Eighteen months after the Jan. 6 attack on Congress, a bipartisan group of senators released a proposal Wednesday to help prevent future election theft attempts, and pro-democracy groups and experts are rallying around the legislation.
Well, it’s a start.
And, more importantly, a clear acknowledgment of what FatAss and Co tried to do.
First! (ETA: Second!)
And, right: as I understand the proposed bill, it’ll deal with precisely the main issues that Trump’s enablers tried/argued in the courts and, almost, in the Senate.
I don’t understand the fetishization of the bill’s bipartisan underpinnings. Why does that make the bill better, to some folks? Just because it’s more likely to pass? It seems as though they want bipartisan bills simply so they can tout bipartisanship.
This sounds like a promising bill, and I hope it makes it through to Biden’s desk unscathed. But … Manchin and Collins? Really? I greatly fear that Collins will suddenly “have concerns” when the vote is called, and Manchin will change his vote to “Nay” because without dear Susan’s vote, the bill is no longer “bipartisan.”
And they will have snatched the football from all Americans yet again.
Off topic but news, missing SS messages now a criminal investigation. SS ordered to stop investigating itself. Lol. That one made me laugh.
Well, that in fact has been Joe Manchin’s rationale for the last few years. He thinks any bill with bipartisan support is inherently BETTER than any Democratic bill. In practice, this has meant that he doesn’t think the Congress ought to legislate.
Manchins is so bipartisan he’d rather tank a good bill with his one democratic vote to make the rejection bipartisan rather than accept a tie. His antics are tiresome and predictable.
Shhhh! Their self-investigation is a secret.
This bill sounds like it’s the bare minimum of what needs to be done. There’s still no protection against rogue state legislatures and/or governors and secretaries of state unilaterally throwing out results they don’t like and substituting their own fraudulent versions. No protections of the basic right to vote. No protections against grotesquely gerrymandered election districts. No protection against goons harassing voters and election officials. No full reinstatement of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
And the really big reforms that are also desperately needed–striking down Citizens United, abolishing the Electoral College and substituting a direct, ranked-choice popular vote for president, abolishing the Senate and enlarging the House so that it can be more truly representative of the US population, and admitting DC and Puerto Rico to statehood–all these remain pipedreams.
So if Trump challenges the election result in Georgia next time, and it’s a challenge based on some dumb theory of federal law – e.g., mail ballots don’t count because they deny equal protection to same-day voters – the case will be decided by the random federal district court judge it was assigned to and two 11th Circuit judges selected by the chief judge of that court, who just happens to be one of the ultra-conservative loons Trump put on his public SCOTUS lists.
Great plan.
ETA: Of the “disputed” 2020 states, only Arizona is covered by a circuit whose chief judge was appointed by a Democratic president. Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin all have circuit courts with Republican chief judges. Nothing could go wrong with this, I am sure of it.
It means that polarization (at least for a bit) is over.
We’ll just sit back and wait for Manchin to torpedo it at the last minute.
“If this bill is enacted and future Congresses are faithful to its philosophy when they meet in joint session to count electoral votes as required by the Twelfth Amendment, there should no longer be a threat of congressional efforts to negate the result of a state’s popular vote that has been determined in accordance with the rule of law,” they wrote.
Sigh.
Indeed it is a start. It will need to go through committees prior to actually being brought up for a vote and will likely be tweaked a bit. I am somewhat hopeful.
I’ll say this: the people who desire the Electoral College to remain are never going to be called masochists.
Too much will make you go blind.
This guy is GOOD.
He’s lost some weight too!
I can’t help thinking the r’s would never agree to this if they didn’t see a huge advantage for r’s. Cynical, perhaps. Or just being realistic?