Mustn’t have that.
Not here!
I’m all in for all of those ideas.
There is a tendency for Democrats running in primaries to start creating laundry lists of positions that are popular with various restricted constituencies rather than focusing on key broad issues. This can be a problem.
So.
A constitutional amendment to protect the right to vote: Ok with me, but what is the text?
For ethics rules to be expanded to cover the Supreme Court: judges can be impeached already so it’s not clear this is necessary.
End to the Electoral College: ok but this would require a constitutional amendment and because it disempower a significant number of small states, it’s probably not going to fly
A national ban on gerrymandering: Not sure what that means but if it means creating a uniform means of algorithmically creating boundaries for congressional districts that is somehow immune to partisan political influence, yes that would be great. But this would require another constitutional amendment since now the boundaries are drawn by the individual states.
An executive order requiring his cabinet to hold monthly town halls: It’s not clear what this means, but it seems like that’s a bit much. Every month - does this mean the entire cabinet at once? Each agency separately? It is important to get input on agency regulations but that is already done in normal administrations. The logistics and expense of doing this every month add up to a dubious cost-benefit ratio.
Public funding of federal elections and making Election Day a national holiday. OK - this could be done legislatively. Both are good commonsensical ideas. But not to republicans, of course. Which is the point.
A new voting rights act: sounds good to me.
A new national law guaranteeing former felons the right to vote: not sure making “felons’ rights” a key plank in your platform is a great idea. I recognize the importance of acknowledging (in most cases) that people who have completed their sentences or released on parole should be granted a restoration of political rights (what is the justification of penalizing people for life when sentences are finite?).
Expansion of the Freedom of Information Act to cover Congress: OK by me but be careful what you wish for.
Repairing the Voting Rights Act since the Supreme Court gutted it in 2013: Great
Overturning the Citizens United Supreme Court decision: Also Great
(Fighting) voter identification laws: yes if they are discriminatory
The thing is, it would make more sense, to me, to talk about (and provide specifics about) more key general issues: the importance of funding for education, health care, childcare, infrastructure maintenance and improvement, scientific research; for developing a foreign and national security policy that seeks to stabilize the world, for the benefit of all mankind. The need to do this - the rationale for why it is good for the federal government to do this in the service of the citizenry and for a positive and progressive future for this country, that is what they need to be talking about.
Sander’s comments about SCOTUS make sense to me.
Yeah, I’ve been in favor of packing the Court to compensate for the GOP’s theft, but that’s a two-edged sword. Rotating justices off the Court is not an idea I’d heard before, but I’d be interested to learn more and think through it a bit.
Hey, Republicans. Let’s talk!
You know you want some of these things. Let’s try to help each other, instead of letting the politicians run up so much debt.
Court packing is asking for trouble, all it leads to is an increasing SC whenever a party wants to force issues through. It politicizes things even more than it is already. Rotating judges, or fixed terms, would level things out better, and avoid people like McConnell gaming the system for partisan ends.
It is very good news that Democrats are pushing these things, because Republicans are so far out in their anti-voter strategies that there will be a real contrast, and defending blocking voters is always a losing proposition. More Democrats will win if this is a major plank, because Republicans will come back with all kinds of BS that’s easy to destroy.
I thought “lean in” was a joke in the aftermath of Sandberg’s book, used derisively to mock thickheaded advice to the underrepresented like “just try harder”?
It is in my world, anyway.
None of this has a chance of actually being enacted, so there’s no need to pick it apart–the Republicans are bound to shoot it all down anyway. But even if the Democrats went smaller, the Republicans would shoot it down, so why not take the chance to float some really big ideas, things that people can get excited about, and show the Republicans up for what they are: the party of nothing much but tax cuts for the rich, despoilment of the environment, and making life harder for the guys at the bottom of the heap.
“Elizabeth Warren called for a constitutional amendment to protect the right to vote and for ethics rules to be expanded to cover the Supreme Court.”
“Paging Justice Kennedy, Justice Anthony Kennedy, please meet your party at the Deutsche Bank counter.”
That, too, but don’t forget all the cozy hunting trips Fat Tony took with Cheney while choosing not to recuse himself from issues that directly benefitted The Dick.
Looking forward to the end of the policy discussions and the beginning of the coherent messaging on the economy and health care and national security. That is the stuff that wins elections. Policy discussions are actually easy. You think about a given policy for a few days, then you decide what to do, then you get back to messaging and winning. Once you’ve won, you don’t debate. You act.
That’s what the GOP does, incidentally, and why it massively overperforms the merits of its policies, which are almost nonexistent.
“The party’s starting to coalesce around these broader structural forms to democracy,” Ezra Levin, the co-chair of the progressive Indivisible Project, told TPM.
Ezra deserves a boat-load of credit for this initiative.
He’s a good kid and an unabashed progressive. If I could hold his head while rubbing noses, I might just do it.
Bernie Sanders: “My worry is the next time the Republicans are in power they will do the same thing.”
No one who is paying any attention should be in any doubt that there is a war going on in this country: burgeoning authoritarianism vs. liberal democracy. Republicans will do everything in their power, including unbridled mendacity and extreme rule-breaking and law breaking, to increase their political power. So just because Republicans, as Bernie said, “will do the same thing” is in itself no reason not to escalate and add two judges to the supreme court, or whatever. Now, maybe there are good reasons to opt for an alternative strategy in the particular case of the SC, but fear of what Republicans will indeed do can not be one of them. These bastards need to be fought hard. Oh, by the way, they are bastards.
No democracy, no justice.
Maybe it is starting to sink in.
To bad the Democratic Party and Nancy Pelosi are not on board with it.
High time to talk about your democracy while it gets stolen.
back to AC360
The irony is that Pelosi and the Big Money Democrats hate democracy. Hate It.
DCCC Shoots Down Proposed Compromise Over Blacklisting Vendors
Oh, come on, @georgeh. Those vendors aren’t being black-listed. They’re just being differently colored.