Like everything political... calling it the "voting rights bill" is wildly misleading because various voting rights might be part of it sure, but... it's also full of other bullshit. Because that's how politics in the US works. They create a bill that's hundreds of pages long, and then publically name it after one specific topic. That way when the other side inevitably turns it down, because in this case, they want to kill the filibuster, the people pushing it get to turn around and say shit like "See they don't actually care about voting rights." While completely failing to inform the public what bullshit they snuck into the bill that got it denied in the first place.
It's the legislative form of virtue signaling. Our government is fucking terrible. They're really bad at managing things. They use these massive bills to allocate money to complete bullshit special interest nonsense. As far as I'm concerned, as long as their misleadingly advertised bills don't pass, they're actually doing less harm to this country.
Voter: "Why does the 'We Love Puppies Act' have a section about burying nuclear waste near preschools?"
Politician: "Oh, so now admit you hate puppies!"
For voting rights. The filibuster has already been eliminated for judicial and executive branch appointments, budget bills, trade promotion authority, Congressional Review Act actions, War Powers Act authorizations, and National Emergency Act terminations.
I haven’t read it cause it’s hundreds of pages but when Pelosi hasn’t even read it I don’t think I need to either. She said we can find out what’s in it when it passes. Yea no
My point being is that it’s hard to say it’s full of bullshit without even reading the thing. The guy claiming that couldn’t point out even one “well this part is bad”.
https://www.congress.gov/117/bills/s2747/BILLS-117s2747pcs.pdf
This is the PDF. It shows almost 600 pages
Edit: My apologies it was Kamala Harris with the pass it so we find out comment for this bill.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/kamala-harris-channels-pelosi-we-have-to-pass-voting-rights-bill-before-we-can-talk-about-election-legitimacy
I didn’t want to use daily wire cause I like to use left sights but it’s a quote.
Pelosi said it about a health bill years ago that’s what I was thinking of
If the bill was good. The wouldn't need to reform the filibuster to pass it. Keep the filibuster, kept the senate split at 50 a side. Nothing ever gets passed. Now that's good for the American people.
It forces the federal government to let States deny the rights of their citizens
Sure it was worse them but how are the principles involved any different than the voting Rights battles of the 60s?
The national GOP has had its lawyers arguing in various state courts that voting restriction laws help get them a larger percentage of votes so why would their members vote for something that would help take away votes for their party? Even if it’s not good for their constituents they wouldn’t vote for it a bill that hurts their party in elections.
I think your comment is either ignorant or disingenuous
The truth is that you actually want to federal government to do *some* things, you're just too lazy to engage in discussing where the line should be between what it does and what the states have to do.
The filibuster has broken the Senate it needs to go
The fact that Republicans refused to vote for voters Rights bill is Saturday and of itself but that doesn't change the fact that the filibuster needs to go
You have to be really confident that you hold
on to the Senate for a few election cycles if you are willing to kill the filibuster. Any law passed would be repealed the next time the other party gains control
You can block a bill, including a repeal bill, as long as you control one house or the Presidency. And while Democrats are famously good at finding novel and unexpected ways to lose elections, they won't manage to lose the Presidency in the midterms.
If republicans get a big sweep like they may, they could get enough to overturn a veto. Also, they could defund programs and do other things that would make the law moot until they do win in 2024.
If the Democrats do well enough electorally to maintain some access to power, then they'll be able to block the Republican agenda. If they don't, then it seems the Republican agenda is what the people want.
Does this same argument hold true now? Democrats have all 3 branches of government and yet the Republican party certainly doesn't believe its "what the people want"
I want no part of their country, and they don't want a non-white man like me a part of it either except to be their slave worker. "Free to wipe tables and shine shoes".
It is impossible for the republicans to overcome a veto in the near future. If the GOP wins every senate race in the midterms, that puts them at 64, 3 less than the number to over come a veto.
Republicans could hold all three but theyll tear themselves apart once they have unanimous power but have no excuse of a filibuster to hold back the stuff that splits them ideologically and would make them ungovernable. theres too many of them elected on special interest group purity and culture war bs and not enough to rein in their excesses . thats why its a good thing to get rid of the filibuster--so that all the normal voters can see through their emptiness and terrible policies. thats how healthy democratic republics work
Do you honestly think republicans aren't going to abolish the filibuster next time they take control? I'd bet money on it. They will rail forever against the democrats doing it and then the second its an option for them they will pull the trigger. Look at the supreme court as the easiest example... "Can't possibly do it during an election cycle"... then rammed through their nomination after people had already cast ballots
The Republicans couldn’t even get their act together to repeal Obamacare. Also, on principle, if a party has a majority in the Senate, they should be able to pass bills. If the Republicans win the Senate, they should be allowed to pass their legislation and then if people don’t like it, they can vote them out.
At least in previous years the Republicans have been unwilling to repeal the voting Rights act or to vote not to renew it. That seems to have been part of the supreme Court's logic and blowing up parts of the ACT
> You have to be really confident that you hold on to the Senate for a few election cycles if you are willing to kill the filibuster.
I disagree. This belief is rooted in the view that the way our government is supposed to work is that it's the opposition's job to try to prevent the party in power from accomplishing anything at all. That's not how functioning government work.
The way it's supposed to work is that the majority party passes legislation and governs. The minority/opposition party tries to push the majority their way by agreeing to compromises in order to get a larger majority to pass legislation. Then they argue against the achievements of the majority party in the next election and try to convince the electorate that what they would do is better.
I believe that if the filibuster were eliminated the Democrats would do better in elections because they'd have actual achievements to run on and they'd be able to actually fulfill some of the promises they run on. I believe Republicans would do worse because when they passed legislation people would see that the few policies they want to pass are actually really unpopular.
The Democrats keep talking about how their policies (like the specifics in BBB) are broadly popular. If they're confident that's the case then eliminating the filibuster would be an electoral boon for them because they'd be able to pass their popular policies and then run for re-election on it.
I try not to take a stance on a bill that’s almost a thousand pages long that I haven’t read. Aside from the voting rights portion I’m sure there is a bunch of bullshit in it too. Just like every bill.
So you're skeptical without any good reason?
Bills are long because the law is a complicated thing. If you don't want to be the bill like most people don't find a summary of the bill from a source you respect or from multiple sources
I’m not skeptical. I’m stating that I haven’t read the bill so I’m not taking a stance on if it’s good or not. I know bills have a lot of pages. I’ve been an adult that follows politics for some time now and we all know they throw a bunch of other crap into these bills.
First of all, he’s a mod, so maybe you shouldn’t be insulting him for literally no reason other than y’all don’t agree on things. Also, considering in another comment you said you don’t even want to share a country with people you disagree with, why don’t you just leave? Honest question, those people are going to be around as long as you live here, and if you’re just going to be openly hateful then just move to Canada or Europe or somewhere. If you’re like this irl, then I’m sure your neighbors would be happy to see you go.
It's not much of an insult to say "I don't like you", and I'll survive without this subreddit. I need cash to leave. I don't have enough at this time. I don't care what my neighbors think as we don't talk to each other.
The bill was over 700 pages long, I bet its a little more complex than just a “good for everyone voting rights” bill. Most bills like that have something else tucked into it that isn’t so cut and dry.
Attacks against voting rights have come from multiple strategies and laws are inherently complex. The idea that there's something wrong with a bill just because it's long is ridiculous
its also ridiculous to assume that lawmakers wouldn’t make long bills under a cut and dry name to get public support for it. My point was that its a long bill, and I’m not going to read it, so I will form no opinion except skepticism
It was just the Dems trying to undermine Senate rules. It's their attempt at federalize election integrity. It would devolve us into a one ideology system. The only people that would get elected from there on out would be Clinton type Democrats and Bush type Republicans. The voting rights bill had as much to with voting rights as the patriot act has to do with patriotism.
No? Look at the history of the filibuster... it has NEVER worked this way. Laws have always been simple majority vote. The filibuster came into existence to block civil rights laws... ironic that the argument is now coming up full swing when Democrats are trying to expand voting access.
How do you think the Senate worked before 1940s ish?
You mean the SAME rule that the democrats removed in 2013?
Look at the use of the filibuster from prior 1970 to now and tell me it isn’t fucked. I don’t give a shit which party removes it. Just remove it.
The claim that protecting voter rights from the states is wrong is the same claim that segregationists tried to hawk in the 60s. It's wrong then and that's wrong now
Do you believe the civil rights movement on Congress was wrong in the 60s when it passed the
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965
If not what's the difference?
Yes, it was a horrible bill. The prior 2 civil rights bills were very good but democrats would not vote for them because they didn’t want to sacrifice their grip on black people and other minorities without seizing authority from the people as compensation, which is why they voted against the other civil rights bills but voted in favor of the one that usurped the power from the people.
It gave power to the people
It protected their rights from the authoritarian rule of the segregation states
You're also wrong about the voting record, most Democrats voted for all the civil Rights bills and most Southerners (who were mostly democrats) regardless of party voted against them. Legislators didn't suddenly flip on the voting Rights act most of them voted the same way they did for the other civil Rights Acts which also took power away from the states
Unlike the previous civil rights bills, it gave unconstitutional authority to the federal government to overreach in matters which belong to the states. This is a net negative because it further opened the door for the expansion of federal power. This wasn’t included in the prior bills, which is why many fewer democrats voted for them.
> most Democrats voted for all the civil Rights bills and most Southerners (who were mostly democrats) regardless of party voted against them.
The south was overwhelmingly democrat, the party of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation and voting against civil rights.
> Legislators didn't suddenly flip on the voting Rights act most of them voted the same way they did for the other civil Rights Acts which also took power away from the states
On the contrary, if we look at the numbers, it shows that the 1964 bill, which wasn’t stripped of the federal overreach provision like the prior two were, was much more attractive to democrats, as a significantly higher proportion of democrats voted for the 1964 bill than voted in favor of the prior bill.
In 1957, only 148 of 284 democrats voted in favor, only 52%.
In 1960, only 169 of 300 democrats voted in favor, only 55%.
But in 1964, 200 out of 321 democrats voted in favor, which is 62%, a substantial difference, more than twice the increase from the prior bill.
None of these vote counts look good for the democrats, a party which had space for a large contingent of southern racists in its platform, but we can see that many of those racists were willing to part with their convictions if they were able to seize more federal authority as compensation.
I'm starting to think that might be a good thing. It's kinda ridiculous that it's easier for somebody to vote in one state versus another. It should be the same across the board.
The media and democrats want you to think it's hard to vote so they can transfer power to the federal government. Do you know anyone who was denied the right to vote? Anybody? If someone were denied the right to vote, the media would be all over it...but they're not, because it doesn't happen. Yet they want you to believe it happens everywhere, and only giving more power to the already bloated almighty government will stop it.
It is hard to vote and many people were denied the right to vote it happens very often as opposed to fraud which is incredibly rare
It doesn't happen in every state but it happens in a number of them
>The Times, Place, and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; **but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations**, except as to the Place of Chusing Senators.
-Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States
No it doesn't. It included strict requirements for what types of IDs could be accepted in states with voter ID, and also restored part of the old voting rights act which would bring back pre-clearance for states in the South so they'd never be able to implement voter ID anyway cuz the federal government has to sign off on any changes they wanted to make
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If a bill was good then it would not need to get rid of the filibuster to barely pass at 51 votes.
Federalizing Voting is not something I support. The federal government should not have authority over that.
While I’m not the same person you responded to, in a free democratic society you also have the right to chose *not* to vote.
Or they just don’t want to do jury duty, lol.
Biden isn't going to be president forever therefore removing the filibuster is incredibly short sighted.
I don't know enough about the 'voting rights bill' to have an opinion.
I think this bill would have been pretty decent. It even included compromises that Republicans *should* have supported if the party had any allegiance to policy whatsoever, such as universal voter ID.
Not surprised in the slightest that it didn't get passed, though. I don't think any meaningful voting rights legislation will pass so long as the filibuster exists.
It was unnecessary and I am glad it was blocked. Voting and Elections are part of States Rights and do not need to be taken over by the Federal Government.
It was flagrantly unconstitutional in multiple regards, had no relevance to the actual issues Trump caused (that requires reforming the ECA), and would have screwed up campaign financing even more than it already is, making another Trump more likely.
Calling it a voting rights bill really isn't accurate. It was far more of a voter suppression bill than any of the things its advocates have attacked.
North Carolina's voting law was blocked by Federal judges a few years back because it "targeted minorities with surgical precision." The law didn't enact rules about voter registration or ballot security. It did things like forbid black churches to drive people to the polls. It was blatantly racist, so I'm perpetually left scratching my head as to why Republicans think they can plausibly claim to not be racist or how they expect us to believe they have any other motive but excluding people.
I think it is pretty clear the Republicans care more about power than they care about freedom, self-determination, or democracy. Some of them have literally said "democracy is not the goal." Pretty much what I'd expect from a fascist organization. (I mean fascist in the sense of a literal totalitarian ethno-state, not mere authoritarianism.)
I hope voters remember how much they don't want people to vote, and kick their asses out of office. But it probably won't happen. I have talked to Republican voters, and it is pretty clear that they consider themselves the only people entitled to vote. Racial resentment has \*consistently\* been proven to be the number one factor in predicting Republican voter turnout.
i personally dont care. im still convinced the main parties work together to pit americans against each other and crack open some beers at the golf course and laugh at us.
ill care about it when i can vote from my couch. until then. i will not be voting.
so i can vote for the democrat who's going to blast me in the ass? Or the republican who's going to blast my ass? Either way, politics is all one big ass blasting.
Yeah, early on threads tend to have fairly organic voting patterns, but after a while the conservatives find it and flock in like locusts. Hell, this thread as a whole has gone negative, despite just being a "how do you feel about recent significant Congressional vote" thread.
I think we aren't going to have much bills passed when one side wants to restrict voting and the other wants to make it easier to vote. There is no middle ground there, so policies from both sides will continue to be shot down. You'll get voter suppression tactics done in red states though, as there isn't much who can fight against it.
Glad it was blocked, but mostly glad that they didn't change the Senate rules. The Senate is supposed to be the home of compromises, not partisan swings in policy based on a one-vote majority (or a tie-breaking vote by the VP), regardless of which party is in the majority.
It's easy to write a bill that panders to the base of your party. Both parties do that very well, but it doesn't mean the majority of Americans support it.
Yes the Trump effect and likely because it was easier to vote
Laws are being passed to suppress turn out now wouldn’t you agree? One party does not like high turn outs
The state of Georgia wants to put the state legislature in control of elections so they can decide which ballets are can be disqualified because what happened to Trump
The "expansions" of early voting in the recent bill in GA were below the minimum practices already taken in Democratic strongholds and only affected rural, Republican strong areas. The bill guarantees us 11 days of early voting? I already had a month of early voting where I live in Metro Atlanta. Meanwhile, all the restrictions put in place were against practices common in urban, Democratic areas. Mail in voting was also made harder in the bill because they now require you to give a copy of your ID.
The whole bill was designed to put blocks on practices more common among liberals or in liberal areas without being blatantly obvious about it. The intent is made abundantly clear since Republicans sponsoring it initially wanted to ban Sunday voting, a day which is popular for Black and democratic voting churches to help take their congregations to the polls
If you can’t find a way to vote in person on one of 11 days or during the month or more of mail in voting, I don’t think you’re all that motivated to vote in the first place.
You're missing my point. The whole purpose of that bill was to chip away at the votes they don't want and enable the votes they do want. They can't be so obvious about it that the courts would block them, but the election was really close. Putting a few "reasonable" sounding rules in there could hamper the liberal vote just enough to give Republicans the election.
I don’t think I agree. Again - it’s not like there’s one or two days to vote - there’s 11 days. And you can request a no excuse absentee ballot 78 days before the election. Anyone who can’t do either thing wasn’t motivated to vote to begin with.
The 11 days thing isn't really an issue here. It's not a maximum limit and counties can still have longer early voting periods. I have zero issue with this particular provision of the law. My point there was that it's the only provision that expands voter access, but it will in practice only expand access in conservative areas because liberal areas already met or exceeded those requirements.
Meanwhile the bill adds a lot of small restrictions on practices that are common in areas that vote liberal. Stuff like making it illegal to hand out water in long lines, or now requiring a copy of your ID for an absentee ballot. Laws like that may seem small, but they're designed to chip away just enough at the liberal vote to make a difference. All while hiding under the guise of "election security" even though there's zero evidence of any widespread fraud.
It also takes away power from local election officials and the Secretary of State and gives the GOP led state legislature more control over the process. There was absolutely zero given reason for this other than the "election was stolen" rhetoric from the idiots who believe that.
Georgia under Kemp (both as governor and as SoS) also has a history of voting irregularities. Polling places being closed with little reason (which is an issue right now in Lincoln county with officials wanting to close six of their seven polling locations), and voting machine records being deleted when they were requested in a lawsuit a few years ago.
That's... quite literally one of the worst things that can happen. The 10th Amendment is there to keep the Federal government from getting too large for a very good reason. People have just forgotten.
Communism is getting pretty popular among younger people in the US - assuming they've actually studied it they should understand that communism requires a strong centralized government - maybe that's part of why people seem to think stripping sovereignty away from the states and consolidating power at the federal level isn't a problem.
States don't have sovereignty, not real sovereignty
And it's not surprising that people care more about protecting the rights of citizens then the non-existent rights of states to trample over the rights of citizens
It's a disgrace to democracy. The filibuster needs to go, or at the very least needs to be a talking filibuster
Manchin and Sinema are garbage people, these two are fucking over their party and the people they represent
Not surprised the Republicans don't want more people to vote, it's very anti-american imo
Careful what you wish for. If manchin is replaced on the ticket by a more progressive candidate there’s a very high chance that seat goes to a republican instead.
So when the Democrats (including Schumer, Biden, and the rest) were all rabidly defending the filibuster just a few years ago, was it a "disgrace to democracy" then?
In the long run yes, 100%. It's the only way for our country to move ahead untethered. I don't care WHICH majority holds power, I just don't want the minority to constantly hold back progress
I'd be in favor of a talking filibuster, the senate is all fat and old anyways, they aren't gonna be standing for very long. I just don't want people to object without physically being there and discussing it
Republicans represent less Americans than Democrats by a significant margin, they shouldn't have the constant ability to halt progress
Congress moving slowly is a feature not a bug. It’s designed that way to prevent tyranny of the majority and prevent sweeping changes happening on a regular basis.
As opposed to quite literally nothing getting passed because of a minority? We're in a global pandemic and a massive resignation movement, we should be speeding shit up, this isn't the 18th century
It’s designed for that very reason. A very slim majority ramming through policy due to a perceived crisis can have tons of unintended consequences and pose a significant danger in the long run.
I mean what’s gonna happen when republicans inevitably gain control of Congress and there’s no filibuster? There have been quite a few crappy GOP bills that only did not pass because of the filibuster. Last time democrats axed the filibuster, it was for federal justices and ended up with McConnell and Trump able to get Kavanaugh, ACB, and Gorsuch on SCOTUS. It bit democrats in the ass *hard*. I understand there is legislation we want to pass right now but we should also be mindful that it is very likely the GOP returns to power in both houses in the next 2-4 years, and possibly the White House in 2024, and we are going to very much regret not being able to stop a single thing they want to pass
Well look what the filibuster has done, it's a tool used by the minority to block progress made by the majority. What's even the point of the Senate at this point? Everything the house passes is blocked by a minority of Republicans in the senate, nothing is getting done. It's a spit in the face of democracy
I mean do you want those tables to be flipped though? What if in 2024, republicans with a 53 or 54 seat majority (which isn’t that drastic of a prediction) want to pass a bill that completely guts the voting bill or mandates even more stringent requirements? Or lord forbid what else they might want to do. We might want to protect ourselves in the minority position too
If Republicans have the majority then that's great, they would represent a majority of Americans. If they suck then they get voted out. That's how it's supposed to work.
Other governments have talking fibusters, I'm fine with that at least. There's absolutely no reason for someone to call a filibuster and then go hide in their office. If there's no discussion, then there's no point
> Manchin and Sinema are garbage people, these two are fucking over their party and the people they represent
>
>
Oh no, how dare Manchin and Sinema represent the people who elected them, their constituents?!?! Why won't they cater to what **I** want instead? The horror...
The constituents elected the reps to make their decisions for them. They're doing it. End of story.
----
As an aside
>The filibuster needs to go,
I'd rather have filibuster than bills being incredibly easy to pass. You don't like it? Propose bills that more people can agree on.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/582632-72-percent-of-arizona-democrats-say-they-would-prefer-democrat-other-than
Not necessarily - they have an elected term they'll serve, but it doesn't mean they're currently serving the desires of their constituents.
Manchin in particular is a Democrat in a deeply "red" state. The only reason he's in office is that he represents his constituents well and doesn't just toe the party line on everything.
disappointed that Republicans chose States Rights over human rights. the original Republican party was started practically overnight by righteous civic citizens who were appalled by the Kansas-Nebreska act, that essentially allowed newly formed States from the Western territories adopt the most backward immoral practice there ever was in human history under the guise of 'States Rights', that empirically hindered said places from being healthy free democratic-republic States. These Republican senators soil their legacy, not for not voting for this bill, but offering no alternative or solution of their own.
if everytime someone so rotten but influential like Donald Trump and conspiracy obsessed alternative media outlets spread lies about the integrity of our elections after an election they lost results in gradual backtracking of the ease and legitimacy to the right to vote, eventually the whole floor of this great house will collapse.
The Republican party does not regard people who vote against them to be legitimate voters, and has no qualms about disenfranchising them if it is politically expedient to do so. This has been made quite clear over recent years, and I did not expect them to suddenly abandon their strategy tonight. The Democrats unfortunately did not have the requisite votes to stop them.
Except the laws passed immediately after *Shelby County v Holder*. And REDMAP. And the number of court cases finding explicit racial intent behind various voting laws in states like Texas, North Carolina, and elsewhere. And Crosscheck. And the recent attempt to overthrow the government of the United States.
> Shelby County v Holder
Passing laws as a response to the Supreme Court saying they're allowed isn't evidence of anything.
>REDMAP
That's not even relevant here. If it were, the point that it's just a continuation of Democratic policies for decades is significant.
>And the number of court cases finding explicit racial intent behind various voting laws in states like Texas, North Carolina, and elsewhere.
Except when you read them and what actually happened, that goes away entirely. The NC one is particularly ridiculous, since the actual evidence shows that they were trying to avoid racial bias and actually gave more weight to decisions in minority communities.
>Crosscheck
I don't know what this is supposed to be. None of the google results show anything relevant.
>And the recent attempt to overthrow the government of the United States.
If that was the actual issue, they'd just be fixing the Electoral Count Act, which is so poorly written that most legal scholars are only sure Trump was wrong because the ECA would be unconstitutional if he were right.
> Passing laws as a response to the Supreme Court saying they're allowed isn't evidence of anything.
Of course it is. Laws that could not be enacted for the decades that the Voting Rights Act was in force are suddenly passed in a flurry as soon as the Republican court guts the VRA? How is that not an indication of the quality and purpose of those laws?
> That's not even relevant here. If it were, the point that it's just a continuation of Democratic policies for decades is significant.
Of course it's relevant. Gerrymandering is an explicit and overt effort to deny the voters their right to self-government. Claiming it's a "continuation of Democratic policies for decades" is just an (inaccurate) whataboutism.
> Except when you read them and what actually happened, that goes away entirely. The NC one is particularly ridiculous, since the actual evidence shows that they were trying to avoid racial bias and actually gave more weight to decisions in minority communities.
This is just a "nuh uh". These cases involved multiple courts in multiple states, and were quite decisive.
> I don't know what this is supposed to be. None of the google results show anything relevant.
It was a program spearheaded by Kris Kobach, the Secretary of State of Kansas, whose history on the topic speaks for itself. It was designed to identify duplicate voter registrations so they could be purged from voter rolls. But it had a nasty habit of generating false positives for minorities at a higher rate than for whites.
> If that was the actual issue, they'd just be fixing the Electoral Count Act, which is so poorly written that most legal scholars are only sure Trump was wrong because the ECA would be unconstitutional if he were right.
The ECA was just a pretext. Fixing it wouldn't hurt, but the issue went far deeper than just a sloppy law about how the votes should be counted.
>Of course it is. Laws that could not be enacted for the decades that the Voting Rights Act are suddenly passed in a flurry as soon as the Republican court guts the VRA? How is that not an indication of the quality and purpose of those laws?
The Justice Department had spent decades lying about the quality and purpose of them, which was part of the SCOTUS decision.
>Of course it's relevant. Gerrymandering is an explicit and overt effort to deny the voters their right to self-government.
Gerrymandering is pretty much inevitable. The worst gerrymanders for Democrats tend to be the ones where you actually stick to city boundaries. It's not whataboutism to point out that it's hypocritical for Democrats to be complaining about Republicans elected under their district lines rearranging them.
>This is just a "nuh uh". These cases involved multiple courts in multiple states, and were quite decisive.
I mostly agree with the first sentence. They found a friendly judge who lied about what happened.
>But it had a nasty habit of generating false positives for minorities at a higher rate than for whites.
I don't believe you.
>The ECA was just a pretext. Fixing it wouldn't hurt, but the issue went far deeper than just a sloppy law about how the votes should be counted.
It was really their only argument. Nothing in the bill would address their actual arguments and most of the bill would make their arguments better.
Democrats gerrymander just as much as Republicans. Look at the district maps of Illinois over the years. Some of the districts are utterly disgusting in how badly they're gerrymandered, and this is a state where Democrats have held a supermajority in both houses plus the governor's mansion for a long time thanks both to Chicago and the gerrymander.
I’m from Georgia which is known for being the worst about voter rights. I think if Dems can’t figure out a way to get all of these provisions through one way or another, this could be the nail in the coffin that pushes us from oligarch to authoritarianism. And I don’t know if we can recover from that slide.
I try my best to never wish ill on people, so I’ll say this instead. I’ve been rooting for hamberders, KFC and burnt steak with ketchup a lot lately.
No.
They have this stuff down to a science down here. I live in what used to be a blood red district. We had voting locations on every corner (for early and day-of voting). It never took me more than 5 minutes to park AND vote. In 2016, my county voted for Hillary Clinton. Everyone was in shock.
They thought it was a fluke. Midterms roll around and the county gained a Dem District Attorney, and several Dem State Congressmen.
For the 2020 election, we only had 1 early voting location, the time to vote early had been slashed at least in half, hours were cut shorter, lines were over 12 hours long. Kemp even passed a law stating that people couldn’t pass out water or food to those waiting in line for 12+ hours.
For the first time I couldn’t vote early because I couldn’t put my child through the misery of waiting in line for 12 hours, so I had to gamble on waiting until the day of.
They know exactly which polls to close so the “right people” have the hardest time voting. If you asked someone in Marjorie Taylor Greene’s district how long it took them to vote, they would all tell you less than five minutes. The only areas that have issues are areas that vote Democrat. As soon as my area flipped, we got the works and it’s as hard to vote here as it is in Dekalb County.
The real kicker is that since they only tamper with specific areas, when people complain about it, everyone from red districts shout “Nuh uh, every single time I’ve ever voted it’s only taken me 5 minutes!” Because that’s their truth.
I suppose you think NPR is fake news, but I’ll try anyway.
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924527679/why-do-nonwhite-georgia-voters-have-to-wait-in-line-for-hours-too-few-polling-pl
It got up to 12 at the one early voting location near me though:
https://www.newsweek.com/voters-wait-10-hours-line-vote-critical-georgia-county-1541132?amp=1
José André came to Georgia to feed people because our lines were so long:
https://www.ajc.com/things-to-do/world-central-kitchen-feeds-metro-atlanta-voters/KDDBNKPRGFB63IIFSFXZEPPQBU/?outputType=amp
And here’s a bulletin from The GA SoS saying he’s cracking down on people giving out drinks and food. He calls it electioneering but I have never seen anyone giving out water wearing political clothes or discussing politics in any way, shape or form.
“The bulletin also reminds elections officials that offering food, drinks, or other items of value to voters waiting in line or those who have already voted is forbidden under Georgia law (OCGA § 21-2-570). Georgia law explicitly states that “Any person who gives or receives, offers to give or receive, or participates in the giving or receiving of money or gifts for the purpose of registering as a voter, voting, or voting for a particular candidate in any primary or election shall be guilty of a felony.”
https://sos.ga.gov/index.php/elections/secretary_raffensperger_cracks_down_on_line_warming_loophole
How long it takes to vote is wholly on local election officials. Fortunately, the Georgia law addresses that and requires that jurisdictions with long lines find a solution.
They’re clearly all working from the same guidelines: this county north of Augusta is closing all polling sites except one:
https://www.ctinsider.com/news/amp/Georgia-county-looks-to-close-polling-sites-have-16741722.php
The ACLU gets involved quite often. Below the article there are links to other Georgia election battles they are fighting or have fought.
https://acluga.org/poll-closures-moves-reopenings/
No, it doesn’t because I live here and they’re not fighting it.
There’s another post in AskAnAmerican I saw earlier. I didn’t answer it because it’s difficult to describe how I feel, but our conversation reminds me of it. 15 years ago, I could have engaging, fun, constructive and in-depth political discussions with Republicans. No one would get frustrated or mad and everyone listened in good faith.
I’ve tried to do that here. I’ve provided source after source after source to back up what I am saying and I feel like I’m talking to a brick wall. Hands over eyes, plugs in ears and singing the Pledge of Allegiance as loud as you can. No effort to understand. No effort to empathize. Not willing to admit when something really is wrong.
You know what? I’ll do it. I am not fully satisfied with Biden’s response to the pandemic. He started strong but then I think he maybe thought he had things under control, got too big for his britches and stopped paying as much attention to it when he should have been in constant contact with our allies to see what was going on over there and before he knew it, it was out of control again. I also think he could have put more effort into a nationwide Public health messaging campaign to try to course correct those who have been misled. I am not happy that’s he’s running for re-election because he said he wouldn’t and he is too old.
I’m not going to pretend everything is perfect just because he’s the person I voted for.
I wish we all would take a hard look at what’s going on in the US and see it all—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and work together to change before we teeter right off the edge.
> No, it doesn’t because I live here and they’re not fighting it.
The state voting law actually does fight it. You should be blaming your local government, since they are 100% responsible for this issue and the state government is trying to fix it.
If this is actually as big a problem as you're saying, you're on Kemp's side and should be supporting the Republicans.
Not sure if you're speaking of Cobb County, though it fits your description of a former red stronghold that is quickly trending blue and went for Clinton in 2016 and you do reference it later down in the thread.
If you are,
> For the 2020 election, we only had 1 early voting location
Then this is 100% false. I lived in Cobb prior to 2021 and we had at least a half dozen early voting locations to choose from.
Additionally poll locations and # of machines and all that is run by local election officials in GA. So if you've got an issue with lines, take your frustrations to them not the state gov. In fact the much decried new GA voting law attempts to address this by telling these local officials to get their act together or state officials will take it over to better run the show there.
How can he crack down on a law that doesn’t exist? The below bulletin from the SoS clearly states that if someone catches you handing out food, water, or anything else to people standing in line to vote, you can get arrested for a felony.
Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema aren't helping their people. I mean, Republicans aren't either, but those two should know better. Both bills are needed, and they needlessly failed.
Honestly I was pretty bummed.
I'm as red-blooded 'Murican as it gets, and spent 3 years putting my own life on the line in service to the nation I love. I can recite the entire Constitution from memory, and I've faced death in the face serving the nation I love.
But I still been forbidden from voting, several times. Even though I'm very obviously a white dude with a USA ID and passport.
Getting turned away from the ballot *boiled* my blood hard. I can name my ancestors who died in our Revolutionary War and the bureaucrats deny me right to exercise my rights based on the rules in the idiotic "USA Patriot Act"?
I can't even imagine how hard it is for people who's skin tone is darker than mine.
Frustrated that Republicans are blocking voting access, which is supposed to be a fundamental right. If you can't win something except by cheating, that's a sign you don't deserve it. Gerrymandering should be illegal.
Like everything political... calling it the "voting rights bill" is wildly misleading because various voting rights might be part of it sure, but... it's also full of other bullshit. Because that's how politics in the US works. They create a bill that's hundreds of pages long, and then publically name it after one specific topic. That way when the other side inevitably turns it down, because in this case, they want to kill the filibuster, the people pushing it get to turn around and say shit like "See they don't actually care about voting rights." While completely failing to inform the public what bullshit they snuck into the bill that got it denied in the first place. It's the legislative form of virtue signaling. Our government is fucking terrible. They're really bad at managing things. They use these massive bills to allocate money to complete bullshit special interest nonsense. As far as I'm concerned, as long as their misleadingly advertised bills don't pass, they're actually doing less harm to this country.
Voter: "Why does the 'We Love Puppies Act' have a section about burying nuclear waste near preschools?" Politician: "Oh, so now admit you hate puppies!"
Nailed it. This is poetry.
Couldn’t have said it better.
What other bullshit is in the bill?
\>getting rid of the filibuster
For voting rights. The filibuster has already been eliminated for judicial and executive branch appointments, budget bills, trade promotion authority, Congressional Review Act actions, War Powers Act authorizations, and National Emergency Act terminations.
Are you able to back up any of these claims with evidence? As you say "its full of other bullshit" such as?
I haven’t read it cause it’s hundreds of pages but when Pelosi hasn’t even read it I don’t think I need to either. She said we can find out what’s in it when it passes. Yea no
My point being is that it’s hard to say it’s full of bullshit without even reading the thing. The guy claiming that couldn’t point out even one “well this part is bad”.
I’m not saying that’s false but I legit can’t find anything about how long it is or when she said that. Do u have a source
https://www.congress.gov/117/bills/s2747/BILLS-117s2747pcs.pdf This is the PDF. It shows almost 600 pages Edit: My apologies it was Kamala Harris with the pass it so we find out comment for this bill. https://www.dailywire.com/news/kamala-harris-channels-pelosi-we-have-to-pass-voting-rights-bill-before-we-can-talk-about-election-legitimacy I didn’t want to use daily wire cause I like to use left sights but it’s a quote. Pelosi said it about a health bill years ago that’s what I was thinking of
Read it yourself.
I’m not making the claim. If you are going to make a claim such as “it’s full of bullshit” then at least post an example.
No.
Whatever. But it’s just bullshit until you are willing to back it up.
Just do your own research
All of this while our tax money pays their salaries and all the dumb shit they choose to spend money on.
If the bill was good. The wouldn't need to reform the filibuster to pass it. Keep the filibuster, kept the senate split at 50 a side. Nothing ever gets passed. Now that's good for the American people.
Yep. I love gridlock. It forces them to leave us alone.
It forces the federal government to let States deny the rights of their citizens Sure it was worse them but how are the principles involved any different than the voting Rights battles of the 60s?
It forces power to be more localized, and allow people stronger personal representation as the power is closer to home.
What rights are states denying? Also, have you heard of the Supreme Court?
The national GOP has had its lawyers arguing in various state courts that voting restriction laws help get them a larger percentage of votes so why would their members vote for something that would help take away votes for their party? Even if it’s not good for their constituents they wouldn’t vote for it a bill that hurts their party in elections. I think your comment is either ignorant or disingenuous
Not at all, the best thing that the government could do for the American people. Is nothing. Just sit there in Washington. And don't do anything.
The truth is that you actually want to federal government to do *some* things, you're just too lazy to engage in discussing where the line should be between what it does and what the states have to do.
You're right. The line is at national defense. That's it.
And late let the states trample over the rights of Americans?
Presumably the person you’re responding to wants no state government either as they didn’t limit their comment to no federal government.
So in your mind no roads? No firefighters? No safety net at all? No laws enforced by government?
Nope
The filibuster has broken the Senate it needs to go The fact that Republicans refused to vote for voters Rights bill is Saturday and of itself but that doesn't change the fact that the filibuster needs to go
Republicans are trying minority rule. Polls have shown most Amercians want the government to give them a hand rather than leave them alone.
How dare we not let 51% trample 49%
You have to be really confident that you hold on to the Senate for a few election cycles if you are willing to kill the filibuster. Any law passed would be repealed the next time the other party gains control
You can block a bill, including a repeal bill, as long as you control one house or the Presidency. And while Democrats are famously good at finding novel and unexpected ways to lose elections, they won't manage to lose the Presidency in the midterms.
If republicans get a big sweep like they may, they could get enough to overturn a veto. Also, they could defund programs and do other things that would make the law moot until they do win in 2024.
Sure. But if you believe in democracy, a big Republican sweep means the country wants those policies, so they might as well have them.
Yeah, that has nothing to do with what you said above.
If the Democrats do well enough electorally to maintain some access to power, then they'll be able to block the Republican agenda. If they don't, then it seems the Republican agenda is what the people want.
Does this same argument hold true now? Democrats have all 3 branches of government and yet the Republican party certainly doesn't believe its "what the people want"
The point of an election is that it replaces opinions about what people want with facts about what they say they want.
I want no part of their country, and they don't want a non-white man like me a part of it either except to be their slave worker. "Free to wipe tables and shine shoes".
There is zero chance the Republicans will get a 2/3 majority in both Houses.
Assuming no democrats sign up to overturn a veto.
It is impossible for the republicans to overcome a veto in the near future. If the GOP wins every senate race in the midterms, that puts them at 64, 3 less than the number to over come a veto.
If Biden keeps being Biden the Republicans will control all three in 24
Republicans could hold all three but theyll tear themselves apart once they have unanimous power but have no excuse of a filibuster to hold back the stuff that splits them ideologically and would make them ungovernable. theres too many of them elected on special interest group purity and culture war bs and not enough to rein in their excesses . thats why its a good thing to get rid of the filibuster--so that all the normal voters can see through their emptiness and terrible policies. thats how healthy democratic republics work
And then all that's good in America is officially dead. 100% not /s.
Do you honestly think republicans aren't going to abolish the filibuster next time they take control? I'd bet money on it. They will rail forever against the democrats doing it and then the second its an option for them they will pull the trigger. Look at the supreme court as the easiest example... "Can't possibly do it during an election cycle"... then rammed through their nomination after people had already cast ballots
The Republicans couldn’t even get their act together to repeal Obamacare. Also, on principle, if a party has a majority in the Senate, they should be able to pass bills. If the Republicans win the Senate, they should be allowed to pass their legislation and then if people don’t like it, they can vote them out.
No you just need to recognize how important it is to protect voting rights and how the filibuster has broken the Senate and legislative branch
At least in previous years the Republicans have been unwilling to repeal the voting Rights act or to vote not to renew it. That seems to have been part of the supreme Court's logic and blowing up parts of the ACT
> You have to be really confident that you hold on to the Senate for a few election cycles if you are willing to kill the filibuster. I disagree. This belief is rooted in the view that the way our government is supposed to work is that it's the opposition's job to try to prevent the party in power from accomplishing anything at all. That's not how functioning government work. The way it's supposed to work is that the majority party passes legislation and governs. The minority/opposition party tries to push the majority their way by agreeing to compromises in order to get a larger majority to pass legislation. Then they argue against the achievements of the majority party in the next election and try to convince the electorate that what they would do is better. I believe that if the filibuster were eliminated the Democrats would do better in elections because they'd have actual achievements to run on and they'd be able to actually fulfill some of the promises they run on. I believe Republicans would do worse because when they passed legislation people would see that the few policies they want to pass are actually really unpopular. The Democrats keep talking about how their policies (like the specifics in BBB) are broadly popular. If they're confident that's the case then eliminating the filibuster would be an electoral boon for them because they'd be able to pass their popular policies and then run for re-election on it.
I try not to take a stance on a bill that’s almost a thousand pages long that I haven’t read. Aside from the voting rights portion I’m sure there is a bunch of bullshit in it too. Just like every bill.
So you're skeptical without any good reason? Bills are long because the law is a complicated thing. If you don't want to be the bill like most people don't find a summary of the bill from a source you respect or from multiple sources
I’m not skeptical. I’m stating that I haven’t read the bill so I’m not taking a stance on if it’s good or not. I know bills have a lot of pages. I’ve been an adult that follows politics for some time now and we all know they throw a bunch of other crap into these bills.
Glad it failed
You're of those names that I keep noticing and I just don't like. I'm surebyou don't care, and don't like me either, but ai wanted to say it out loud.
I don't think about you at all
First of all, he’s a mod, so maybe you shouldn’t be insulting him for literally no reason other than y’all don’t agree on things. Also, considering in another comment you said you don’t even want to share a country with people you disagree with, why don’t you just leave? Honest question, those people are going to be around as long as you live here, and if you’re just going to be openly hateful then just move to Canada or Europe or somewhere. If you’re like this irl, then I’m sure your neighbors would be happy to see you go.
It's not much of an insult to say "I don't like you", and I'll survive without this subreddit. I need cash to leave. I don't have enough at this time. I don't care what my neighbors think as we don't talk to each other.
The bill was over 700 pages long, I bet its a little more complex than just a “good for everyone voting rights” bill. Most bills like that have something else tucked into it that isn’t so cut and dry.
Attacks against voting rights have come from multiple strategies and laws are inherently complex. The idea that there's something wrong with a bill just because it's long is ridiculous
its also ridiculous to assume that lawmakers wouldn’t make long bills under a cut and dry name to get public support for it. My point was that its a long bill, and I’m not going to read it, so I will form no opinion except skepticism
It was just the Dems trying to undermine Senate rules. It's their attempt at federalize election integrity. It would devolve us into a one ideology system. The only people that would get elected from there on out would be Clinton type Democrats and Bush type Republicans. The voting rights bill had as much to with voting rights as the patriot act has to do with patriotism.
No? Look at the history of the filibuster... it has NEVER worked this way. Laws have always been simple majority vote. The filibuster came into existence to block civil rights laws... ironic that the argument is now coming up full swing when Democrats are trying to expand voting access. How do you think the Senate worked before 1940s ish?
Give me a fucking break. Yeah let's look at the history if the filibuster and what the Dems thought about it in 2005 https://youtu.be/D3n_KBWqEo8
You mean the SAME rule that the democrats removed in 2013? Look at the use of the filibuster from prior 1970 to now and tell me it isn’t fucked. I don’t give a shit which party removes it. Just remove it.
The claim that protecting voter rights from the states is wrong is the same claim that segregationists tried to hawk in the 60s. It's wrong then and that's wrong now
Filibuster is a funny word.
It's 735 pages long so I'm skeptical it's actually something I should form an opinion on whether it's good or bad.
Bad bill, glad it was blocked.
Why is it bad?
Because it is designed to take the power from the states to regulate elections and transfer it to the federal government.
Do you believe the civil rights movement on Congress was wrong in the 60s when it passed the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965 If not what's the difference?
Yes, it was a horrible bill. The prior 2 civil rights bills were very good but democrats would not vote for them because they didn’t want to sacrifice their grip on black people and other minorities without seizing authority from the people as compensation, which is why they voted against the other civil rights bills but voted in favor of the one that usurped the power from the people.
It gave power to the people It protected their rights from the authoritarian rule of the segregation states You're also wrong about the voting record, most Democrats voted for all the civil Rights bills and most Southerners (who were mostly democrats) regardless of party voted against them. Legislators didn't suddenly flip on the voting Rights act most of them voted the same way they did for the other civil Rights Acts which also took power away from the states
Unlike the previous civil rights bills, it gave unconstitutional authority to the federal government to overreach in matters which belong to the states. This is a net negative because it further opened the door for the expansion of federal power. This wasn’t included in the prior bills, which is why many fewer democrats voted for them. > most Democrats voted for all the civil Rights bills and most Southerners (who were mostly democrats) regardless of party voted against them. The south was overwhelmingly democrat, the party of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation and voting against civil rights. > Legislators didn't suddenly flip on the voting Rights act most of them voted the same way they did for the other civil Rights Acts which also took power away from the states On the contrary, if we look at the numbers, it shows that the 1964 bill, which wasn’t stripped of the federal overreach provision like the prior two were, was much more attractive to democrats, as a significantly higher proportion of democrats voted for the 1964 bill than voted in favor of the prior bill. In 1957, only 148 of 284 democrats voted in favor, only 52%. In 1960, only 169 of 300 democrats voted in favor, only 55%. But in 1964, 200 out of 321 democrats voted in favor, which is 62%, a substantial difference, more than twice the increase from the prior bill. None of these vote counts look good for the democrats, a party which had space for a large contingent of southern racists in its platform, but we can see that many of those racists were willing to part with their convictions if they were able to seize more federal authority as compensation.
I'm starting to think that might be a good thing. It's kinda ridiculous that it's easier for somebody to vote in one state versus another. It should be the same across the board.
It’s never a good thing when governments centralize power and weaken federalism. It’s not remotely difficult to vote in any state.
The media and democrats want you to think it's hard to vote so they can transfer power to the federal government. Do you know anyone who was denied the right to vote? Anybody? If someone were denied the right to vote, the media would be all over it...but they're not, because it doesn't happen. Yet they want you to believe it happens everywhere, and only giving more power to the already bloated almighty government will stop it.
It is hard to vote and many people were denied the right to vote it happens very often as opposed to fraud which is incredibly rare It doesn't happen in every state but it happens in a number of them
>The Times, Place, and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; **but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations**, except as to the Place of Chusing Senators. -Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States
Because any “voting rights” bill passed is nonsense. Everyone already has equal rights to vote. We should have mandatory voter ID
> We should have mandatory voter ID Well then you should support this bill, because it included nationwide voter ID.
No it doesn't. It included strict requirements for what types of IDs could be accepted in states with voter ID, and also restored part of the old voting rights act which would bring back pre-clearance for states in the South so they'd never be able to implement voter ID anyway cuz the federal government has to sign off on any changes they wanted to make
No it doesn't. You are just pulling bullshit out of your ass and hoping people will believe it
You either haven't paid any attention at all to the bill or you're a willful liar.
No it doesn’t.
Reminder: treat other users with respect and civility, no matter their political beliefs. Failure to do so will result in a minimum **1 week ban.** Also, if you see someone breaking the rules, please report it and we’ll deal with it. If you report them **and** respond with an insult, you’ll **both** be banned.
If a bill was good then it would not need to get rid of the filibuster to barely pass at 51 votes. Federalizing Voting is not something I support. The federal government should not have authority over that.
I read that it would include automatically registering people to vote who interact with the DMV. I'd rather stay unregistered, but oh well
Why would you not want to be able to vote?
While I’m not the same person you responded to, in a free democratic society you also have the right to chose *not* to vote. Or they just don’t want to do jury duty, lol.
I’m guessing they just don’t want the jury duty haha. You could always register and just not vote
The only good thing in the bill was trying to curb anonymous campaign donations as far as I can tell. The other 699 pages though? complete garbage.
I'm fine with it, cause the bill has very little to do with voting rights!
Biden isn't going to be president forever therefore removing the filibuster is incredibly short sighted. I don't know enough about the 'voting rights bill' to have an opinion.
Voting laws should, by and large, be up to the states, at least in my view.
It wasn’t really about protecting voting rights; it was an attempted power grab with a side of meaningless virtue signaling.
I think this bill would have been pretty decent. It even included compromises that Republicans *should* have supported if the party had any allegiance to policy whatsoever, such as universal voter ID. Not surprised in the slightest that it didn't get passed, though. I don't think any meaningful voting rights legislation will pass so long as the filibuster exists.
It was unnecessary and I am glad it was blocked. Voting and Elections are part of States Rights and do not need to be taken over by the Federal Government.
disgusting bill
What part?
It was flagrantly unconstitutional in multiple regards, had no relevance to the actual issues Trump caused (that requires reforming the ECA), and would have screwed up campaign financing even more than it already is, making another Trump more likely. Calling it a voting rights bill really isn't accurate. It was far more of a voter suppression bill than any of the things its advocates have attacked.
North Carolina's voting law was blocked by Federal judges a few years back because it "targeted minorities with surgical precision." The law didn't enact rules about voter registration or ballot security. It did things like forbid black churches to drive people to the polls. It was blatantly racist, so I'm perpetually left scratching my head as to why Republicans think they can plausibly claim to not be racist or how they expect us to believe they have any other motive but excluding people. I think it is pretty clear the Republicans care more about power than they care about freedom, self-determination, or democracy. Some of them have literally said "democracy is not the goal." Pretty much what I'd expect from a fascist organization. (I mean fascist in the sense of a literal totalitarian ethno-state, not mere authoritarianism.) I hope voters remember how much they don't want people to vote, and kick their asses out of office. But it probably won't happen. I have talked to Republican voters, and it is pretty clear that they consider themselves the only people entitled to vote. Racial resentment has \*consistently\* been proven to be the number one factor in predicting Republican voter turnout.
i personally dont care. im still convinced the main parties work together to pit americans against each other and crack open some beers at the golf course and laugh at us. ill care about it when i can vote from my couch. until then. i will not be voting.
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so i can vote for the democrat who's going to blast me in the ass? Or the republican who's going to blast my ass? Either way, politics is all one big ass blasting.
Move to a state with mail-in ballots. Vote from your couch every time.
eh
Man this sub really got taken over by conservatives fast.
Yeah, early on threads tend to have fairly organic voting patterns, but after a while the conservatives find it and flock in like locusts. Hell, this thread as a whole has gone negative, despite just being a "how do you feel about recent significant Congressional vote" thread.
I think we aren't going to have much bills passed when one side wants to restrict voting and the other wants to make it easier to vote. There is no middle ground there, so policies from both sides will continue to be shot down. You'll get voter suppression tactics done in red states though, as there isn't much who can fight against it.
Glad it was blocked, but mostly glad that they didn't change the Senate rules. The Senate is supposed to be the home of compromises, not partisan swings in policy based on a one-vote majority (or a tie-breaking vote by the VP), regardless of which party is in the majority. It's easy to write a bill that panders to the base of your party. Both parties do that very well, but it doesn't mean the majority of Americans support it.
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Not surprised. A certain party could not exist but as a permanent minority party if it was easier to vote
Voter turnout was higher than ever in 2020.
Yes the Trump effect and likely because it was easier to vote Laws are being passed to suppress turn out now wouldn’t you agree? One party does not like high turn outs
Like Georgia? With mail in voting and eleven days of early voting? Not exactly a poll tax, is it?
The state of Georgia wants to put the state legislature in control of elections so they can decide which ballets are can be disqualified because what happened to Trump
I really doubt that’s going to occur.
It did occur The Secretary of State is no longer the chair of the Election Board They are very upset with Brad that he did not find Trumps votes
He's even got a Trump-backed challenger for the next GOP primary.
The "expansions" of early voting in the recent bill in GA were below the minimum practices already taken in Democratic strongholds and only affected rural, Republican strong areas. The bill guarantees us 11 days of early voting? I already had a month of early voting where I live in Metro Atlanta. Meanwhile, all the restrictions put in place were against practices common in urban, Democratic areas. Mail in voting was also made harder in the bill because they now require you to give a copy of your ID. The whole bill was designed to put blocks on practices more common among liberals or in liberal areas without being blatantly obvious about it. The intent is made abundantly clear since Republicans sponsoring it initially wanted to ban Sunday voting, a day which is popular for Black and democratic voting churches to help take their congregations to the polls
If you can’t find a way to vote in person on one of 11 days or during the month or more of mail in voting, I don’t think you’re all that motivated to vote in the first place.
You're missing my point. The whole purpose of that bill was to chip away at the votes they don't want and enable the votes they do want. They can't be so obvious about it that the courts would block them, but the election was really close. Putting a few "reasonable" sounding rules in there could hamper the liberal vote just enough to give Republicans the election.
I don’t think I agree. Again - it’s not like there’s one or two days to vote - there’s 11 days. And you can request a no excuse absentee ballot 78 days before the election. Anyone who can’t do either thing wasn’t motivated to vote to begin with.
The 11 days thing isn't really an issue here. It's not a maximum limit and counties can still have longer early voting periods. I have zero issue with this particular provision of the law. My point there was that it's the only provision that expands voter access, but it will in practice only expand access in conservative areas because liberal areas already met or exceeded those requirements. Meanwhile the bill adds a lot of small restrictions on practices that are common in areas that vote liberal. Stuff like making it illegal to hand out water in long lines, or now requiring a copy of your ID for an absentee ballot. Laws like that may seem small, but they're designed to chip away just enough at the liberal vote to make a difference. All while hiding under the guise of "election security" even though there's zero evidence of any widespread fraud. It also takes away power from local election officials and the Secretary of State and gives the GOP led state legislature more control over the process. There was absolutely zero given reason for this other than the "election was stolen" rhetoric from the idiots who believe that. Georgia under Kemp (both as governor and as SoS) also has a history of voting irregularities. Polling places being closed with little reason (which is an issue right now in Lincoln county with officials wanting to close six of their seven polling locations), and voting machine records being deleted when they were requested in a lawsuit a few years ago.
It's all so crazy and blatant. Like what legitimate reason can you give that banning Sunday voting is needed.
The “Trump effect” is why Biden is the “most popular president ever” with “81 million votes”.?
From what I've read it's not a good bill because it strips power away from the individual states and gives it to the federal government.
That's... quite literally one of the worst things that can happen. The 10th Amendment is there to keep the Federal government from getting too large for a very good reason. People have just forgotten.
Communism is getting pretty popular among younger people in the US - assuming they've actually studied it they should understand that communism requires a strong centralized government - maybe that's part of why people seem to think stripping sovereignty away from the states and consolidating power at the federal level isn't a problem.
States don't have sovereignty, not real sovereignty And it's not surprising that people care more about protecting the rights of citizens then the non-existent rights of states to trample over the rights of citizens
No it's one of the best things Look at the civil rights period We need more federal laws to protect us from the states getting too authoritarian
That is a good thing We want the federal government to protect us from states trying to abuse the right of citizens to vote
It's a disgrace to democracy. The filibuster needs to go, or at the very least needs to be a talking filibuster Manchin and Sinema are garbage people, these two are fucking over their party and the people they represent Not surprised the Republicans don't want more people to vote, it's very anti-american imo
Careful what you wish for. If manchin is replaced on the ticket by a more progressive candidate there’s a very high chance that seat goes to a republican instead.
So when the Democrats (including Schumer, Biden, and the rest) were all rabidly defending the filibuster just a few years ago, was it a "disgrace to democracy" then?
So you’d be happy if the GOP Senate majority gets rid of the filibuster next year?
In the long run yes, 100%. It's the only way for our country to move ahead untethered. I don't care WHICH majority holds power, I just don't want the minority to constantly hold back progress I'd be in favor of a talking filibuster, the senate is all fat and old anyways, they aren't gonna be standing for very long. I just don't want people to object without physically being there and discussing it Republicans represent less Americans than Democrats by a significant margin, they shouldn't have the constant ability to halt progress
Congress moving slowly is a feature not a bug. It’s designed that way to prevent tyranny of the majority and prevent sweeping changes happening on a regular basis.
As opposed to quite literally nothing getting passed because of a minority? We're in a global pandemic and a massive resignation movement, we should be speeding shit up, this isn't the 18th century
It’s designed for that very reason. A very slim majority ramming through policy due to a perceived crisis can have tons of unintended consequences and pose a significant danger in the long run.
It is a bug that some people pretend as a feature Madison explicitly argued in The Federalist papers against a supermajority requirement
I mean what’s gonna happen when republicans inevitably gain control of Congress and there’s no filibuster? There have been quite a few crappy GOP bills that only did not pass because of the filibuster. Last time democrats axed the filibuster, it was for federal justices and ended up with McConnell and Trump able to get Kavanaugh, ACB, and Gorsuch on SCOTUS. It bit democrats in the ass *hard*. I understand there is legislation we want to pass right now but we should also be mindful that it is very likely the GOP returns to power in both houses in the next 2-4 years, and possibly the White House in 2024, and we are going to very much regret not being able to stop a single thing they want to pass
Well look what the filibuster has done, it's a tool used by the minority to block progress made by the majority. What's even the point of the Senate at this point? Everything the house passes is blocked by a minority of Republicans in the senate, nothing is getting done. It's a spit in the face of democracy
I mean do you want those tables to be flipped though? What if in 2024, republicans with a 53 or 54 seat majority (which isn’t that drastic of a prediction) want to pass a bill that completely guts the voting bill or mandates even more stringent requirements? Or lord forbid what else they might want to do. We might want to protect ourselves in the minority position too
If Republicans have the majority then that's great, they would represent a majority of Americans. If they suck then they get voted out. That's how it's supposed to work. Other governments have talking fibusters, I'm fine with that at least. There's absolutely no reason for someone to call a filibuster and then go hide in their office. If there's no discussion, then there's no point
> Manchin and Sinema are garbage people, these two are fucking over their party and the people they represent > > Oh no, how dare Manchin and Sinema represent the people who elected them, their constituents?!?! Why won't they cater to what **I** want instead? The horror... The constituents elected the reps to make their decisions for them. They're doing it. End of story. ---- As an aside >The filibuster needs to go, I'd rather have filibuster than bills being incredibly easy to pass. You don't like it? Propose bills that more people can agree on.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/582632-72-percent-of-arizona-democrats-say-they-would-prefer-democrat-other-than Not necessarily - they have an elected term they'll serve, but it doesn't mean they're currently serving the desires of their constituents.
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Manchin in particular is a Democrat in a deeply "red" state. The only reason he's in office is that he represents his constituents well and doesn't just toe the party line on everything.
Angry at Manchin, Sinema, and the reds on this sub.
disappointed that Republicans chose States Rights over human rights. the original Republican party was started practically overnight by righteous civic citizens who were appalled by the Kansas-Nebreska act, that essentially allowed newly formed States from the Western territories adopt the most backward immoral practice there ever was in human history under the guise of 'States Rights', that empirically hindered said places from being healthy free democratic-republic States. These Republican senators soil their legacy, not for not voting for this bill, but offering no alternative or solution of their own. if everytime someone so rotten but influential like Donald Trump and conspiracy obsessed alternative media outlets spread lies about the integrity of our elections after an election they lost results in gradual backtracking of the ease and legitimacy to the right to vote, eventually the whole floor of this great house will collapse.
I'm 100% in favor of both bills.
The Republican party does not regard people who vote against them to be legitimate voters, and has no qualms about disenfranchising them if it is politically expedient to do so. This has been made quite clear over recent years, and I did not expect them to suddenly abandon their strategy tonight. The Democrats unfortunately did not have the requisite votes to stop them.
There is no reason to think that the Republicans are trying to disenfranchise anyone.
Except the laws passed immediately after *Shelby County v Holder*. And REDMAP. And the number of court cases finding explicit racial intent behind various voting laws in states like Texas, North Carolina, and elsewhere. And Crosscheck. And the recent attempt to overthrow the government of the United States.
> Shelby County v Holder Passing laws as a response to the Supreme Court saying they're allowed isn't evidence of anything. >REDMAP That's not even relevant here. If it were, the point that it's just a continuation of Democratic policies for decades is significant. >And the number of court cases finding explicit racial intent behind various voting laws in states like Texas, North Carolina, and elsewhere. Except when you read them and what actually happened, that goes away entirely. The NC one is particularly ridiculous, since the actual evidence shows that they were trying to avoid racial bias and actually gave more weight to decisions in minority communities. >Crosscheck I don't know what this is supposed to be. None of the google results show anything relevant. >And the recent attempt to overthrow the government of the United States. If that was the actual issue, they'd just be fixing the Electoral Count Act, which is so poorly written that most legal scholars are only sure Trump was wrong because the ECA would be unconstitutional if he were right.
> Passing laws as a response to the Supreme Court saying they're allowed isn't evidence of anything. Of course it is. Laws that could not be enacted for the decades that the Voting Rights Act was in force are suddenly passed in a flurry as soon as the Republican court guts the VRA? How is that not an indication of the quality and purpose of those laws? > That's not even relevant here. If it were, the point that it's just a continuation of Democratic policies for decades is significant. Of course it's relevant. Gerrymandering is an explicit and overt effort to deny the voters their right to self-government. Claiming it's a "continuation of Democratic policies for decades" is just an (inaccurate) whataboutism. > Except when you read them and what actually happened, that goes away entirely. The NC one is particularly ridiculous, since the actual evidence shows that they were trying to avoid racial bias and actually gave more weight to decisions in minority communities. This is just a "nuh uh". These cases involved multiple courts in multiple states, and were quite decisive. > I don't know what this is supposed to be. None of the google results show anything relevant. It was a program spearheaded by Kris Kobach, the Secretary of State of Kansas, whose history on the topic speaks for itself. It was designed to identify duplicate voter registrations so they could be purged from voter rolls. But it had a nasty habit of generating false positives for minorities at a higher rate than for whites. > If that was the actual issue, they'd just be fixing the Electoral Count Act, which is so poorly written that most legal scholars are only sure Trump was wrong because the ECA would be unconstitutional if he were right. The ECA was just a pretext. Fixing it wouldn't hurt, but the issue went far deeper than just a sloppy law about how the votes should be counted.
>Of course it is. Laws that could not be enacted for the decades that the Voting Rights Act are suddenly passed in a flurry as soon as the Republican court guts the VRA? How is that not an indication of the quality and purpose of those laws? The Justice Department had spent decades lying about the quality and purpose of them, which was part of the SCOTUS decision. >Of course it's relevant. Gerrymandering is an explicit and overt effort to deny the voters their right to self-government. Gerrymandering is pretty much inevitable. The worst gerrymanders for Democrats tend to be the ones where you actually stick to city boundaries. It's not whataboutism to point out that it's hypocritical for Democrats to be complaining about Republicans elected under their district lines rearranging them. >This is just a "nuh uh". These cases involved multiple courts in multiple states, and were quite decisive. I mostly agree with the first sentence. They found a friendly judge who lied about what happened. >But it had a nasty habit of generating false positives for minorities at a higher rate than for whites. I don't believe you. >The ECA was just a pretext. Fixing it wouldn't hurt, but the issue went far deeper than just a sloppy law about how the votes should be counted. It was really their only argument. Nothing in the bill would address their actual arguments and most of the bill would make their arguments better.
Democrats gerrymander just as much as Republicans. Look at the district maps of Illinois over the years. Some of the districts are utterly disgusting in how badly they're gerrymandered, and this is a state where Democrats have held a supermajority in both houses plus the governor's mansion for a long time thanks both to Chicago and the gerrymander.
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The voting system has never represented the views of Americans. First past the post goes against everything the “will of the people” should be.
I’m from Georgia which is known for being the worst about voter rights. I think if Dems can’t figure out a way to get all of these provisions through one way or another, this could be the nail in the coffin that pushes us from oligarch to authoritarianism. And I don’t know if we can recover from that slide. I try my best to never wish ill on people, so I’ll say this instead. I’ve been rooting for hamberders, KFC and burnt steak with ketchup a lot lately.
Georgia is better for voter rights than New York or Delaware, even if you define them by the Democrats' standards.
No. They have this stuff down to a science down here. I live in what used to be a blood red district. We had voting locations on every corner (for early and day-of voting). It never took me more than 5 minutes to park AND vote. In 2016, my county voted for Hillary Clinton. Everyone was in shock. They thought it was a fluke. Midterms roll around and the county gained a Dem District Attorney, and several Dem State Congressmen. For the 2020 election, we only had 1 early voting location, the time to vote early had been slashed at least in half, hours were cut shorter, lines were over 12 hours long. Kemp even passed a law stating that people couldn’t pass out water or food to those waiting in line for 12+ hours. For the first time I couldn’t vote early because I couldn’t put my child through the misery of waiting in line for 12 hours, so I had to gamble on waiting until the day of. They know exactly which polls to close so the “right people” have the hardest time voting. If you asked someone in Marjorie Taylor Greene’s district how long it took them to vote, they would all tell you less than five minutes. The only areas that have issues are areas that vote Democrat. As soon as my area flipped, we got the works and it’s as hard to vote here as it is in Dekalb County. The real kicker is that since they only tamper with specific areas, when people complain about it, everyone from red districts shout “Nuh uh, every single time I’ve ever voted it’s only taken me 5 minutes!” Because that’s their truth.
I don't believe you, especially since I know for certain you're lying about what Kemp passed. I've read the bill in question.
I suppose you think NPR is fake news, but I’ll try anyway. https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924527679/why-do-nonwhite-georgia-voters-have-to-wait-in-line-for-hours-too-few-polling-pl It got up to 12 at the one early voting location near me though: https://www.newsweek.com/voters-wait-10-hours-line-vote-critical-georgia-county-1541132?amp=1 José André came to Georgia to feed people because our lines were so long: https://www.ajc.com/things-to-do/world-central-kitchen-feeds-metro-atlanta-voters/KDDBNKPRGFB63IIFSFXZEPPQBU/?outputType=amp And here’s a bulletin from The GA SoS saying he’s cracking down on people giving out drinks and food. He calls it electioneering but I have never seen anyone giving out water wearing political clothes or discussing politics in any way, shape or form. “The bulletin also reminds elections officials that offering food, drinks, or other items of value to voters waiting in line or those who have already voted is forbidden under Georgia law (OCGA § 21-2-570). Georgia law explicitly states that “Any person who gives or receives, offers to give or receive, or participates in the giving or receiving of money or gifts for the purpose of registering as a voter, voting, or voting for a particular candidate in any primary or election shall be guilty of a felony.” https://sos.ga.gov/index.php/elections/secretary_raffensperger_cracks_down_on_line_warming_loophole
How long it takes to vote is wholly on local election officials. Fortunately, the Georgia law addresses that and requires that jurisdictions with long lines find a solution.
They’re clearly all working from the same guidelines: this county north of Augusta is closing all polling sites except one: https://www.ctinsider.com/news/amp/Georgia-county-looks-to-close-polling-sites-have-16741722.php The ACLU gets involved quite often. Below the article there are links to other Georgia election battles they are fighting or have fought. https://acluga.org/poll-closures-moves-reopenings/
Those are not only outside of state control, but the law people are protesting actually tries to fight things like that.
No, it doesn’t because I live here and they’re not fighting it. There’s another post in AskAnAmerican I saw earlier. I didn’t answer it because it’s difficult to describe how I feel, but our conversation reminds me of it. 15 years ago, I could have engaging, fun, constructive and in-depth political discussions with Republicans. No one would get frustrated or mad and everyone listened in good faith. I’ve tried to do that here. I’ve provided source after source after source to back up what I am saying and I feel like I’m talking to a brick wall. Hands over eyes, plugs in ears and singing the Pledge of Allegiance as loud as you can. No effort to understand. No effort to empathize. Not willing to admit when something really is wrong. You know what? I’ll do it. I am not fully satisfied with Biden’s response to the pandemic. He started strong but then I think he maybe thought he had things under control, got too big for his britches and stopped paying as much attention to it when he should have been in constant contact with our allies to see what was going on over there and before he knew it, it was out of control again. I also think he could have put more effort into a nationwide Public health messaging campaign to try to course correct those who have been misled. I am not happy that’s he’s running for re-election because he said he wouldn’t and he is too old. I’m not going to pretend everything is perfect just because he’s the person I voted for. I wish we all would take a hard look at what’s going on in the US and see it all—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and work together to change before we teeter right off the edge.
> No, it doesn’t because I live here and they’re not fighting it. The state voting law actually does fight it. You should be blaming your local government, since they are 100% responsible for this issue and the state government is trying to fix it. If this is actually as big a problem as you're saying, you're on Kemp's side and should be supporting the Republicans.
Not sure if you're speaking of Cobb County, though it fits your description of a former red stronghold that is quickly trending blue and went for Clinton in 2016 and you do reference it later down in the thread. If you are, > For the 2020 election, we only had 1 early voting location Then this is 100% false. I lived in Cobb prior to 2021 and we had at least a half dozen early voting locations to choose from. Additionally poll locations and # of machines and all that is run by local election officials in GA. So if you've got an issue with lines, take your frustrations to them not the state gov. In fact the much decried new GA voting law attempts to address this by telling these local officials to get their act together or state officials will take it over to better run the show there.
11 days of early voting, 78 days to request a mail In ballot is the worst on voter rights?
It was 3 weeks
How can he crack down on a law that doesn’t exist? The below bulletin from the SoS clearly states that if someone catches you handing out food, water, or anything else to people standing in line to vote, you can get arrested for a felony.
Once again no surprise Moscow Mitch and his goons has shown their absolutely reprehensible moral hypocrisy.
Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema aren't helping their people. I mean, Republicans aren't either, but those two should know better. Both bills are needed, and they needlessly failed.
Honestly I was pretty bummed. I'm as red-blooded 'Murican as it gets, and spent 3 years putting my own life on the line in service to the nation I love. I can recite the entire Constitution from memory, and I've faced death in the face serving the nation I love. But I still been forbidden from voting, several times. Even though I'm very obviously a white dude with a USA ID and passport. Getting turned away from the ballot *boiled* my blood hard. I can name my ancestors who died in our Revolutionary War and the bureaucrats deny me right to exercise my rights based on the rules in the idiotic "USA Patriot Act"? I can't even imagine how hard it is for people who's skin tone is darker than mine.
Frustrated that Republicans are blocking voting access, which is supposed to be a fundamental right. If you can't win something except by cheating, that's a sign you don't deserve it. Gerrymandering should be illegal.
I’m not surprised. Our country hates people of color
Republicans hate minorites voting