Why Voting Rights Are the Supreme Issue NOW
Democrats believe that the voters choose their leaders, but Republicans believe that their leaders choose the voters. The latter view cannot prevail in a democracy.
Now that Covid Disaster Relief has passed, voting rights averting voter suppression is the most important issue in the nation. Lose this and the GOP will regain power and retain it for a generation, ensuring that we (a) worsen racism, (b) destroy the environment, (c) rot the infrastructure, (d) extend a reactionary judiciary, (e) worsen economic disparity between rich and poor, (f) destroy our alliances, and (g) restore government by the incompetent (think Covid), a kakistocracy (rule by the worst). Win this by passing voting rights and election reform and we can prevail for the next two generations on all these issues. Put differently, lasting success on all other issues depends on this one — voting rights reform.
Republicans know this. Even Donald Trump admitted it, saying in 2020 that if enough people vote, “Republicans will never win again.” Republicans know that their sole path to retaining power is to keep people from voting.
Liberal despair notwithstanding, there is a clear legislative path to achieving lasting voting rights and election reform. Please bear with me while I explain.
The Hurdle of the Senate Filibuster
The Senate Filibuster —
As is widely known, the Senate filibuster is the main obstacle to passing voting rights reform. State legislatures, predominantly in Republican hands because of racial and political gerrymandering, are now considering hundreds of bills that would further severely restrict access to the polls. Two pieces of legislation, HR-1, which has passed the House, and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act, first introduced in the Senate in the last session, would bring such anti-democratic measures to a halt. HR-1 alone would pave the way to true and lasting democracy, and is discussed in more detail below. I hope to discuss the John Lewis Act in a future diary.
The filibuster, which Barack Obama’s accurately called a “Jim Crow relic,” requires 60 votes in the Senate just to bring a bill to the floor. Obama’s characterization was no off-hand comment, as it was made at his eulogy speech at John Lewis’s funeral. A rules change in the Senate requires a majority vote based on an arcane procedure of setting a new Senate precedent, explained here, which means that the Democrats, if unanimous, with 50 Senators plus Vice President Harris as a tie-breaker, can effect a rule change that can eliminate or modify the filibuster.
To the dismay of many millions, including your faithful diarist, eliminating the filibuster entirely is implausible in the current Senate. This is because at least two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Krysten Sinema (D.Ariz.), and likely more, are on record against a sweeping rule change that would eliminate the filibuster entirely. (Please, no ranting at them here; save that for another diary on another day.)
The Proposed Rules Change and Its Precedents
There is an achievable path to passing the two major pieces of voting rights legislation with 50 Democratic votes without getting rid of the filibuster entirely. Let’s call it a “filibuster carve-out” for legislation affecting voting and fairness in elections. The rules change would provide that any legislation that concerns elections or voting rights is not subject to the filibuster (60 vote) rule but can be brought to the floor by a simple majority. I believe this would be embraced by all Democrats, including the few who have promised their constituents not to vote for a rules change that would get rid of the filibuster, because (a) the moderates, especially Ms. Sinema, would have a far better chance or re-election with it than without it and (b) Democrats would have a far better chance of competing for a majority with it than without it.
This is not as radical as it sounds. In just the eight years, there have been at least two carve-outs to, or exceptions from, the filibuster rule. With the Democrats in control of the Senate in 2013, majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) orchestrated a reduction, from 60 to 51, of the number of senators needed to bring a nominee to a Senate floor vote; the reform related to any position requiring “advice and consent” of the Senate (confirmation) except justices of the United States Supreme Court. In the vote on the rule change, Reid obtained 52 votes, and that was enough. McConnell howled disapproval, but got a measure of revenge by engineering another rules change in 2017 with the GOP in control of the Senate. With 52 votes, all Republicans, he extended the confirmation carve-out to Supreme Court justices, averting a filibuster on Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
This is achievable. With a 50-vote-plus-tiebreak majority, Senate Democrats can effect another rules change with another filibuster carve-out. This one would provide that legislation affecting voting and elections are not subject to the 60-vote requirement to bring measures to the floor of the Senate. My belief is that Senators Manchin and Sinema, as well as other moderate-to-conservative Democrats, would welcome the move. They would be able to redeem their promise to their constituents not to nuke the filibuster entirely, but at the same time thwart the GOP’s effort to maintain their power indefinitely by making it more and more difficult for people, especially people of color, to vote.
HR-1 is breathtaking, a thing to behold. Here is the text. The House in this Congress has already passed it. The Senate must now take it up. Here is a link to a Washington Post summary if you do not have time to read the full bill.
Here Is What HR-1 Would Do
The bill would mandate certain changes in all federal elections, including automatic registration, same-day registration, universal mail-in voting without excuse, a minimum of 15 days of early in-person voting with at least 10 hours a day, and much more. Imagine! There are explicit anti-discrimination provisions.
The bill would require each state to utilize independent commissions for all newly-drawn Congressional districts. This would be the most significant effort ever to get rid of partisan gerrymandering at the federal level. It would give the public a chance to comment and object to an allegedly unfairly drawn districts.
Under HR-1, much transparency would be restored to campaign finance. Super PACs and dark money groups would have to disclose their donors and the amounts they gave. Social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook would have to disclose the identity of advisertisers for political ads.
HR-1 would require all presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns for 10 years. Take that, Orange Penguin!
Unlike the ACA, there are severability clauses, so that if one provision is found unconstitutional (for example, the tax returns provision), the other provisions stand. This is of great importance.
Why This Is the Moment
If McConnell were majority leader, HR-1 would never come to the floor, even for a vote on whether it comes to the floor (a filibuster vote). With Schumer majority leader, it will come to the floor for a vote as to whether the Senate will consider the merits (a filibuster vote). At a strategic time of his choosing, Schumer can and should (and I believe will) propose a rule change that will include the carve-out described above for any legislation concerning elections or voting rights or procedures. With 50 Democratic votes, plus a tie-breaking vote from VP Harris, the rules will have changed, and the filibuster will be gone for any bill affecting voting rights and elections.
What about our other pressing national priorities? Perhaps another carveout for another day. But without this one, we get nothing except more fascism and incompetence, and with it, pathways will open to toward all liberal priorities.