How To Get Voting Rights

Lose public financing of elections, federal standards for state-run elections and just restore DOJ power under the Voting Rights Act to review and regulate state laws with disparate impact on race.

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Author: craigcrawford

Trail Mix Host. Lapsed journalist, author & retired pundit happily promoting nothing but the truth for Social Security checks.

39 thoughts on “How To Get Voting Rights”

  1. your reminder last thread of how the senate got the first one done:

    This how LBJ put it to Dirksen for GOP votes he needed to pass voting rights: I’ll pile in a bunch of provisions you can oppose, then I’ll take them out and we’ll pass it.

     

    Image result for cartoon lbj dirksen voting rights

  2. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/04/congress-texas-voting-bill/

    “But in 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the section of the Voting Rights Act pertaining to preclearance was no longer necessary. Chief Justice John Roberts pointed toward racial progress in politics as proof. He did, however, leave room for Congress to pass a more modern version of the law that would address more recent instances of discrimination in voting restrictions.“

    “racial progress” ~right~

    SCOTUS left it up to Congress. Manchin and the GQP in Congress have preemptively said the For The People Act isn’t happening.

    Can the powers under the old rule get restored since SCOTUS already killed them? I know Craig explained some of this last night, but I still don’t understand how it can happen.

  3. joe manchin:

    The Voting Rights Act, for example, was monumental in the fight to guarantee freer and fairer elections in the United States. Since its original passage, it has been reauthorized with overwhelming bipartisan votes five separate times. In addition, there is bipartisan support to pass the latest iteration of this legislation, the rightfully named John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

    The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would update the formula states and localities must use to ensure proposed voting laws do not restrict the rights of any particular group or population. My Republican colleague, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, has joined me in urging Senate leadership to update and pass this bill through regular order. I continue to engage with my Republican and Democratic colleagues about the value of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and I am encouraged by the desire from both sides to transcend partisan politics and strengthen our democracy by protecting voting rights.

  4. “… and I am encouraged by the desire from both sides to transcend partisan politics and strengthen our democracy by protecting voting rights.”

    Don Quixote Manchin. Unless he drops this quest and starts acting like day is day and night is night and he has half a set instead of providing an excuse to claim day is night and vice versa and mollify Republicans who might vote for him in 2024 he’ll never get a primary vote from Pogo again.

  5. get what you can on voting rights and move on. my hunch is there are other dems for keeping the filibuster who are hiding behind Manchin

  6. Also, Manchin is no spring chicken.   Why keep running for office in his 70s?  Just do the right thing and not be remembered for killing democracy.   

    Apparently, white folks are also afraid of white folks. The racist base is wielding the power, and they are the minority of the population in this country. Apparently, their vote still counts for more, as well.

  7. pogo, so what’s wrong with joe touting the john lewis act? 

    why is that important piece of legislation being ignored by media?  could it be there’s no feud to find, no snide-y knives in backs to stir up controversy – ergo no story there?

  8. Loved hearing RFK’s “Ripple of Hope” speech this morning.  It was a reminder of just why I voted for him in California and how devastated we were at the end of the night.

     

  9. it’s the old hope-a-dope gambit. Everyone sits around and hopes while the gop thrashes them about the head and shoulders.

  10. John Lewis bill (HR4) would revive and re-operationalize Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (scuttled by SCOTUS).

    Lost in the kerfuffle is that Manchin is supporting that, and some Republicans too, could get to 60 in the Senate, and if not I’d bet he’ll agree to waive the filibuster.

    Section 5 declares that states and localities with a history of racial discrimination need to get permission from the federal government to enact any changes to their voting laws.

    If that’s all we get it’s still a lot.

  11. Voting rights… yup… need em!
     
    just got off the phone with OSH… seeing her Wednesday.

  12. The media is really bored with Uncle Joe, they are spending a lot of time pushing SFB and his freakin’ alternative universe.  faux snooze interviewed the idiot and when asked about cyber attacks he let all know how smart he is.  He said to stop using computers and go back about eighty years and use paper only.  No links, no need to promote this beyond a note on what a brain dead imbecile is thinking.

  13. I’ve got no beef with the John Lewis bill and Manchin’s support of it. And I agree with Poobah – the JL bill is a big step forward (sort of) and the filibuster isn’t likely going anywhere anytime soon. My problem with Manchin is his misguided belief that the Repugns will ever negotiate  in good faith and his refusal to use reconciliation when it’s available. In short bipartisanship is a fiction he insists upon

  14. It is a shame all states can’t copy Washington.  Every person registered gets sent a paper ballot.  The locked deposit boxes are usually within a couple of miles of your address in each Congressional District.  These are emptied, collected, and counted within a few days during the election cycle. 

    Once you have voted, you can go to the Secretary of State’s website to see if it has been received and then if it is counted.  Anyone worried about illegal votes cast can check to see if a suspect vote occurred on that site as well.

     

  15. If those “Dems” are purged from voter rolls or have long lines because of fewer polling places/shorter hours/no drop boxes if they can get a mail-in ballot, will it matter?

  16. I get your point BID but my bet is when you tell Americans they cant do something they do it with a vengeance. And I don’t think these restrictions are so onerous they can’t be overcome, especially with the army of activists so energized to educate and assist. This could be best of both worlds for Dems, a passionate cause for martyrdom against surmountable obstacles. 

  17. Let’s give Manchin the benefit of the doubt, and now he can shut the fuck up about it and stop ceding leverage to the GQPs

  18. the hill:

    Stormy Daniels says her lawyer has been in touch with prosecutors in New York City who are investigating former President Trump‘s company. 

    “I have not been called to testify,” Daniels said during an appearance on CNN’s “New Day” on Monday. “I know that my attorney, Clark Brewster, has been in contact with them and very forthcoming with my willingness to participate.”

    […]

    “I would tell them everything I know,” Daniels said if she was deposed by investigators. “I would tell them I was approached, I would tell them I have evidence that the money came from an account set up at the direction of Donald Trump, I would tell them that money was traced back to Russian funds, I would give them copies of the bank wires and all of the transcripts for that, and I think that anybody should be really terrified that a normal citizen can take the fall for somebody in power.”  

  19. Folks, the Covid Wayback machine has us back in late March 2020 for both cases and (with the exception of one day in July) deaths.  And Red state/Blue state vaccination rates are mirror images, with blue state rates being the top 18, (and 19 of the top 21). Throw DC into the mix and its top 19, 20 of the top 22.  Illinois is the lowest for Dem states, very close to right in the middle at #28, and GA and AZ are well below Illinois, but I consider them Biden states, but not Dem states.

  20. Good luck getting Manchin to STFU about anything – if there’s one thing he likes it’s exposure.  BTW, karma and all that, I had a hearing in the adjacent county to the NE up I-79 this morning across the street from Manchin’s “home” office in WV.  Even his sign isn’t liking his position I’d say since the E in JOE is cocked over at a 45 degree angle and looks like it’s either falling down or trying to get the hell off the front of the building.

  21. From Jennifer Rubin’s post this morning:

    […]
    It’s time for Manchin to put up or share blame for Republicans’ subversion of democracy. Let him come up with 10 Republicans for H.R. 4 and for a slimmed down H.R. 1. Let him find four more Republicans to support the Jan. 6 commission. If he cannot, then his thesis that the filibuster promotes debate and makes way for compromise collapses and his role in promoting the tyranny of the minority is laid bare.

    Manchin insisted that he will not “weaken or eliminate” the filibuster. He should be compelled to spell out what reforms he would accept. Is requiring Republicans to hold the floor (i.e., demanding a talking filibuster) “weakening” the rule? It is well past the time to start pressuring Manchin to answer some basic questions: If the filibuster is simply a means of thwarting any reasonable legislation, why is it worth preserving? What if the integrity of our democracy is at stake?

    Manchin’s bland platitudes suggest he prefers stalemate to taking hard votes. The status quo leaves him with latitude to make holier-than-thou pronouncements to decry both sides.
    […]

    Who was the guy wandering around with a lantern looking for an honest man? Right, Diogenes the Cynic. Maybe Joe could enlist his aid – that’s as likely as Joe finding 10 Repugs who would put aside partisan fealty for the good of the country..

  22. Joe Manchin is gonna get splinters in his backside from trying to ride that fence.  He’s not helping Dems nor himself.   Pick a damned side.  (I think he already has; he’s with the GQP.)

  23. https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/gainesville-county-commissioners-vote-to-keep-courthouse-confederate-monument-11936116
     

    “An engraving on the courthouse monument’s base reads: “No nation rose so white and fair,
    None fell so pure of crime.”
    Can you believe that crap?

    One, Confederate statue in Gainesville will stand (thanks to racist, county officials), but another one will come down, thanks to their city council members.

    https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/gainesville-confederate-statue-removed-11927900

    “The Leonard Park statue was erected in 1908 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, a heritage organization of white women with ties to Confederate soldiers. That group was responsible for donating hundreds of statues across the South at the height of the Jim Crow era…”

  24. Logged  on to bitch about  “Coal Brain Joe” , I see that has been well said. 
    RE –
    The Lewis Bill , that  section of the VRA  was handed down , just a few years ago.  In the reasoning of the high court those states had learned their lesson, and that change had been effected. 
    Clearly the court was wrong. 

  25. “We ruthlessly and pragmatically go on.”

     
    Thanks for this post , it brings up that oldest question of all .
     

    The Meaning of Life 

    Bob Dylan said –
    “He not busy being born, is busy dyeing” 
     
    I tackled this question decades ago, and I never had cause to rewrite it. 
    ” Life is a series of seemingly random events,  some of which are designed to knock you on your ass .
    The meaning of life is to  get back up. Cause someday you won’t. “
     
    RR –
    Kiss OSH  for me. 
     

  26. I reread Fire and Fury.  That Trump bad from beginning to end. But he couldn’t have done it without the various enablers.
    Wow Trump is huge. Getting up there in Ted Kennedy size.

  27. Wheel chair logging  is going good .  The “Grub Farm” guy, Cody   came by to get the poles   I’ve logged and limbed.  Over 100 . 
    I think I opened his eyes , I gave them  a small wood chipper , a chop saw  tons of planters. (Pots),  greenhouse supplies ,  a two wheel barrow  (with flat tires), a small table saw . 
    Etc. 
    This what Cody told  me about how he got into farming , he came off a 300 acer  citrus farm near Corpus Christi , his family has been on for 90 years. 
    The freeze in Feb. killed every tree. 
    He’s married to a PHD student enrolled in TT in economics , she’s 10 years older than him. 
    He could play Jesus  in any regional theater  in America.  His wife has to be a hoot. 
     
    “Life is a funny ole dog” 

  28. Cody said he has gourd seeds  that make huge ones. 
    I dabbled in this market in the  Torrance Tandy store.  I never saw these  seeds.
    But I sold their fruits . 
     
     And in the really big ones , you make drums.   I was also selling the rawhide skins for the drum head , and the lacing . Every Saturday morning  I gave free  classes , no matter what you wanted to make. 
    I always  turned this on when I opened the store  on Saturday . 

     
    I had  the best time of my life  on those Saturdays in Torrance .

  29. The first plants in “Peggy’s Garden”  were gourds. 
    If he has the seeds , they  are off to the races. 

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