Beginning of a battle for democracy
The U.S. Senate’s partyline vote to block voting rights legislation this week was welcome in one respect. Conservative Democratic senators such as Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin have been making vapid arguments against the reality of Republican authoritarian drift for months. California’s own Dianne Feinstein, meanwhile, has been arguing with her own press releases on the subject. Now we have a cold, hard demonstration of Republican refusal even to debate protecting democracy, with all 50 of the party’s senators voting to filibuster H.R. 1, the Housepassed election protection bill known as the For the People Act, and thereby allow a wholesale statelevel assault on voting and voters to proceed unchecked.
With that out of the way, let’s find out what else Republicans won’t pass or even debate.
Manchin himself put forward a compromise that packaged a few of the important provisions of H.R. 1 — including prohibiting partisan gerrymandering, making voter registration automatic and requiring early voting opportunities — with a federal voter identification requirement. Despite that huge
concession to Republicans, prominent Democrats such as former President Barack Obama and voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams expressed support for the proposal. Republicans, however, rejected the attempt despite Manchin’s determined defense of their good intentions.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer should put more proposals like Manchin’s to a vote, forcing Republicans to reject every aspect and iteration of voter protection. Can any such bill win the support of a single Republican senator — or, less likely, the 10 needed to allow debate and pass most legislation under current rules? Each vote would put more of them on record for counterdemocratic policies ranging from support for partisan gerrymandering to opposition to absentee voting. And each would leave the Democrats’ Pollyanna caucus with less room to pretend that some path back to the bipartisanship of yore still exists.
Since April, 17 Republicancontrolled states have enacted 28 laws restricting ballot access, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Despite this week’s effective endorsement of that effort by her Republican colleagues, Feinstein was recently quoted as saying she doesn’t believe democracy is “in jeopardy.” Within and beyond the Senate, that misunderstanding must be relentlessly challenged.