll post the steps here under that rule which allows the Democratic Senate to avoid the magic golden never-to-be-touched obstructionists dream filibuster. Paraphrasing from their website:
- Open debate: This Schumer can do without a fillibuster, through a few loopholes he can easily manage.
- A legislative day can go on for as long as needed: this is important because it keeps the Senate debate going longer than republicans can talk. The Senate goes into recess at the end of each day, instead of adjournment.
- Filibuster: Each republican is allowed to speak twice, but they cannot leave the senate floor. They could go on for about 25 days with maximum effort. But no longer than that. This is under the current rules.
- The bill comes up for a vote: With no other speakers allowed, after the last republican rises to speak, or if at anytime no one can or wants to stand, the bill gets a straight vote, needing only 51. All without changing anything to do with the filibuster.
Now, I’ll leave it to you to decide how much of a pipe dream this is — and at this point, we need something to have hope for our democracy. Electoral-vote does point out the first thing that has to happen just happened — the House joined the two voting bills together, needed for Schumer to begin debate.