This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1355419
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1355419
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If there is one policy that Democrats should shove through regardless of any Republican objections, it is a new voting rights bill that fixes all of the loopholes and abuses that Republicans have been using at the state level to interfere with the ability of American citizens to vote. This past election had such huge turnout because COVID caused states to relax their limits on voting that block so many. It’s well past the time that we have federal legislation that forces states to have more open voting, easier registration, and stops policies that block voters from using their right to cast a ballot. Throw in limits to gerrymandering, such as requiring a non-partisan committee to create districts, and there will be more competition for seats, which will limit the ability of extremists to stay in power for decades, and make sure move voices are heard.
This has to happen…it would be great if Republicans got onboard with all of the things that make voting and elections freer and fair as well as secure, but if they continue to try to hold onto the ability to block American citizens to cast a vote then they can stand against democracy while Democrats give the people the ability to choose who will lead us into the future.
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This. So much this. BUT LOUDER. Take this shit to every street corner and all over the airwaves and mercilessly paint the GOP as the anti-democracy cheating election riggers they truly are. Do NOT let Dems/liberals escape criticism for failing to speak in precisely this way about the GOP.
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Portman is one of my senators. He’s a POS slimeball and has been for decades. One of my current hopes is that Rep. Anthony Gonzalez can be talked into primarying him.
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“A bipartisan, blue ribbon panel to provide transparency into past election issues …"
NFW!
look at current reality! … stop with the BULL SHIT LIES … do not let these asshole do their standard - ROOMBA - stuck in a corner routine - going in circles … what were there 17 different Benghazi “investigations” ??? that all kept tracing & retracing the same old crap and never could produce substance to support the outrageous false & distorted GOP accusations … but just kept puking out the same crap. NO, NO
The fundamental needs are known - all of the obstruction of reasonable voting process has to stop - but they won’t ever go along with that because if there was high participation, numerous situations where the GOP had a strangle-hold on the elected offices would be endangered .
When there are counties - or congressional districts where the population is 75% minority … but the county commissioners are all white … the county sheriff dept is 90% white … and the voting turn out is 65% white and 35 % minority … there is something underhanded going on - overt or covert … and it has to stop …
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Let’s start with a bipartisan agreement to fine any congressman $10,000 for making statements of voting irregularities without evidence (not ‘proof’, but ‘evidence’).
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“A bipartisan, blue ribbon panel to provide transparency”
Each time someone in DC says that, an idealist dies.
Well, no, strictly speaking I have no proof – but why else would they keep saying it?
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Fuck this shit!
This is just like some jurno saying "Washington is broke: Hell the fuck no it is NOT broke. WASHINGTON IS BROKEN BECAUSE REPUBLICANS BROKE.
Ditto: “We are so bitterly divided”, I could go on- and on.
Excuse my intemperate language but fellow Americans are dead because of this party and I am not ready to make nice
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And remember, Portman is one of the ostensibly reasonable republicans. All the things they said about bipartisanship, they deserve to experience.
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And hearsay affidavits don’t constitute evidence.
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Damn straight!
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Many years ago a very senior government official, someone with a few decades of service in several administrations, told me that “If you want to kill anything in D.C. dead in its tracks, start a study.”
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“We need to turn down the rhetoric” is another one.
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That was a trope from the 1970s British political comedy Yes Minister as well. The Civil Service had endless strategies for derailing or delaying any significant changes to the government’s business.
That show was more focused on the government vs. the bureaucracy, but the same basic rules apply to how the GOP “governs” when they aren’t just straight up making unconstitutional laws. They are experts at using the bureaucracy’s mechanisms to slow down any path to “progress” since it’s anathema to their way of being.
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… the path forward must begin by framing the problem honestly
This will never happen. At least not by Republicans safe behind their shield of alternative facts and wall of gerrrymander; there is no upside for them to suddenly give up the bludgeon of voter fraud to disenfranchise voters. And even if they admit that they have been lying about voter fraud for decades, all indications are that their voters wouldn’t care.
Remember, conservatives are masters at projection: they truly fear elections being stolen because they do it themselves all the time.
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The gaslighting will continue after Fat Nixon leaves office tomorrow.
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No. Absolutely not. NO MORE of their obstructing and whining and sniveling and pretending. We are not going to have a ‘panel’ take us further and further away from the carnage so you can pretend ‘it wasn’t THAT bad’ or come up with more BS like ‘Antifa led us IN there’…crap crap crap. You Republicans. YOU and your lies and your goading and your deliberate racism and coded talk got us there. YOUR people attacked OUR Capitol. You WILL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE and then we can all sing ‘bipartisanly’. Be not until.
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In my experience, that is even more the case when the GOP is out of power. So, I hope that the Democrats are prepared for all of the myriad ways that the R’s will try to stall things in the Congress.
One of the odd side benefits of watching the R’s do their thing through, first the Obama and then through the Trump administrations, is that Dems should finally (at long last) be wise to the standard, ruthless “Lucy and the Football” approach that the R’s will take with the pseudo issue of legislative “fairness”. Dems need to be prepared to use every authority at their disposal as the majority. The gloves need to be off, if that is the game that R’s insist on playing.
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In the 32 years since George H W Bush’s electoral win, there have been 8 other presidential election cycles. The Republican candidate has won the popular vote once since then. That makes them 1 for 8.
Limiting voter participation with has been their ace in the hole and they will continue to play that hand for the foreseeable future. As long as the filibuster exists in the senate I don’t think we’ll see much movement and given the demographics profile of the the GOP electorate - I don’t of think there will be any electoral fall out in opposing the expansion of the franchise.
posted elsewhere
Gwinnett Co.is Georgia’s second most populous county, NE metro Atlanta.
“… even bigger changes would center around absentee voting in Georgia, however.
One would be a partial rollback of no excuse absentee-by-mail voting. Georgia has had no excuse absentee voting for more than a decade and its popularity exploded in 2020 as officials at the Georgia Secretary of State’s office pushed it as a safe alternative for voters who were concerned about waiting in line to vote amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I was on a Zoom call the other day and I said, ‘I’m like a dog with a bone. I will not let them end this session without changing some of these laws,’ “(GOP County Election Board Chair Alice)” O’Lenick said. “They don’t have to change all of them, but they’ve got to change the major parts of them so that we at least have a shot at winning.”
O’Lenick suggested only certain population groups should be allowed to ask for an absentee ballot without giving a reason for the request.
“The absentee-by-mail, you exclude the elderly and infirm (from needing an excuse), and everyone else would have to have an excuse,” she said. “We took out a few years ago absentee-by-mail for cause, so you don’t have to say a cause. You just say, ‘It’s not convenient. I’m just not going to go (on election day).’”
