We need a new Voting Rights Act with teeth. One that bans gerrymandering, one that opens up the process of voting rather than restricting it. Voting should be easy, clear, transparent. We already know that if that becomes the norm the extremists following their Dear Leader would never survive. Remember: when Ossoff arranged debates with …
We need a new Voting Rights Act with teeth. One that bans gerrymandering, one that opens up the process of voting rather than restricting it. Voting should be easy, clear, transparent. We already know that if that becomes the norm the extremists following their Dear Leader would never survive. Remember: when Ossoff arranged debates with Perdue he failed to show because he knew he would look like an idiot.
Voting should be required, like it is in 30 countries that have some form of mandatory voting. In Australia, citizens who don't show up to vote are fined. They typically have over 95% voter participation. There should be a voting holiday, and mail-in voting should be encouraged for anyone who has difficulty in getting to the polls.
Mandatory voting means it will be more likely that politicians will pay attention to all voters, the wealthy, the middle class, the poor and the disabled.
Making a law such as this would require an amendment to the constitution, which is extremely unlikely as no red state would ratify it. In order to maintain their power, republicans must exercise voter suppression. There would be no voter suppression if voting were mandatory, and political parties would be more likely to be truly representative.
And of course, every candidate for president should be more thoroughly vetted. Every candidate should be required to release at least the last five years of their tax returns.
Biden has proposed ten years of tax returns! It is ironic that Republicans who have only kept power by cheating since Clinton claim that the Dems have stolen the election. I believe this utter hypocrisy will lead to more violence. This madness should be scaring the crap out of us.
Stevendm, following up on your recommendation for a thorough vetting of every candidate, this is to expand on your suggestion that every candidate be required to submit at least the last five years of tax returns. I am a member of the World Mental Health Coalition (worldmhc.org), an international organization of mental health professionals, who advocate for a fitness for duty exam for all Presidential candidates. You may remember the World Mental Health Organization from the book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump (2017) in which leading experts in psychiatry and mental health offered the consensus that the mental state of Donald Trump presented a clear danger to the well-being of our nation. Trump’s behavior patterns have led our organization to call for a fitness for duty exam for all Presidential candidates, so that we do not have a repeat of a President who lacks the capacity to lead our nation.
A fitness for duty, or fitness to serve, exam consists of an independent evaluation of the ability to carry out specific functions necessary for a job. They are assessments, which include physical exams, that measure the mental capacity necessary for making sound decisions and include such factors as ability to attend to relevant situational facts, comprehend facts and information from multiple sources, use sound reasoning, consider consequences, and assess risk before taking action vs. such characteristics as sense of entitlement, lack of empathy, rigidity, lack of impulse control, recklessness, etc.
Such assessments are given routinely—some on a biennial basis—to all military officers, as well as to others in similar positions of power, such as CIA, FBI, DEA, and Secret Service agents, as well as many workers in nuclear plants and law enforcement departments.
The viewpoint of the World Mental Health Organization is that if physical and mental fitness for duty tests are required of the military, why are they not required of the President, who is Commander-in-Chief of the military? We see it as a glaring omission. If military officers must pass psychiatric evaluations before they lead our troops into battle, isn’t it crucial for our presidents to have to pass the same evaluations before they are allowed to lead the military?
Like a real celebration of John Lewis' birthday 81 years ago by passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would help safeguard voters from racial discrimination and vote suppression by strengthening the protections granted under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Gerrymandering and other ways to counter voter suppression? Support HR1 For the People Act to expand voting rights, change campaign finance laws to reduce the influence of money in politics, limit partisan gerrymandering, and create new ethics rules for federal officeholders.
Important side note reminder in the John Lewis article:
Democratic Representative Mondaire Jones of New York stated, "False allegations of mass voter fraud were never meant to be proven. They were always meant to lay the foundation for another decade of voter suppression," referring to former President Donald Trump's unsubstantiated claims that widespread voter fraud impacted the 2020 presidential election.
If you’re interested in getting into the weeds on HR-1 and the possibility of passing it through the Senate (S-1), this interview with HR-1 sponsor Rep. John Sarbanes and others – also a podcast – is very informative.
If I listen, I’ll get more depressed. Our state is so red it’s practically on fire. Blackburn is one senator. I expect nothing balanced out of her; she’s Trump’s bestie. The other senator is no better. I think this legislation is very much needed. My legislators will do nothing to help. They still support trump.
Oh, Marcy, I am in the same boat. Two red senators and a matching shade of governor here in Florida. I write letters and get the most ridiculous canned answers back.
Puto Rubio lives in another reality where he quotes Buybull verses instead of governance. Writing to that pendejo would only be a total waste unless I did a profanity laced missive for my own catharsis.
Marcy, Kim, Annette: have you reached out to your local Dems group? You probably have an active county group. This would be a natural place to find allies. Form there, they would be connected to others, such as health care professionals, teachers, city and county employees, etc
I am active with my local Indivisible group. I am blessed to live in Port Townsend, Wa. on th Olympic Peninsula, insulated from the world at large, but very much concerned. We are an amazing community of activists.
I wonder how the prevailing winds and cozy habitats of ‘Olympia’ differ from our long slender peninsulas and petite villages on the coast of Maine. Do you know?
Interesting dialogues.....what would happen in The House if they got rid of the law limiting the number of representatives and went back to equal sized districts...by population not land area? The population is more city based and tending to vote Democrat even in Red States. ould this undo the GOP minorities calculations and their dreams of a minoritocracy?
The House is actually organized around population, rather than land. However, smaller states, well under the appx 900,000 population of each district, still get a representative. These states are VT, DE, WY, MT, AL, ND and SD. Perhaps I don’t fully understand your thought?
It seems to me in 1929 they limited the total number reprentatives which would have continued to increase with the population as equal representation of each person was the guiding rule. It was obviously beneficial to GOP to cut this link and to the advantage of the Dems to restore it.
That is exactly what happened. It was done precisely to limit the power of the cities growing with immigrants, and has had that effect. Repealing that law would get the House closer to really being proportional to population, and would also make the Electoral College less distorted. I'm surprised it's not part of HR 1.
At least part of it is the resulting size/number of Representatives, which would require more office space and, at some point, a bigger meeting place to conduct business. But that would, at least on first glance, make gerrymandering more difficult.
And as long as the Senate of 50-50 and the two DINOs Krysten Sinema and Joe Manchin think they're in charge, don't hold your breath waiting for that or you will turn blue and die.
Which brings us back to the question of whether or not to get rid of the filibuster. Are there any reasons NOT to do so besides not having it available if Democrats lose the majority?
As a minimum, every candidate for the office of president of the United States, and also for member of the U.S. Congress, should have to qualify for Top Secret access with a thorough background check. It is unlikely that Donald Trump and at least the two QAnon-associated members of the House of Representatives could have passed such an examination.
It is frightening to think that Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA22, and Chair of the House Intelligence Committee from 2015 to 2019) has access to some of the most protected secrets of this country and hired a number of hacks that Trump moved into controlling positions of the Intelligence community.
We need a new Voting Rights Act with teeth. One that bans gerrymandering, one that opens up the process of voting rather than restricting it. Voting should be easy, clear, transparent. We already know that if that becomes the norm the extremists following their Dear Leader would never survive. Remember: when Ossoff arranged debates with Perdue he failed to show because he knew he would look like an idiot.
Voting should be required, like it is in 30 countries that have some form of mandatory voting. In Australia, citizens who don't show up to vote are fined. They typically have over 95% voter participation. There should be a voting holiday, and mail-in voting should be encouraged for anyone who has difficulty in getting to the polls.
Mandatory voting means it will be more likely that politicians will pay attention to all voters, the wealthy, the middle class, the poor and the disabled.
Making a law such as this would require an amendment to the constitution, which is extremely unlikely as no red state would ratify it. In order to maintain their power, republicans must exercise voter suppression. There would be no voter suppression if voting were mandatory, and political parties would be more likely to be truly representative.
And of course, every candidate for president should be more thoroughly vetted. Every candidate should be required to release at least the last five years of their tax returns.
Biden has proposed ten years of tax returns! It is ironic that Republicans who have only kept power by cheating since Clinton claim that the Dems have stolen the election. I believe this utter hypocrisy will lead to more violence. This madness should be scaring the crap out of us.
It IS scaring the crap out of a lot of us.
It's even worse than going back to the Clintons. No GOP non-incumbent has won a free, fair and honest presidential election since Eisenhower.
Stevendm, following up on your recommendation for a thorough vetting of every candidate, this is to expand on your suggestion that every candidate be required to submit at least the last five years of tax returns. I am a member of the World Mental Health Coalition (worldmhc.org), an international organization of mental health professionals, who advocate for a fitness for duty exam for all Presidential candidates. You may remember the World Mental Health Organization from the book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump (2017) in which leading experts in psychiatry and mental health offered the consensus that the mental state of Donald Trump presented a clear danger to the well-being of our nation. Trump’s behavior patterns have led our organization to call for a fitness for duty exam for all Presidential candidates, so that we do not have a repeat of a President who lacks the capacity to lead our nation.
A fitness for duty, or fitness to serve, exam consists of an independent evaluation of the ability to carry out specific functions necessary for a job. They are assessments, which include physical exams, that measure the mental capacity necessary for making sound decisions and include such factors as ability to attend to relevant situational facts, comprehend facts and information from multiple sources, use sound reasoning, consider consequences, and assess risk before taking action vs. such characteristics as sense of entitlement, lack of empathy, rigidity, lack of impulse control, recklessness, etc.
Such assessments are given routinely—some on a biennial basis—to all military officers, as well as to others in similar positions of power, such as CIA, FBI, DEA, and Secret Service agents, as well as many workers in nuclear plants and law enforcement departments.
The viewpoint of the World Mental Health Organization is that if physical and mental fitness for duty tests are required of the military, why are they not required of the President, who is Commander-in-Chief of the military? We see it as a glaring omission. If military officers must pass psychiatric evaluations before they lead our troops into battle, isn’t it crucial for our presidents to have to pass the same evaluations before they are allowed to lead the military?
Like a real celebration of John Lewis' birthday 81 years ago by passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would help safeguard voters from racial discrimination and vote suppression by strengthening the protections granted under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
https://www.newsweek.com/civil-rights-icon-john-lewis-honored-birthday-amid-calls-voting-rights-act-passage-1570853
Gerrymandering and other ways to counter voter suppression? Support HR1 For the People Act to expand voting rights, change campaign finance laws to reduce the influence of money in politics, limit partisan gerrymandering, and create new ethics rules for federal officeholders.
https://campaignlegal.org/
Important side note reminder in the John Lewis article:
Democratic Representative Mondaire Jones of New York stated, "False allegations of mass voter fraud were never meant to be proven. They were always meant to lay the foundation for another decade of voter suppression," referring to former President Donald Trump's unsubstantiated claims that widespread voter fraud impacted the 2020 presidential election.
HR-1 & S-1 include the John Lewis Voting Rights Act as Article 1. See R.Dooley's posted link for more info: https://theintercept.com/2021/02/01/deconstructed-hr1-save-american-democracy/
If you’re interested in getting into the weeds on HR-1 and the possibility of passing it through the Senate (S-1), this interview with HR-1 sponsor Rep. John Sarbanes and others – also a podcast – is very informative.
https://theintercept.com/2021/02/01/deconstructed-hr1-save-american-democracy/
Good article, thanks. The fact that Mitch McConnell hates S-1 tells me it’s a game changer.
McTurtle provides clarity in a Nixonesque manner. If Nixon or McTurtle was/is against it, I'm for it.
If I listen, I’ll get more depressed. Our state is so red it’s practically on fire. Blackburn is one senator. I expect nothing balanced out of her; she’s Trump’s bestie. The other senator is no better. I think this legislation is very much needed. My legislators will do nothing to help. They still support trump.
Oh, Marcy, I am in the same boat. Two red senators and a matching shade of governor here in Florida. I write letters and get the most ridiculous canned answers back.
Puto Rubio lives in another reality where he quotes Buybull verses instead of governance. Writing to that pendejo would only be a total waste unless I did a profanity laced missive for my own catharsis.
¡Qué lenguaje soez! ¡Excelente!
The dirty words are all I remember.
I can say mierda in 5 languages.
(six if I include Marco Rubio)
Your Dem. Ag. Secty has refused to lower flags for Rush Limbaugh. You might send her some support.
YES! I saw that and shared it with kudos!
Done! Thanks.
Marcy, Kim, Annette: have you reached out to your local Dems group? You probably have an active county group. This would be a natural place to find allies. Form there, they would be connected to others, such as health care professionals, teachers, city and county employees, etc
I am active with my local Indivisible group. I am blessed to live in Port Townsend, Wa. on th Olympic Peninsula, insulated from the world at large, but very much concerned. We are an amazing community of activists.
Hi from central WA!
I wonder how the prevailing winds and cozy habitats of ‘Olympia’ differ from our long slender peninsulas and petite villages on the coast of Maine. Do you know?
Yup, canned canned yuck. Yet. I keep writing.
I’m in Ohio and wrote to my reps about every issue for the past year and haven’t received a reply.
Donate a million and they'll fall all over themselves replying.
Interesting dialogues.....what would happen in The House if they got rid of the law limiting the number of representatives and went back to equal sized districts...by population not land area? The population is more city based and tending to vote Democrat even in Red States. ould this undo the GOP minorities calculations and their dreams of a minoritocracy?
The House is actually organized around population, rather than land. However, smaller states, well under the appx 900,000 population of each district, still get a representative. These states are VT, DE, WY, MT, AL, ND and SD. Perhaps I don’t fully understand your thought?
It seems to me in 1929 they limited the total number reprentatives which would have continued to increase with the population as equal representation of each person was the guiding rule. It was obviously beneficial to GOP to cut this link and to the advantage of the Dems to restore it.
That is exactly what happened. It was done precisely to limit the power of the cities growing with immigrants, and has had that effect. Repealing that law would get the House closer to really being proportional to population, and would also make the Electoral College less distorted. I'm surprised it's not part of HR 1.
At least part of it is the resulting size/number of Representatives, which would require more office space and, at some point, a bigger meeting place to conduct business. But that would, at least on first glance, make gerrymandering more difficult.
R D, I like the weeds. This article is incredibly rich in depth and breadth. Thank you for sharing.
Weeds are underrated. MJ is a weed. I rest my case.
My pleasure - glad it worked for you.
Brilliant description of the most important battle facing our democracy. And that future has got to be, it's going to be, decided in the next year.
And a SCOTUS that would not instantly gut it to protect state rights.
And as long as the Senate of 50-50 and the two DINOs Krysten Sinema and Joe Manchin think they're in charge, don't hold your breath waiting for that or you will turn blue and die.
I have been Blue since becoming politically aware.
Which brings us back to the question of whether or not to get rid of the filibuster. Are there any reasons NOT to do so besides not having it available if Democrats lose the majority?
You would have to ask Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema that question, they are the ones standing in the way.
No! That is the BIG IF of keeping/repealing it!
Agree! France holds elections on Saturday. A weekday alone is suppression.
So is a weekday election without a federal holiday.
As a minimum, every candidate for the office of president of the United States, and also for member of the U.S. Congress, should have to qualify for Top Secret access with a thorough background check. It is unlikely that Donald Trump and at least the two QAnon-associated members of the House of Representatives could have passed such an examination.
It is frightening to think that Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA22, and Chair of the House Intelligence Committee from 2015 to 2019) has access to some of the most protected secrets of this country and hired a number of hacks that Trump moved into controlling positions of the Intelligence community.