I support and respect the diarist who wrote that Manchin’s statement on the For the People Act is a doozy. I recommend almost everything that I have read which the author has written. There is not a chance that I would have written or said what Manchin said about the bill obviously. For most Democrats, we would be disappointed at best if they said or wrote what Manchin said about the bill. However, we might have expected a much worse statement from Manchin. I dislike it. I find the overall tenor less positive than I would want. I can’t begin to fathom anybody other than a hard core republican who hates democracy opposing expanding access to the vote and opposing the For the People Act. Voter fraud is almost nonexistent.
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The Myth of Voter Fraud
Extensive research reveals that fraud is very rare. Yet repeated, false allegations of fraud can make it harder for millions of eligible Americans to participate in elections.
Politicians at all levels of government have repeatedly, and falsely, claimed the 2016, 2018, and 2020 elections were marred by large numbers of people voting illegally. However, extensive research reveals that fraud is very rare, voter impersonation is virtually nonexistent, and many instances of alleged fraud are, in fact, mistakes by voters or administrators. The same is true for mail ballots, which are secure and essential to holding a safe election amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The Brennan Center’s seminal report The Truth About Voter Fraud conclusively demonstrated that most allegations of fraud turn out to be baseless and that most of the few remaining allegations reveal irregularities and other forms of election misconduct. Numerous other studies, including one commissioned by the Trump administration, have reached the same conclusion.
Voter fraud is unacceptable, but we must find solutions that address actual problems instead of imposing policies that make it harder for millions of eligible Americans to participate in our democracy.
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Since voter fraud is rare, then the republican bills are not actually trying to solve a real problem. Senator Manchin must know that voter fraud is almost nonexistent. He could not have missed two thirds of House Republicans (139) voting to challenge the electoral college votes and eight Senate Republicans joining them in written challenges to the electoral college vote even after the insurrection. He must know that Donald Trump constantly made unsupported claims about widespread voter fraud. This is, in theory, the raison d’etre for Trump’s lawsuits. He cannot be ignorant of Donald Trump’s still 87% approval rating among republicans. This leads to two points: (1) in view of all of this, how can Joe Manchin expect support from Congressional Republicans of the For the People Act and (2) It is truly remarkable that despite all of Trump’s lies, more than two thirds of registered voters and nearly three fifths of republican voters support the For the People Act. Polling shows that it has a +48% approval from likely voters, sixty seven percent of likely voters support the bill and nineteen percent of likely voters oppose the bill.
Republican candidates for president have lost the popular vote seven of the last presidential elections. That’s a remarkable fact. Twenty seven million more voters voted for Democratic Party candidates for US Senate in the general election when you add up all votes in all three cohorts compared to their Republican Party counterparts. President Joe Biden won seven million more votes than Donald Trump. Democratic Party candidates for the US House of Representatives won five million more votes than their Republican Party counterparts. Republican Party leaders have continued to be confronted with a choice: moderate their policies to appeal to a larger and more diverse group of voters or suppress the vote and rely on the advantage that the US Constitution gives them despite only winning a minority of votes. They have consistently chosen to suppress the vote and rely upon the advantage that they have in the US Constitution. They have written 253 voter suppression bills. They know that the more eligible and registered voters who vote, in general, the worse that they will fare. Ted Cruz accidentally admitted that when he said
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It's keeping Democrats in power for 100 years. And how do they do this? They do this by instituting a bill that will promote widespread fraud and illegal voting.
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Donald Trump said the same thing:
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Trump says mail voting means Republicans would lose every election
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That’s why he said that the ballots are a mess and that we have to get rid of the ballots. Because of Donald Trump’s high approval numbers among republican voters, Congressional Republicans are afraid to cross him for fear that he would support a primary challenger and they would lose the primary. When this is the case and Congressional Republicans know that they must suppress the vote to win, then how can Joe Manchin expect Congressional Republicans to back the For the People Act ? It’s not rational. When republicans have created 253 voter suppression bills because they know that they can’t win nationally without suppressing the vote, why would he think that Congressional Republicans will support the bill ? Since voter fraud is not a real problem, then why does Joe Manchin think that republicans have created so many bills which suppress the vote ?
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Moreover, the reason why some voters lack confidence in our elections is because Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans kept feeding them lies that said that there was widespread voter fraud. Why would Manchin expect, when they did that, that they would support the For the People Act ?
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The fact is that democracy doesn’t work without a huge percentage of eligible and registered voters voting. Elections are the way that voters hold elected officials accountable. If the vote is suppressed, then there may not be consequences for supporting unpopular bills and opposing popular bills. If we don’t stop the republican’s voter suppression effort, then there is a very good chance that we will lose control of Congress. This is, of course, the goal of the GOP with their voter suppression efforts. The Brennan Center for Justice said
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This legislative campaign to suppress the vote can — and must — be stopped by Congress. The Brennan Center has analyzed each of the restrictive voting bills pending in the states and concludes that The For the People Act (H.R. 1/S. 1) would thwart virtually every single one. The For the People Act, which passed the United States House of Representatives in early March, is a transformative bill that would expand voting rights and strengthen our democracy.
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This is not the only mistaken notion and false belief that Joe Manchin harbors regarding democracy , but Joe Manchin also wrongly believes that without the filibuster, the minority party in the US Senate will be shut out of the legislative process. Since we don’t have 50 votes to ignore the Senate Parliamentarian, then democracy legislation can’t pass be passed via reconciliation. Since republicans can’t win elections without voter suppression because they refuse to moderate their positions, they won’t let democracy legislation like the For the People Act pass. They will filibuster it. .
Joe Manchin supports the filibuster because he believes that without the filibuster, the minority party would be shut out of the legislative process. However, due to gerrymandering, the concentration of democratic voters in urban big cities, and the way that the composition of the US Senate is determined, republicans are already overrepresented in Congress and the only way that they get shut out of the legislative process is if they adopt extremist positions. Hence, the republicans don’t need it. And it doesn’t help the Democratic Party when we are in the minority for several reasons: (1) Republicans already struggle to pass legislation when they are in the majority anyway (2) if they were really committed to some bill and it was blocked by a filibuster but otherwise would pass, then they would eliminate the filibuster (3) if republicans do pass awful unpopular legislation, then there would be voter backlash in the next election (4) if it exists while we are in the minority, then it exists while we are in the majority and that means that on any and every important agenda item 41 or more Senate Republicans will stop our bills from passing with a filibuster and that will harm us electorally by taking away the incentive of our voters to show up at the polls. Furthermore, we can’t pass our democracy bills with the filibuster in place and these bills are essential for the health of our democracy. The 253 voter suppression bills republicans have in play across the country must be countered by our democracy bills. Voter suppression laws that are already in place also help prevent republicans from being shut out of the legislative process even without the filibuster. Since the Republican Party doesn’t need the filibuster to avoid being shut out of the legislative process and it doesn’t help our Democratic Party, it should be eliminated and our democracy bills must be passed.
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We can’t allow our democracy legislation like the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act be filibustered. The real solution is to eliminate the filibuster. If that can’t be done because of Manchin and Sinema, then at a minimum we need to put an inverted actual talking filibuster in place and carve out an exception to the filibuster for democracy legislation like the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. An inverted talking filibuster alone would be insufficient to get those two democracy bills passed because of how the composition of the United States Senate is determined.
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Alaska, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, South Carolina, and Florida are very conservative states and they alone yield forty six (46) very, very conservative Senate Republicans.
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That’s why I reached the following conclusion:
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All of this is why voting rights legislation like the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act must pass in order for us to make progress on anything else like needed gun reform legislation. Yet, there is no chance for these bills to get ten republicans to support it to prevent a filibuster. There will almost always be 41 Senate Republicans to sustain an inverted filibuster and there certainly will be 41 Senate Republicans to sustain an inverted filibuster for the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The only way that either of these bills pass is if either an exception for democracy legislation is passed so that it cannot be filibustered or the filibuster is eliminated. It was already shown that republicans don't need the filibuster to prevent themselves from being shut out of the legislative process and that the filibuster hurts the Democratic Party more than it would help the Democratic Party if it were in the minority. So, the real solution is to eliminate the filibuster. Failing that and it is a moral failure, then we need to at least carve out an exception so that democracy bills cannot be filibustered and we need to put an inverted filibuster in place. If these democracy bills don’t pass, we not only won’t be able to pass any other needed legislation but we very well may lose control of the US Senate in the 2022 elections.
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It is, therefore, baffling that Joe Manchin expects Senate Republicans to not filibuster our democracy legislation and make Congressional Republican support for our democracy legislation a requirement to passing it and baffling that he believes that the only way for a substantial majority of American voters to have confidence in these bills and American democracy because (1) To the extent that confidence in American elections and American democracy and these democracy bills are not as popular as one would like, it is precisely because of Congressional Republicans and Donald Trump (2) Congressional Republicans and Donald Trump have long chosen to suppress the vote instead of moderate their positions in order to win (3) Polls have demonstrated not only do more than two thirds of likely voters support the For the People Act , but so do a majority of likely republican voters (4) These bills must pass to combat the 253 Voter Suppression bills republicans have put forward. Otherwise, a new Jim Crow era will begin and democrats won’t retain the majority, not because of unpopular positions but because of voter suppression.
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Addressing the filibuster will be necessary to get these bills passed by either eliminating it which is by far the better choice to promote democracy or by carving out an exception to the filibuster for democracy legislation so that it cannot be filibustered and reforming the filibuster so that an inverted talking filibuster is put in place. Joe Manchin has supported the filibuster but his reason for doing so rests upon a false premise. He has supported it because he believes that without the filibuster, the minority party in the US Senate will be shut out of the legislative process. However, republicans don’t need the filibuster in order to avoid being shut out of the legislative process because (1) of how the composition of the US Senate is determined . If you add the number of senators from close battleground states and very conservative states you will always have more than fifty senators (2) Gerrymandering and (3) voter concentration . On balance the filibuster hurts our Democratic Party more than it helps our Democratic Party since (1) Republican Congressional majorities have historically struggled to pass legislation (2) Senate Republicans would eliminate it if the filibuster was all that prevented them from passing legislation they strongly supported (3) republicans would face accountability from the voters if they passed unpopular legislation or opposed popular legislation (4) If the filibuster is in place when we are in the minority, then it is in place when we are in the majority and if the filibuster is allowed to prevent us from passing needed and popular legislation, then our voters will be disenfranchised (voter suppression bills) and their incentive to vote for us would be removed. Thus, Republicans don’t need the filibuster to avoid being shut out of the legislative process; they merely need to avoid extremism. And the filibuster hurts our Democratic Party far more than it helps us.
Friday, Mar 26, 2021 · 1:15:55 PM +00:00
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Dem
Georgia has already passed their awful Jim Crow voter suppression bill. We can’t allow the filibuster to prevent us from fighting back against their Jim Crow bills ! Republicans have already started. This is a return to Jim Crow ! It’s already begun ! They are already disenfranchising African American voters, voters of color, the poor, and younger voters ! If we don’t get our democracy bills passed, WE WILL ENTER A NEW JIM CROW ERA ! The filibuster is already evil enough as the reason why the US Senate is known as where good bills go to die, but it certainly CAN’T BE THE REASON WHY WE ENTER INTO A NEW JIM CROW ERA !
Senators who caucus with the Democratic Party, let’s suppose somehow the filibuster held some kind of virtue. It doesn’t. It’s stupid. It’s morally wrong. But fine, let’s suppose that it does. As democrats, we know the truth: voter fraud is extremely rare. As democrats, we know voter suppression is very wrong ! As democrats, we know that voter suppression is designed to hurt OUR PARTY. We know that republicans are overrepresented in Congress because of how the composition of the US Senate is determined and gerrymandering and voter concentration. Because of these facts, we know as democrats that Senate Republicans can’t be shut out of the legislative process even without the filibuster unless they shut themselves out of it by extremism ! Republicans don’t need the filibuster to be relevant in the legislative process; they merely need to be reasonable. The filibuster hurts the power of African American voters and gives even more power to rural white voters who already have a disproportionate influence upon Congress and especially the US Senate. Therefore, we cannot value the filibuster more than fighting voter suppression bills and passing our democracy bills, especially the For the People Act.
There is outrage fatigue and too many times, outrage is ginned up. This truly is outrageous ! If we won’t do everything in our power to prevent a new Jim Crow era by passing our democracy bills, then why in the name of Heaven are we here ? Nothing is more important than protecting the right to vote. If we aren’t willing to protect the vote, then why does public service as an elected official actually mean ?
There will not be ten republicans who will vote for cloture for the For the People Act. Republicans know that they can’t win and be the majority party if all legally eligible voters vote. Look at how many Congressional Republicans challenged the electoral college vote even after the insurrection.
Senate Democrats, you face a choice, either you support voting rights and protecting the vote or you support the filibuster. You can’t do both. And if you can’t decide which you support more, then you’re in the wrong party and you are useless to us. What’s the point of being in the majority if you can’t pass any major agenda item and you allow us to enter into a new Jim Crow era ? We won’t stay in the majority if you allow us to enter into a new Jim Crow era ! Your vote for the majority leader doesn’t mean anything since we won’t be able to stay in the majority because you allowed the US to enter into a new Jim Crow era ! The Democratic Party is a big tent and we can and do accept divergence from the party consensus on many issues. But voting rights is one issue that we can’t do that on. We can’t win if we allow them to suppress the vote and lead the US into a new Jim Crow era ! You might as well leave the party if you can’t decide whether you support voting rights more than the filibuster. Sure we are in the majority because of you, but that won’t last because of you. We won’t be able to pass any other important agenda items with the filibuster in place. We will be allowing them to return to Jim Crow.
For the People Act must get an up or down vote. You will be allowing them to filibuster democracy and eliminate accountability from voters if you don’t do whatever is necessary to get an up or down vote for the For the People Act. At a minimum, you must carve out an exception so that voting rights bills can’t be filibustered. Otherwise, the For the People Act will not get an up or down vote. And it will be because of any Senate Democrat who won’t vote to make it impossible to filibuster the For the People Act.
Do we really want a country in which a third of the country, the most rural, most white, and least educated third, get to dominate the federal government ? Do we really want to return to Jim Crow ? We have the numbers to stop a return to Jim Crow. The only way that we return to Jim Crow is if a senator who caucuses with the Democratic Party lets it happen. Which democrat wants to be known as a new Dixiecrat, a big backer of Jim Crow ? Leave the fucking party if you are willing to allow us to enter into a new Jim Crow era because you love the filibuster.