The House Dems announced Friday that the first priority in the new congress will be a broad package of electoral reforms, with many details still to be worked out. The law, designated H.R. 1 in the new Congress, already includes a list of included provisions. I love it!
- Automatic voter registration nationwide
- Expansion of early voting and online registration.
- Support for paper ballot systems to prevent fraud.
- Creation of Supreme Court ethics codes.
- Members of Congress barred from serving on corporate boards.
- Financial disclosure regs for political groups.
- Presidents required to release tax returns. (🙄)
- They’re discussing options for encouraging/requiring non-partisan redistricting commissions to prevent gerrymandering.
- Regulations to control/curtail voter purges used to suppress voting.
- Steps for restoring voting rights act.
- No more taxpayer financing of Congressional settlements.
This is Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues throwing down a gauntlet. We cannot do what we’ve been doing for years any longer, which is that we get to every election and we see all of the examples of abuse and where the system isn’t working. but we can’t reform in the middle of an election, so we wait. Then the election passes and the issue loses all steam, and we set ourselves up to repeat the same effing cycle the next time...with the voter purges, malfeasance, suppression, and shadiness that grows worse every cycle.
As we know, the Republicans control the Senate and the White House. I never want to speak for others, but I have this feeling that McConnell might be slightly opposed to a few items from the list. I actually have a feeling that he’s opposed to Democrats making lists at all, ha. (Ugh...what a creep.)
But we won and we have a mandate for this — most items on this list poll with 60-80% approval. As we proceed, we will likely very much find ourselves with overwealming consent of the government to enact these reforms. This will give us the moral and legislative authority to bring down a hammer on this issue.
This is going to be a tough one. I don’t think House Democrats can get it done — the two hundred plus elected officials we just sent to Washington. But the millions and millions of voters who make up the Democratic Party...together we can do this. It’s going to be a fight, but it’s going to be one worth fighting.
In the coming months, I’m excited to continue the battle. I will be looking to our House Dems to direct us on how we can help the efforts. We are transitioning from resisting to building...a different skills set will likely be required. But the future of our democracy is at stake, so I’ll be there fighting for this as vociferously as I was fighting to stop the ACA repeal.
And hey...things may get ugly. We may need to attach this thing to a budget deal, or threaten shut down, or jam it down McConnell’s gullet in some other way. We may need to twist Trump’s arm until he starts squealing like the fat orange pig that he is. Maybe we start sending every person who lied to Congress in the last two years to prison until this gets on the Senate floor. We know they won’t opt for the easy way, so let’s make sure the hard way makes them see Stars.
Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Marcia Fudge...Schiff, Swalwell, Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Wilson, Lieu...so many others who I respect. This is a new day, and it calls us all to action, and it’s going to be a spectacle to watch. I cannot wait.