Senator Elizabeth Warren has a call to arms in The NY Times today — and calls out the GOP, the media, and corporate Democrats. All of the links to The NY Times below should allow passage through the Times paywall.
Here’s some excerpts:
...Voters rewarded Democrats for protecting the lives and livelihoods of struggling families in a pandemic; modernizing infrastructure, not just talking about it; allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices; capping insulin costs for older Americans; making tax-dodging corporations pay up on billions in profit; lowering carbon emissions and reducing utility bills; and canceling student debt for over 40 million Americans.
Despite global inflation, progressive policies helped Americans counter high costs and created well-paying jobs. Unemployment is at an astonishing 3.7 percent, and the economy is growing. Unlike in recent Democratic administrations, the scope and aggressiveness of Mr. Biden’s policies were not arbitrarily limited by a desire to demonstrate “independence” from progressive Democrats or to play nice with giant corporations. And name-calling from Fox News commentators and financial news analysts did not shake this Democratic administration’s resolve to help working families.
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...For each of the president’s decisions, the punditry was relentless, but the American people — Democrats, independents and Republicans — validated the president’s agenda with their votes.
...A few lobbyist-friendly Democrats in our own party blocked much of the president’s agenda for working families. They torpedoed the president’s plan to reverse the Trump tax giveaways. They blocked proposals to cut skyrocketing housing and child care costs. They thwarted efforts to fight corruption, end gerrymandering, defend democracy and protect abortion rights. If these Democrats had listened to voters instead of special interests, we would be in an even stronger electoral position today because we would have delivered even more for Americans.
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...Americans understand that the economic well-being of families is inextricably linked to democracy and to individual rights, even if too many cable news gurus do not.
...The so-called experts who called Democrats’ messaging incoherent were just plain wrong — and candidates who ignored their advice won.
...The president’s critics remain unchastened by the election results. Lobbyists are already calling for Democrats to pass unpopular policies and to help their wealthy clients avoid taxes. Some in Washington are back to insisting that “responsible government” requires responding to voters’ rejection of Republican extremism by holding hands with the extremists. Nonsense.
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Warren has a plan going forward: no lame duck Congress!
If Republicans take the House, their majority will be stacked with election deniers who have embraced one overriding goal: the restoration of Donald Trump as president in 2024. They believe economic chaos weakens President Biden, so they are itching to use their leverage to hurt working families. This is the same strategy Republicans used after the 2010 midterms when they set off a debt-ceiling crisis, then demanded family-crushing austerity.
Democrats should fight back by making this lame-duck session of Congress the most productive in decades. We can start by lifting the debt ceiling now to block Republicans from taking our economy hostage next year. Democrats must then continue delivering for families. Where we can pursue legislative action, we should fight aggressively. When Republicans try to obstruct such action and the president can act by executive authority, he must. Most of all, the Democrats should be aggressive in putting Republicans on the defensive, pressing hard on why they are blocking much-needed initiatives to help Americans.
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READ THE WHOLE THING.
The only thing I would add to Warren’s call to arms is for Congress to move on shoring up elections in this country. The NY Times editorial board is calling for fixing things in the electoral college that Trump tried to exploit — this is urgent.
The 135-year-old law, known as the Electoral Count Act, is chock-full of confusing and ambiguous provisions, and legal scholars have long warned that it could trigger a crisis. That’s exactly what happened after the 2020 election, when Donald Trump and his associates exploited the law’s vague and arcane language to claim that they could overturn the will of the voters. That exploitation led directly to the violence on Jan. 6, 2021.
Since then, several Republicans have joined Democrats in agreeing that a major reform to the law is necessary — a rare point of bipartisanship. The Senate introduced reform legislation over the summer, and the House passed its bill in September. While the bills contain minor differences, either would be a huge improvement over the status quo.
More from the Times. Democrats also need to do what they can to block efforts to use the Supreme Court to decree that only state legislatures have the power to rule on election-related matters.
...The theory in the new case, Moore v. Harper, No. 21-1271, would give state legislatures independent power, not subject to review by state courts, to set all sorts of election rules at odds with state constitutions, not least by drawing congressional maps warped by partisan gerrymandering.
The case, set to be argued on Dec. 7, concerns a voting map drawn by the North Carolina Legislature that was rejected as a partisan gerrymander by the state’s Supreme Court. Republicans seeking to restore the legislative map argued that the state court was powerless to act.
...The theory is based on a reading of the Constitution’s Elections Clause, which says: “The times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.”
If the Supreme Court accepts that legislatures are the only organs of state government that matter in elections, lawyers for the Brennan Center for Justice wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief, countless provisions of state constitutions, decisions of state courts and policies of state election administrators would be called into question.
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The potential for chaos is huge depending on how the Supreme Court rules.
Basic things like making Election Day a national holiday, setting a firm Federal basis for things like voting by mail, early voting, reasonable voter ID’s, voter registration — all things that would make it easier to vote — should be on the table. As David Corn observed in his latest newsletter, “The equation is basic: the larger the voter pool, the lower the odds of success for crazy.” It’s why the Republican Party is putting so much effort into voter suppression.
But DANG! — it’s great to see Senator Warren getting some media space. It’s something the press should be giving us more often, instead of letting the GOP set the media narrative all time. Corn links to a twitter thread that shows how corrosive the Right Wing Mighty Wurlitzer can be.
After all the dread about the midterms running up to the actual voting (which is still being tallied in close races — it ain’t over yet), the news has been amazing. We’ve managed an incredible success against expectations. The challenge now is to build on it. Let’s keep Warnock in the Senate for a start.
Senator Warren has thrown down a gauntlet. Let’s go with it!
Forward momentum!