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Supreme Court disclosure requirements tackle gifts and free trips

It may shock readers, but the United States Supreme Court – unlike all other federal courts – does not adhere to an enforceable ethics code.

The lack of an enforceable ethics code with penalties for Supreme Court justices is a glaring omission in the nation’s ethics laws. There is not even a legal mechanism to force justices to recuse themselves when they have a clear conflict of interest in a case before the Court.

There is good news on this front, as The Hill reports:

Supreme Court justices must follow strengthened financial disclosure requirements surrounding gifts and free hotel stays, which follows rising pressure from lawmakers about the high court’s ethics rules.

The new regulations quietly went into effect on March 14 and clarify that the justices — and all federal judges — must disclose gifts and free stays at commercial properties, or when gifts of hospitality are being reimbursed by a third party who is not the person providing it.

A committee of the Judicial Conference, which sets policy for the federal courts, approved the new regulations, according to a letter from the director of the federal courts’ administrative arm that was made public on Tuesday.

We welcome these new requirements, although it is hardly enough to give Americans confidence in the Supreme Court’s adherence to the highest ethical standards. In fact, all this does is require reporting. It does not impose an ethics code with penalties. It’s better than nothing, but it’s far from sufficient.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) welcomed the news in an interview with Lawrence O’Donnell, which you can watch below:

Photo Credit: Wally Gobetz, Flickr

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Coup plot thwarted in Germany

Major media outlets, including the New York Times, are reporting that a coup plot was thwarted in Germany. It comes nearly two years after an attempted coup in the United States.

The New York Times reports:

The plan was to storm the German Capitol, arrest lawmakers and execute the chancellor. A prince descended from German nobility would take over as the new head of state, and a former far-right member of Parliament would be put in charge of a national purge.

To facilitate the coup, the electricity network would be sabotaged. Satellite phones to communicate off grid had already been bought.

That is what German prosecutors and intelligence officials say a nationwide far-right terrorist network was plotting before 3,000 police officers and Special Forces fanned out across the country on Wednesday to raid 150 homes and arrest 25 suspected co-conspirators. They included an active duty soldier, a former officer in the elite special forces, a police officer and at least two army reservists.

Among the items uncovered was a list containing 18 names of politicians considered enemies, possibly to be deported and executed, among them Chancellor Olaf Scholz, people familiar with the raids told The New York Times, requesting anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.

Scholz replaced Angela Merkel as Germany’s chancellor in December 2021. He leads the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), which won a plurality in last year’s federal elections. Scholz has been a critic of Vladimir Putin and a supporter of Ukraine throughout their resistance to the Russian invasion.

NPR reports that the coup plotters – like their far-right American counterparts – railed against a so-called “deep state” controlling the German government. Arrests were also made in Austria and Italy. This is the highest-profile far-right plot since two German army officers were arrested in 2017 for plotting to assassinate the justice minister.

The disturbing news out of Germany follows former president Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, culminating in an insurrection at the Capitol with the support of far-right terrorist groups. The leader of the Oath Keepers was recently found guilty of seditious conspiracy for his role on January 6th.

Just last weekend, Trump said that the United States Constitution should be terminated.

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Democrats face a daunting Senate map in 2024

If Democrats thought that 2022 was a difficult environment, they only have to look at the Senate map in 2024 to see that it can get even tougher.

During this year’s midterm elections, Democrats outperformed across the board with few exceptions. The president’s party typically loses across the board. Instead, the party gained governorships, state legislative chambers, and trifectas. In fact, for the first time since 1934, the president’s party did not lose a single state legislative chamber.

If that was not enough of an accomplishment, Democrats will hold the Senate and possibly even gain a seat. That is pending the outcome of Georgia’s Senate runoff between incumbent Raphael Warnock and the Trump-backed, scandal-plagued challenger, Herschel Walker.

Meanwhile, the red wave proved to be nothing more than a ripple in the House of Representatives. Republicans were crowing that they might win as many as 50 or 60 seats. With only five races left uncalled, the Republicans currently stand at a bare majority of 218 seats. At best, they can hope for 223 seats, although that appears unlikely.

Democrats are well-positioned to regain control of the lower chamber in 2024 with numerous obvious targets in Biden-won swing districts in California and New York, in particular. The Senate is an entirely different story.

The Senate map in 2024 looks brutal for Democrats

The Senate is looking far more precarious for the party. Democrats have few genuine targets and about a dozen incumbents who are at least marginally vulnerable. It’s arguable that Democrats will need to win the Georgia runoff next month to have a fighting chance at keeping the Senate in two years.

Worse yet, all of the Democratic targets in 2024 are basically a stretch. First, we’ll go over the numerous opportunities for Republicans, and then we’ll look at the possible targets for Democrats.

Republicans start with a considerable advantage

Although we do not know yet whether the incumbents will run for re-election, Republicans can target Democratic incumbents in Trump-won states. The two most vulnerable incumbents are Jon Tester in Montana and Joe Manchin in West Virginia.

West Virginia is one of the Trumpiest states in the country, second to only Wyoming (sorry, Liz Cheney). Joe Biden failed to even clear 30 percent of the vote in the Mountain State. Joe Manchin is a popular former governor and won a close Senate race in 2018 against the state attorney general, Patrick Morrisey. Despite his record as a conservative Democrat, that might not be enough to save him in 2024.

Jon Tester has won close races many times before. The senator was first elected in 2006 as Democrats won both the House of Representatives and the Senate amid a backlash against former president George W. Bush over his handling of the disastrous Iraq War, a botched federal response to Hurricane Katrina, and corruption scandals within the Republican-controlled Congress.

The good news for Senator Tester is that Biden won over 40 percent of the vote in Montana in 2020, so he would only need to run roughly ten points ahead of the top of the ticket. Needless to say, that is a considerably better starting position than the Democrats face in West Virginia.

Beyond Montana and West Virginia, Sherrod Brown is defending a seat in Republican-trending Ohio. Like Tester, Brown rode into the upper chamber amid backlash to former president George W. Bush. While Tester is known for his folksy personality, Brown embraces a pro-union, blue-collar working-class agenda. Will it be enough to buck the Buckeye State’s rightward drift?

Democrats must also defend seats in numerous swing states that will likely determine the 2024 presidential election. They include seats in:

  • Arizona
  • Michigan
  • Nevada
  • Pennsylvania
  • Wisconsin

Given the fact that partisanship is resulting in fewer crossover voters, these states are likely to vote for the same party in both the presidential and Senate races. In 2020, Susan Collins was the only senator from either party that won despite their party’s presidential nominee losing statewide. This is a continuation from 2016 when every Senate race mirrored the presidential election.

Lastly, they will have to defend seats in Democratic-leaning states like Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Virginia. If Republicans have a particularly good election in 2024, these states would be in play. It is at least conceivable that Republicans could manage a filibuster-proof majority.

Democrats have few legitimate targets

Democrats have only four Republican-held seats that are even remotely competitive: Florida, Indiana, Missouri, and Texas.

Indiana will have an open seat if incumbent Republican Mike Braun announces an expected run for governor, but the Democratic bench is thin. Former senator Joe Donnelly could potentially make it competitive against a weak opponent – as he did in 2012, winning against Richard Mourdock – but is he even willing to consider running another longshot campaign?

Meanwhile, as a member of Joe Biden’s cabinet, former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg has his sights set on a much higher office: the Oval Office. Should Biden decline to run for re-election, Buttigieg is expected to make a second run for president.

Rick Scott wants to gut Social Security and Medicare and has always won his elections by a hair, but Florida has trended Republican. Ron DeSantis just won by almost 20 points against former Republican governor Charlie Crist. Democrats have a slightly stronger bench in Florida than Indiana, but it’s not stocked with charismatic potential candidates.

Ted Cruz barely won re-election in 2018 and is unpopular within both parties, but you cannot beat something with nothing. Beto O’Rourke just concluded a third consecutive losing campaign (counting his failed bid for president), but maybe one of the Castro brothers could make this competitive. Again, it’s a stretch.

Insurrectionist Josh Hawley is up for re-election in 2024. However, it’s not at all clear that that is even considered a negative in a state as red as Missouri. Former senator Claire McCaskill is a potential Democratic nominee for Senate here, which would be a rematch of 2018.

The one potential silver lining for Democrats: an unexpected retirement or death could give them a chance to win a special election that we do not currently know about. Otherwise, the map is grim.

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The Supreme Court likely decided control of the House in this year’s elections

The conservative majority on the Supreme Court very likely decided control of the House of Representatives.

Kevin McCarthy should consider sending Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas holiday cards. The incoming razor-thin Republican majority in the House of Representatives – the exact size of which is still unknown – can thank the United States Supreme Court.

Utilizing the shadow docket, the Supreme Court issued a stay, reversing a lower court’s ruling that forced the state of Alabama to comply with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in time for the midterm elections. At issue is whether Alabama is compelled to create a second black-majority congressional district in a state where over a quarter of the population is black. It’s a case that we previously covered back in January.

“Black people drove a disproportionate share of Alabama’s population growth. Throughout last year, Black Alabamians publicly called on the Legislature to recognize this reality and sought equal representation in Congress,” said NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Senior Counsel Deuel Ross. 

The Brennan Center calls the Supreme Court’s intervention “dangerous,” noting that SCOTUS was setting the stage for overturning four decades of precedent that has resulted in greater representation for non-white voters.

Michael Li, Senior Counsel at the Brennan Center, writes:

The case centers on whether Alabama has an obligation under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to create a second district where Black voters have a reasonable opportunity to elect community-preferred candidates. Black Alabamians are currently 27 percent of the state’s population, but under the map passed by the Republican controlled Alabama legislature, have the ability to successfully elect candidates in only one of the state’s seven congressional districts.

This anomalous result is the product of a carefully constructed two-step maneuver. First, lawmakers packed a large portion of Black Alabamians into the sprawling, heavily Black 7th Congressional District, which joins much of the state’s historic Black Belt with parts of both Birmingham and Montgomery. For the rest of the state, map drawers then surgically divided Black voters among the remaining six white-majority districts. The outcome is a map where the 7th District is more than 56 percent Black, but where no other district is more than 30 percent Black, well below the level needed for Black Alabamians to sway elections given the high levels of racially polarized voting in the state.

The Alabama case resulted in federal courts allowing racially gerrymandered maps to go into effect in Georgia and Louisiana. A federal judge found that Georgia’s Congressional map likely violated the Voting Rights Act but cited the Supreme Court’s decision in the Alabama case to allow the map to remain in place for the 2022 elections. The Supreme Court itself intervened after a federal court ordered Louisiana to redraw its racially gerrymandered maps.

All told, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Alabama directly resulted in at least three fewer black-majority districts in the South – seats that were all but guaranteed to go to the Democrats. Beyond those seats, it’s important to point out that gerrymanders in Florida, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wisconsin cost the Democrats between a half dozen and a dozen seats.

In 2019, the conservatives on the Supreme Court decreed that federal courts could not rule on partisan gerrymanders but left the door open to ruling on racial gerrymanders. With its shadow docket rulings in Alabama and Louisiana, it looks as if those guardrails against racially-discriminatory maps are now gone as well.

We are a nation of laws, but it is increasingly obvious that the United States Supreme Court is bending our nation’s laws to benefit one particular political party.

Photo Credit: Wally Gobetz, Flickr

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Courts strike down Alabama and Ohio gerrymanders as Tennessee cracks Nashville

As states and local governments across the country redraw political maps for every office from city council to US House of Representatives, gerrymandering is in the news a lot lately.

We’ll start with Alabama, where a federal court has struck down the state’s congressional map as a racial gerrymander. Although the US Supreme Court under its current conservative majority has decided that federal courts cannot weigh into partisan gerrymandering, state courts remain free to act in defense of democracy. Federal courts may also enforce what’s left of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which requires states to create majority-minority districts if an electorate is racially polarized.

Alabama’s legislature enacted a congressional map that was expected to produce a 6-1 Republican majority. The ACLU, NAACP, and other organizations sued, contending that the state’s black voters – which constitute about 27 percent of the population – were relegated to a single majority-minority district representing only 14 percent of the state’s population. They successfully argued that a second majority-minority district is required under the VRA.

“Black people drove a disproportionate share of Alabama’s population growth. Throughout last year, Black Alabamians publicly called on the Legislature to recognize this reality and sought equal representation in Congress,” said NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Senior Counsel Deuel Ross. “The state ignored these demands, but we are deeply gratified that the unanimous court found that Black voters deserve full representation now. We look forward to working with the Legislature to ensure that Black voters are fairly represented in any remedial map.”

“Black voters have less opportunity than other Alabamians to elect candidates of their choice to Congress,” a three-judge panel consisting of two Trump appointees and one Clinton appointee wrote in its opinion, striking down Alabama’s racial gerrymander.

In its ruling, the court gave the legislature fourteen days to produce a new map that creates two majority-minority districts. If the legislature fails to act, the court will do so itself. An appeal is likely.

Ohio maps struck down

Meanwhile, in Ohio, the state’s Supreme Court struck down a gerrymander of the state’s congressional map. As we previously reported, the Ohio Supreme Court previously struck down state legislative maps as an unconstitutional gerrymander.

As we noted:

The gerrymandered maps are the product of the seven-member Ohio Redistricting Commission, which includes five Republicans and two Democrats. The commission produced a map – over the objections of the two Democratic members – that was expected to give Republicans a 62-37 advantage in the state House and a 23-10 advantage in the state Senate.

That’s despite former president Trump only winning Ohio 53-45% during the 2020 presidential election. Such skewed maps were likely to result in a Republican majority in both chambers regardless of the will of voters – even during campaign cycles that strongly favored Democrats.

However, voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment in 2015 that curtailed gerrymandering within the state. The amendment requires the commission to create boundaries that result in politically competitive districts.

The same 4-3 majority that voted to strike down the state legislative maps also axed the congressional gerrymander. Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Republican, cast the deciding vote. According to an analysis of the approved Congressional map, Republicans were favored in 12 of 15 districts. To put that in perspective, Republicans were favored to win 80 percent of House districts versus the 53 percent that the party received at the top of the ballot in 2020.

What’s quite stunning is that the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision was even a split decision. The state constitution expressly forbids gerrymandering thanks to a voter-approved ballot initiative that received over 70 percent support. Yet three of the conservative justices on the state supreme court – including the son of the incumbent governor who served on the Ohio Redistricting Commission that produced the gerrymandered maps in the first place (and incidentally refused to recuse himself) – voted to uphold the maps as constitutional.

Tennessee Republicans crack Nashville

Not all news on the gerrymandering front has been good.

Tennessee is the latest state to enact its congressional maps. Like Alabama, the state’s Republicans are aiming to limit Democrats to a single congressional district in an aggressive racial gerrymander that cracks the city of Nashville into multiple districts.

Prior to the newly-enacted map, the city of Nashville resided in a single congressional district. Democrat Jim Cooper is the long-time representative of the solidly blue 5th Congressional District that Joe Biden won by 24 points in 2020. Cooper announced his retirement this week after the gerrymandered map passed the legislature.

Although Nashville is a Democratic bastion, the surrounding congressional districts are solidly Republican. The new map carves Nashville into three different districts that stretch out to take in rural counties. The effect is to dilute the votes of the city’s black and brown voters, swamping them with rural white Republicans.

As the Tennessean reports:

The share of the population made up by Black residents in Tennessee’s potential new 5th Congressional District would plummet. In the proposed new 7th, Black residents would account for 16% of the district’s population. In the new 6th, Black residents would account for less than 10%. In the 5th, the Black population would fall to 11.9%.

Black residents account for 24.3% of the population in the current 5th Congressional District, represented by U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Nashville.

All of the new Nashville-based districts will have a Republican lean, although it’s conceivable that one or two of the districts may become competitive later in the decade if Nashville’s population continues to boom and newcomers from out of state bring left-leaning voting habits with them.

For now, the 5th Congressional District will go from D+9 to R+8. As for the rest of Tennessee’s congressional districts, the state is now looking at an 8-1 map where Democrats are relegated to a single VRA-protected district centered around Memphis.

The bottom line is that Tennessee Republicans are trying to muzzle Nashville’s black and brown voters, which should come as no surprise since this is a state that is censoring teachers on race. Expect a court fight in the weeks and months ahead.

Photo Credit: Jason MrachinaFlickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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Ohio Supreme Court strikes down state legislative maps as unconstitutional gerrymander

The Ohio Supreme Court struck down the state’s gerrymandered legislative maps on Wednesday in a victory for advocates of fair elections.

The gerrymandered maps are the product of the seven-member Ohio Redistricting Commission, which includes five Republicans and two Democrats. The commission produced a map – over the objections of the two Democratic members – that was expected to give Republicans a 62-37 advantage in the state House and a 23-10 advantage in the state Senate.

That’s despite former president Trump only winning Ohio 53-45% during the 2020 presidential election. Such skewed maps were likely to result in a Republican majority in both chambers regardless of the will of voters – even during campaign cycles that strongly favored Democrats.

However, voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment in 2015 that curtailed gerrymandering within the state. The amendment requires the commission to create boundaries that result in politically competitive districts.

“The commission is required to attempt to draw a plan in which the statewide proportion of Republican-leaning districts to Democratic-leaning districts closely corresponds to those percentages,” the Ohio Supreme Court majority wrote, rebutting Republican commissioners who contended that the constitutional amendment was merely “aspirational” in nature. “Section 6 speaks not of desire but of direction: the commission shall attempt to achieve the standards of that section.”

“We reject the notion that Ohio voters rallied so strongly behind an anti-gerrymandering amendment to the Ohio Constitution yet believed at the time that the amendment was toothless,” the majority added.

The Ohio Supreme Court has a 4-3 Republican majority. Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Republican, cast the deciding vote.

In addition to the state legislative maps, the Ohio Supreme Court is also considering a challenge to Ohio’s Congressional map, which is even more skewed in favor of Republicans. According to an analysis of the approved Congressional map, Republicans are favored in 12 of 15 districts – 80 percent of districts versus the 53 percent that the party received at the top of the ballot.

“This case is about how the General Assembly has thumbed its nose at these reforms and enacted a plan that palpably violates Article 19’s new anti-gerrymandering protections,” attorney Ben Stafford told the Ohio Supreme Court, which is expected to decide on whether to throw out the Congressional map in the coming weeks.

Photo Credit: Sixflashphoto, CC BY-SA 4.0

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Senate prepares for vote on voting rights and filibuster reform

Senator Chuck Schumer announced today that he is moving ahead with a planned vote on voting rights and a potential rule change meant to reform the filibuster.

Filibuster reform is necessary in order to pass voting rights since the Republican Party is united against the voting rights bills currently under consideration in Congress, including the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. (Senator Lisa Murkowski voted to allow debate to proceed but does not support the bill as written.)

According to Politico:

Chuck Schumer will bring elections and voting legislation to the Senate floor in the coming days, using existing congressional rules to evade an initial GOP filibuster.

The House will imminently pass a bill containing both sweeping federal elections reform and beefed up Voting Right Act provisions. Because the bill will be sent to the Senate as a “message” from the House, it will not be subject to an initial filibuster by the GOP and will be debated on the floor.

Instead, the Senate will confront its raging debate over the filibuster when Majority Leader Schumer moves to shut down debate.

“The Senate will finally debate voting rights legislation, and then every senator will be faced with a choice of whether or not to pass the legislation to protect our democracy,” Schumer wrote in a memo, obtained by POLITICO, to Senate Democrats.

The voting rights legislation is necessary to combat dozens of voter suppression laws passed in Republican-controlled states over the past year, including in Georgia where it is now illegal to give voters water or food while standing in line. The voter suppression laws are part of the reason – along with Donald Trump’s attempted coup and pushing of the Big Lie – why the United States is now considered a backsliding democracy.

Filibuster reform

Under current Senate rules, 60 votes are required to end debate on a bill and move on to a vote. There are exceptions to the filibuster, such as the budgetary process known as reconciliation, but it only covers budgetary matters.

Rather than completely eliminate the filibuster, the Senate could modify its rules so that in order to filibuster a bill you have to physically stand at a lectern, speak, and hold the floor for as long as you can stand. This is what is known as the talking filibuster, and it was the tradition in the Senate for over a century.

Personally, I like to call this proposal the Mr. Smith Goes to Washington rule. As I wrote last March:

The Mr. Smith Goes to Washington rule would give the minority party the chance to delay a bill and rally the American people against it. If a bill is as bad as opponents claim, they could still potentially stop it. However, it would not give a minority of senators a veto that does not exist in the Constitution. Once opponents cede the floor, the bill moves to a vote.

According to reporting from Politico and others, Schumer and Senate Democrats are considering implementing the talking filibuster / Mr. Smith Goes to Washington rule. This would restore the Senate’s long tradition of allowing unlimited debate (or at least as long as senators can stand) without giving the minority a veto.

Another possibility is that the Senate could create a carveout for voting rights legislation. The chamber created an exception to the filibuster – on a bipartisan basis, no less – to allow a debt ceiling increase just last month. As Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts observed, if the Senate can create a carveout for the debt ceiling, why not voting rights?

Of course, this all hinges on the cooperation of Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who have said that they oppose eliminating the 60-vote threshold, thus killing voting rights legislation in the process. If the senators truly support voting rights (as they claim) and a functional Senate where the majority can actually govern, they will get behind filibuster reform that includes either a talking filibuster or a carveout for voting rights.

Photo Credit: Flickr

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FULL TEXT: President Biden speech on voting rights in Atlanta, Georgia

President Joe Biden delivered a speech in defense of democracy and in support of voting rights legislation as the nation undergoes an unprecedented attempt to suppress the vote.

Biden delivered the following remarks at Atlanta University Center Consortium in Atlanta, Georgia on January 11, 2022:

In our lives and the lives of our nation — the life of our nation, there are moments so stark that they divide all that came before from everything that followed.  They stop time.  They rip away the trivial from the essential.  And they force us to confront hard truths about ourselves, about our institutions, and about our democracy.

In the words of Scripture, they remind us to “hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the gate.”

Last week, [Vice] President Harris and I stood in the United States Capitol to observe one of those “before and after” moments in American history: January 6th insurrection on the citadel of our democracy.

Today, we come to Atlanta — the cradle of civil rights — to make clear what must come after that dreadful day when a dagger was literally held at the throat of American democracy.

We stand on the grounds that connect Clark Atlanta — Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and near Spelman College — the home of generations of advocates, activists, educators and preachers; young people, just like the students here, who have done so much to build a better America.  (Applause.)

We visited the sacred Ebenezer Baptist Church and paused to prayed at the crypt of Dr. and Mrs. King, and spent time with their family.  And here in the district — as was pointed out — represented and reflected the life of beloved friend, John Lewis.

In their lifetimes, time stopped when a bomb blew up the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham and murdered four little girls.

They [Time] stopped when John and many others seeking justice were beaten and bloodied while crossing the bridge at Selma named after the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.

They stopped — time stopped, and they forced the country to confront the hard truths and to act — to act to keep the promise of America alive: the promise that holds that we’re all created equal but, more importantly, deserve to be treated equally.  And from those moments of darkness and despair came light and hope.

Democrats, Republicans, and independents worked to pass the historic Civil Rights Act and the voting rights legislation.  And each successive generation continued that ongoing work.

But then the violent mob of January 6th, 2021, empowered and encouraged by a defeated former president, sought to win through violence what he had lost at the ballot box, to impose the will of the mob, to overturn a free and fair election, and, for the first time — the first time in American history, they — to stop the peaceful transfer of power.

They failed.  They failed.  (Applause.)  But democracy’s — but democracy’s visi- — victory was not certain, nor is democracy’s future.

That’s why we’re here today to stand against the forces in America that value power over principle, forces that attempted a coup — a coup against the legally expressed will of the American people — by sowing doubt, inventing charges of fraud, and seeking to steal the 2020 election from the people.

They want chaos to reign.  We want the people to rule.  (Applause.)

But let me be clear: This is not about me or Vice President Harris or our party; it’s about all of us.  It’s about the people.  It’s about America.

Hear me plainly: The battle for the soul of America is not over.  We must stand strong and stand together to make sure January 6th marks not the end of democracy but the beginning of a renaissance of our democracy.  (Applause.)

You know, for the right to vote and to have that vote counted is democracy’s threshold liberty.  Without it, nothing is possible, but with it, anything is possible.

But while the denial of fair and free elections is un-democratic, it is not unprecedented.

Black Americans were denied full citizenship and voting rights until 1965.  Women were denied the right to vote until just 100 years ago.  The United States Supreme Court, in recent years, has weakened the Voting Rights Act.  And now the defeated former president and his supporters use the Big Lie about the 2020 election to fuel torrent and torment and anti-voting laws — new laws designed to suppress your vote, to subvert our elections.

Here in Georgia, for years, you’ve done the hard work of democracy: registering voters, educating voters, getting voters to the polls.  You’ve built a broad coalition of voters: Black, white, Latino, Asian American, urban, suburban, rural, working class, and middle class. 

And it’s worked: You’ve changed the state by bringing more people, legally, to the polls.  (Applause.)  That’s how you won the historic elections of Senator Raphael Warnock and Senator Jon Ossoff.  (Applause.) 

You did it — you did it the right way, the democratic way.

And what’s been the reaction of Republicans in Georgia?  Choose the wrong way, the undemocratic way.  To them, too many people voting in a democracy is a problem.  So they’re putting up obstacles.

For example, voting by mail is a safe and convenient way to get more people to vote, so they’re making it harder for you to vote by mail. 

The same way, I might add, in the 2020 Election, President Trump voted from behind the desk in the White House — in Florida. 

Dropping your ballots off to secure drop boxes — it’s safe, it’s convenient, and you get more people to vote.  So they’re limiting the number of drop boxes and the hours you can use them. 

Taking away the options has a predictable effect: longer lines at the polls, lines that can last for hours.  You’ve seen it with your own eyes.  People get tired and they get hungry.

When the Bible teaches us to feed the hungry and give water to the thirsty, the new Georgia law actually makes it illegal — think of this — I mean, it’s 2020, and now ’22, going into that election — it makes it illegal to bring your neighbors, your fellow voters food or water while they wait in line to vote.  What in the hell — heck are we talking about?  (Laughter and applause.)

I mean, think about it.  (Applause.)  That’s not America.  That’s what it looks like when they suppress the right to vote. 

And here’s how they plan to subvert the election: The Georgia Republican Party, the state legislature has now given itself the power to make it easier for partisan actors — their cronies — to remove local election officials. 

Think about that.  What happened in the last election?  The former president and allies pursued, threatened, and intimidated state and local election officials.

Election workers — ordinary citizens — were subject to death threats, menacing phone calls, people stalking them in their homes.

Remember what the defeated former president said to the highest-ranking election official — a Republican — in this state?  He said, quote, “I just want to find 11,780 votes.” 

Pray God.  (Laughter.)  He didn’t say that part.  (Laughter.)

He didn’t say, “Count the votes.”  He said, “find votes” that he needed to win.

He failed because of the courageous officials — Democrats, Republicans — who did their duty and upheld the law.  (Applause.)

But with this new law in Georgia, his loyal- — his loyalists will be placed in charge of state elections.  (Laughs.)  What is that going to mean?  Well, the chances for chaos and subversion are even greater as partisans seek the result they want — no matter what the voters have said, no matter what the count.  The votes of nearly 5 million Georgians will be up for grabs if that law holds.

It’s not just here in Georgia.  Last year alone, 19 states not proposed but enacted 34 laws attacking voting rights.  There were nearly 400 additional bills Republican members of state legislatures tried to pass.  And now, Republican legislators in several states have already announced plans to escalate the onslaught this year.

Their endgame?  To turn the will of the voters into a mere suggestion — something states can respect or ignore.

Jim Crow 2.0 is about two insidious things: voter suppression and election subversion.  It’s no longer about who gets to vote; it’s about making it harder to vote.  It’s about who gets to count the vote and whether your vote counts at all.

It’s not hyperbole; this is a fact. 

Look, this matters to all of us.  The goal of the former president and his allies is to disenfranchise anyone who votes against them.  Simple as that.  The facts won’t matter; your vote won’t matter.  They’ll just decide what they want and then do it.

That’s the kind of power you see in totalitarian states, not in democracies. 

We must be vigilant.

And the world is watching.  I know the majority of the world leaders — the good and the bad ones, adversaries and allies alike.  They’re watching American democracy and seeing whether we can meet this moment.  And that’s not hyperbole.

When I showed up at the G7 with seven other world leaders — there were a total of nine present — Vice President Harris and I have spent our careers doing this work — I said, “America is back.”  And the response was, “For how long?”  “For how long?” 

As someone who’s worked in foreign policy my whole life, I never thought I would ever hear our allies say something like that.

Over the past year, we’ve directed federal agencies to promote access to voting, led by the Vice President.  We’ve appointed top civil rights advocates to help the U.S. Department of Justice, which has doubled its voting rights enforcement staff.

And today, we call on Congress to get done what history will judge: Pass the Freedom to Vote Act.  (Applause.)  Pass it now — (applause) — which would prevent voter suppression so that here in Georgia there’s full access to voting by mail, there are enough drop boxes during enough hours so that you can bring food and water as well to people waiting in line. 

The Freedom to Vote Act takes on election subversion to protect nonpartisan electors [election] officials, who are doing their job, from intimidation and interference.

It would get dark money out of politics, create fairer district maps and ending partisan gerrymandering.  (Applause.)

Look, it’s also time to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.  (Applause.) 

I’ve been having these quiet conversations with the members of Congress for the last two months.  I’m tired of being quiet!  (Applause.)

Folks, it’ll restore the strength of the Voting Rights Act of ’65 — the one President Johnson signed after John Lewis was beaten, nearly killed on Bloody Sunday, only to have the Supreme Court weaken it multiple times over the past decade.

Restoring the Voting Rights Act would mean the Justice Department can stop discriminatory laws before they go into effect — before they go into effect.  (Applause.) 
The Vice President and I have supported voting rights bills since day one of this administration.  But each and every time, Senate Republicans have blocked the way.  Republicans oppose even debating the issue.  You hear me?

I’ve been around the Senate a long time.  I was Vice President for eight years.  I’ve never seen a circumstance where not one single Republican has a voice that’s ready to speak for justice now.

When I was a senator, including when I headed up the Judiciary Committee, I helped reauthorize the Voting [Rights] Act three times.  We held hearings.  We debated.  We voted.  I was able to extend the Voting Rights Act for 25 years.

In 2006, the Voting Rights Act passed 390 to 33 in
the House of Representatives and 98 to 0 in the Senate with votes from 16 current sitting Republicans in this United States Senate.  Sixteen of them voted to extend it.

The last year I was chairman, as some of my friends sitting down here will tell you, Strom Thurmond voted to extend the Voting Rights Act.  Strom Thurmond.

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Wow.

THE PRESIDENT:   You can say that again: “Wow.”  You have no idea how damn ha- — how darn hard I worked on that one.  (Laughter and applause.)

But, folks, then it was signed into law, the last time, by President George W. Bush.

You know, when we got voting rights extended in the 1980s, as I’ve said, even Thurmond supported it.  Think about that.  The man who led the longest filibu- — one of the longest filibusters in history in the United States Senate in 1957 against the Voting Rights Act [Civil Rights Act].  The man who led and sided with the old Southern Bulls in the United States Senate to perpetuate segregation in this nation.  Even Strom Thurmond came to support voting rights.

But Republicans today can’t and won’t.  Not a single Republican has displayed the courage to stand up to a defeated president to protect America’s right to vote.  Not one.  Not one.

We have 50-50 in the United States Senate.  That means we have 51 presidents.  (Laughter.)  You all think I’m kidding.  (Laughter.)

I’ve been pretty good at working with senators my whole career.  But, man, when you got 51 presidents, it gets harder.  Any one can change the outcome.

Sadly, the United States Senate — designed to be the world’s greatest deliberative body — has been rendered a shell of its former self.  It gives me no satisfaction in saying that, as an institutionalist, as a man who was honored to serve in the Senate.

But as an institutionalist, I believe that the threat to our democracy is so grave that we must find a way to pass these voting rights bills, debate them, vote. 

Let the majority prevail.  (Applause.)  And if that bare minimum is blocked, we have no option but to change the Senate rules, including getting rid of the filibuster for this.  (Applause.)

You know, last year, if I’m not mistaken, the filibuster was used 154 times.  The filibuster has been used to generate compromise in the past and promote some bipartisanship.  But it’s also been used to obstruct — including and especially obstruct civil rights and voting rights.

And when it was used, senators traditionally used to have to stand and speak at their desks for however long it took, and sometimes it took hours.  And when they sat down, if no one immediately stood up, anyone could call for a vote or the debate ended.

But that doesn’t happen today.  Senators no longer even have to speak one word.  The filibuster is not used by Republicans to bring the Senate together but to pull it further apart.

The filibuster has been weaponized and abused.

While the state legislatures’ assault on voting rights is simple — all you need in your House and Senate is a pure majority — in the United States Senate, it takes a supermajority: 60 votes, even to get a vote — instead of 50 — to protect the right to vote.

State legislatures can pass anti-voting laws with simple majorities.  If they can do that, then the United States Senate should be able to protect voting rights by a simple majority.  (Applause.)

Today I’m making it clear: To protect our democracy, I support changing the Senate rules, whichever way they need to be changed — (applause) — to prevent a minority of senators from blocking action on voting rights.  (Applause.)  

When it comes to protecting majority rule in America, the majority should rule in the United States Senate.  

I make this announcement with careful deliberation, recognizing the fundamental right to vote is the right from which all other rights flow.

And I make it with an appeal to my Republican colleagues, to those Republicans who believe in the rule of law: Restore the bipartisan tradition of voting rights. 

The people who restored it, who abided by it in the past were Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush.  They all supported the Voting Rights Act.

Don’t let the Republican Party morph into something else.  Restore the institution of the Senate the way it was designed to be.

Senate rules were just changed to raise the debt ceiling so we wouldn’t renege on our debt for the first time in our history and prevent an economic crisis.  That was done by a simple majority.

As Senator Warnock said a few weeks ago in a powerful speech: If we change the rules to protect the full faith and credit of the United States, we should be able to change the rules to protect the heart and soul of our democracy.  (Applause.)  He was right.

In the days that followed John Lewis’s death, there was an outpouring of praise and support across the political spectrum.

But as we stand here today, it isn’t enough just to praise his memory.  We must translate eulogy into action.  We need to follow John Lewis’s footsteps.  We need to support the bill in his name.

Just a few days ago, we talked about — up in the Congress and in the White House — the event coming up shortly to celebrate Dr. King’s birthday.  And Americans of all stripes will praise him for the content of his character.

But as Dr. King’s family said before, it’s not enough to praise their father.  They even said: On this holiday, don’t celebrate his birthday unless you’re willing to support what he lived for and what he died for.  (Applause.)

The next few days, when these bills come to a vote, will mark a turning point in this nation’s history.

We will choose — the issue is: Will we choose democracy over autocracy, light over shadows, justice over injustice? 

I know where I stand.  I will not yield.  I will not flinch.  I will defend the right to vote, our democracy against all enemies — foreign and, yes, domestic.  (Applause.)

And the question is: Where will the institution of the United States Senate stand?  Every senator — Democrat, Republican, and independent — will have to declare where they stand, not just for the moment, but for the ages.

Will you stand against voter suppression?  Yes or no?  That’s the question they’ll answer.  Will you stand against election subversion?  Yes or no?  Will you stand for democracy?  Yes or no?

And here’s one thing every senator and every American should remember: History has never been kind to those who have sided with voter suppression over voters’ rights.  And it will be even less kind for those who side with election subversion.

So, I ask every elected official in America: How do you want to be remembered? 

At consequential moments in history, they present a choice: Do you want to be the si- — on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace?  Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor?  Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?

This is the moment to decide to defend our elections, to defend our democracy.  (Applause.)

And if you do that, you will not be alone.  That’s because the struggle to protect voting rights has never been borne by one group alone.

We saw Freedom Riders of every race.  Leaders of every faith marching arm in arm.  And, yes, Democrats and Republicans in Congress of the United States and in the presidency.

I did not live the struggle of Douglass, Tubman, King, Lewis, Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner, and countless others — known and unknown.

I did not walk in the shoes of generations of students who walked these grounds.  But I walked other grounds.  Because I’m so damn old, I was there as well.  (Laughter.)

You think I’m kidding, man.  (Laughter.)  It seems like yesterday the first time I got arrested.  Anyway — (laughter).

But their struggles here — they were the ones that opened my eyes as a high school student in the late — in the late ’50s and early ’60s.  They got me more engaged in the work of my life.

And what we’re talking about today is rooted in the very idea of America — the idea that Annell Ponder, who graduated
from Clark Atlanta, captured in a single word.  She was a teacher and librarian who was also an unyielding champion of voting rights.

In 1963 — when I was just starting college at university — after registering voters in Mississippi, she was pulled off a bus, arrested, and jailed, where she was brutally beaten.

In her cell, next to her, was Fannie Lou Hamer, who described the beating this way, and I quote: “I could hear the sounds of [the] licks and [the] horrible screams…They beat her, I don’t know [for] how long.  And after a while, she began to pray, and asked God to have mercy on those people.”

Annell Ponder’s friends visited her the next day.  Her face was badly swollen.  She could hardly talk.

But she managed to whi- — whisper one word: “Freedom.”  “Freedom” — the only word she whispered.

After nearly 250 years since our founding, that singular idea still echoes.  But it’s up to all of us to make sure it never fades, especially the students here — your generation that just started voting — as there are those who are trying to take away that vi- — vote you just started to be able to exercise. 

But the giants we honor today were your age when they made clear who we must be as a nation.  Not a joke.  Think about it.  In the early ’60s, they were sitting where you’re sitting.  They were you.  And like them, you give me much hope for the future.

Before and after in our lives — and in the life of the nation — democracy is who we are, who we must be — now and forever.  So, let’s stand in this breach together.  Let’s love good, establish justice in the gate. 

And remember, as I said, there is one — this is one of those defining moments in American history: Each of those who vote will be remembered by class after class, in the ’50s and ’60s — the 2050s and ’60s.  Each one of the members of the Senate is going to be judged by history on where they stood before the vote and where they stood after the vote. 

There’s no escape.  So, let’s get back to work. 

As my fath- — my grandfather Finnegan used to say every time I walked out the door in Scranton, he’d say, “Joey, keep the faith.”  Then he’d say, “No, Joey, spread it.” 

Let’s spread the faith and get this done.  (Applause.) 

May God bless you all.  And may God protect the sacred right to vote.  (Applause.)  Thank you.  I mean it.  Let’s go get this done.  Thank you.  (Applause.) 

Categories
Analysis News

McConnell and Senate Republicans defend Rounds from Trump attacks

Senator Mike Rounds came under withering fire from former president Donald Trump this week after South Dakota’s junior senator admitted over the weekend that Trump lost the 2020 election.

Rounds appeared on ABC’s This Week on Sunday where he plainly acknowledged that “the election was fair.”

“As a part of our due diligence, we looked at over 60 different accusations made in multiple states,” Rounds said on This Week. “While there were some irregularities, there were none of the irregularities which would have risen to the point where they would have changed the vote outcome in a single state.”

Unsurprisingly, Trump took exception to the statement that the election was fair – which is obvious to anyone who is not a fanatical Trump supporter.

“‘Senator’ Mike Rounds of the Great State of South Dakota just went woke on the Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 … Is he crazy or just stupid?” Trump said in a statement using scare quotes. “I will never endorse this jerk again.”

More surprisingly, several Senate Republicans defended their colleague. Mitt Romney – a frequent Trump critic who voted for Trump’s second impeachment after the January 6 insurrection – backed Rounds. But Romney was joined this time by several Republican senators who did not vote for impeachment, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Minority Whip John Thune, and other rank-and-file members like Kevin Cramer and Shelley Moore Capito.

“I think Sen. Rounds told the truth about what happened in the 2020 election,” McConnell told CNN. “And I agree with him.”

“I’ve always said I agree that the election was not stolen – at least to the degree that it was illegal theft,” said Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND). “I’ve moved on a long time ago, and most members of Congress have, including Mike.”

For his part, Rounds has refused to back down, doubling down this week that the election was fair.

Is this a new strategy within the Senate Republican caucus to challenge Trump’s false contention that the election was “rigged?” It’s possible, considering many within the party blamed Trump for depressing turnout in Georgia’s twin runoffs last January, resulting in a split 50-50 Senate with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote. If Republicans had held even one of those seats last year, McConnell would still be the majority leader.

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

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News

The US is now considered a backsliding democracy

For the first time, the United States is considered a backsliding democracy.

That finding is according to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, which is based in Stockholm, Sweden. The think tank notes that the US began to backslide “at least since 2019.”

The report specifically cites eroding civil liberties, a decline in freedom of assembly after the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020, and former president Donald Trump’s questioning of election results.

“A historic turning point came in 2020-21 when former president Donald Trump questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election results in the United States,” the report says. “The visible deterioration of democracy in the United States, as seen in the increasing tendency to contest credible election results, the efforts to suppress participation (in elections), and the runaway polarisation … is one of the most concerning developments.”

Unwelcome company

The think tank categorizes countries into three groups: democracies (including backsliding democracies), hybrid (among them Russia and Turkey), and authoritarian (such as China and Saudi Arabia).

The United States joins the ranks of Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia as backsliding democracies. All told, backsliding democracies have doubled in the past decade and now account for a quarter of the world’s population.

Meanwhile, Ukraine was removed from the list of backsliding democracies after improvements in recent years. Serbia and Mali were removed from the list of backsliding democracies because they are no longer considered democracies.

The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance is not alone in its assessment of the perilous state of democracy in the United States. One hundred and fifty top scholars of American democracy have signed a letter warning that “midnight is approaching.”

“Defenders of democracy in America still have a slim window of opportunity to act. But time is ticking away,” the scholars write, arguing that Congress must act to protect voting rights.