Democrats Need To Pass Some Voting Rights Bills While We Still Have Voting Rights

[Nevilledog]

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Stephen Robinson
@SER1897
When I wrote this, I was immediately criticized as "alarmist" merely for quoting organizers *on the ground* who say that this time we can't organize our ways out of this.

Democrats Need To Pass Some Voting Rights Bills While We Still Have Voting Rights
When the experts think we’re fucked, we should listen.
wonkette.com
3:41 PM · Jul 27, 2021

https://www.wonkette.com/democrats-need-to-pass-some-voting-rights-bills-while-we-still-have-voting-rights

It appears as if President Joe Biden has accepted that Democrats' chances of passing federal voting rights legislation have gone the way of Kyrsten Sinema's credibility. During private calls with voting rights groups and civil rights activists, White House officials and allies of the president have suggested that we can “out-organize voter suppression." The proof of such a claim seems lacking.

The New York Times reports:

"I have heard an emphasis on organizing," said Sherrilyn A. Ifill, the president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, who visited the Oval Office to meet with the president two weeks ago. But, she added, "we cannot litigate our way out of this and we cannot organize our way out of this."

We should clarify that Democrats “cannot litigate" their way out of the GOP's skinny repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment because Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are strident defenders of the legislative filibuster. This permits the GOP to block voting rights bills at the federal level while Republicans pass voter suppression bills with a simple majority at the state level. It really makes very little sense when you think about it.

Biden has given some impressive speeches about voting rights where he's said that “our democracy is in peril" from the GOP's voter suppression crusade. But voting rights activists argue that if this is true (and it is), then it makes no sense to allow "an arcane Senate procedural rule to derail efforts that a majority of Americans support."

*snip*

[CrispyQ]

1. GOTV won't matter if republican committees get the final say on the vote count.

Personally, I feel voting rights legislation is the #1 piece of legislation we need to pass, but DiFi says she doesn't think our democracy is in danger. Maybe Biden feels the same. ??? There are other dem senators, too, including one of mine*, who don't think we should get rid of the filibuster, & they're letting Manchin & Sinema take the heat.

* Hickenlooper (D-CO) is against getting rid of the filibuster. Bennet (D-CO) has waffled on the issue.

[Elessar Zappa]

3. I don't think the courts

would allow an overturned popular vote by a legislature to stand. Even right wing judges have shown they have some limits, as evidenced by the the GQP lawsuits trying to overturn the election.

[leftstreet]

2. DURec

[Elessar Zappa]

4. How can we pass voting rights legislation

if we have Dems that won’t get rid of the filibuster? It’s nice for everyone to say Biden must do something but in reality it’s not up to him, it’s up to the Senate.