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19 Jan, 6 tweets, 3 min read
Senate Dems just introduced the most important democracy reform bill since the 1965 Voting Rights Act, joining House Dems. I detailed the major components here, including sweeping voting access expansions, banning House gerrymandering, & public financing: dailykos.com/stories/2021/1…
Note that this bill doesn't include a restoration of the Voting Rights Act, which is planned as separate legislation, but this bill does include a reaffirmed commitment to restore the VRA. You can read the section-by-section Senate bill summary here: democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/…
Here's the full list of major provisions in the sweeping democracy-reform bill that House & now Senate Dems have introduced as the first bill of the new session. These would be the biggest expansion of voting access & fair elections since the 1965 VRA dailykos.com/stories/2021/1…
Passing this bill won't be easy—Dems will have to curtail the filibuster & likely reform the ultra-partisan Supreme Court to maintain it, which goes for many different major policies Dems could pass under Biden—but winning the Senate makes it all possible
In addition to the sweeping democracy reforms of the For the People Act, Senate & House Dems plan to push for two other key bills: The John Lewis Voting Rights Act & #DCstatehood. 45 of 50 Senate Dems sponsored statehood or publicly backed it in 2020. The other 5 have yet to say
This is critical, but Dems need every option on the table to insulate major bills from our right-wing Supreme Court's bad faith. Another measure they could add would fast-track litigation of bills to try to get SCOTUS to weigh in before Dems could lose Congress & can't fix things

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Stephen Wolf Profile picture
20 Jan
Today, we restored majority rule by inaugurating a Democratic president & Senate majority that won with millions more votes than the GOP. It's been 4 straight years of GOP minority rule in the White House combined with 6 straight years of GOP minority rule in the Senate
But don't ignore how close we came to total GOP minority rule.

Had Trump won just 42,921 more votes, the Senate GOP won just 1,018 more votes, & GOP not lost anti-gerrymandering lawsuits last decade, they'd have held the White House, Senate, & House despite millions fewer votes
American democracy survived the Trump era, but not because it's resilient. We barely scraped by, & the threat of far-right authoritarianism is far from over when GOP leaders of all stripes tell the Big Lie with impunity that the 2020 election was stolen.

We have much work to do
Read 6 tweets
Stephen Wolf Profile picture
18 Jan
Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Give Us the Ballot" speech (May 17, 1957).

King called the right to vote the most critical achievement of the civil rights movement because it was the key right that made securing all the other rights possible.

Excerpts below:
"3 years ago the Supreme Court of this nation rendered ... a decision which will long be stenciled on the mental sheets of succeeding generations. For all men of goodwill, this May 17 decision [Brown v. Board] came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of human captivity."
"Unfortunately, this noble & sublime decision has not gone without opposition. This opposition has often risen to ominous proportions. Many states have risen up in open defiance. The legislative halls of the South ring loud with such words as 'interposition' & 'nullification.'"
Read 13 tweets
Stephen Wolf Profile picture
14 Jan
Really bad news for fair redistricting in Arizona, where GOP Gov. Ducey stacked the court commission that screens applicants for the redistricting commission by not appointing any Dems to the former, meaning a closeted Republican could get chosen as the redistricting tiebreaker
Arizona is the same state where, after the independent chair sided with Dems in 2011 to pass districts that gave neither party a sizable unfair advantage, GOP tried to fire the chair, & when that failed, tried to get SCOTUS to strike down the commission so they could gerrymander
Arizona's GOP Gov. Doug Ducey is the very same governor who packed the state Supreme Court in 2016 by adding 2 more seats & later manipulated the nominating commission so he could install another arch-conservative hardliner to cement far-right control slate.com/news-and-polit…
Read 4 tweets
Stephen Wolf Profile picture
13 Jan
New York's Dem Senate has passed 9 bills to improve absentee mail voting & protect voting access. New York's election admin & voting access have long been a national embarrassment, so these reforms are long overdue. Dems have passed many reforms since 2019 cnycentral.com/news/local/nys… Image
New York state Senate Democrats have passed a same-day voter registration constitutional amendment after both chambers did so in 2019. Once the Assembly again follows suit, it would appear on the ballot this November alongside this fall's local elections nysenate.gov/newsroom/press…
NY Senate Dems passed a constitutional amendment that lowers the threshold for overriding the bipartisan redistricting commission from 2/3 to 3/5 & make it easier for Dems to gerrymander. However, Dems won 2/3 majorities in 2020, so it may be moot for 2022 nysenate.gov/legislation/bi…
Read 4 tweets
Stephen Wolf Profile picture
23 Nov 20
BIG news for 2020s redistricting: New York Dems gained the power to potentially control redistricting (if they can overcome internal divisions, which isn't a given).

But GOP nationally will still be able to draw roughly 40-50% of seats & Dems just 10-20% dailykos.com/story/2020/11/…
After 2010, Dem Gov. Cuomo signed NY GOP's Senate gerrymander to keep GOP in power so that they could block progressive bills without him making unpopular vetoes, & several turncoat Dems backed GOP control. Unclear if all Dems will back Dem gerrymander now dailykos.com/stories/2018/7…
I tend to think that New York Dems *will* be able to pass a congressional gerrymander to seek a partisan advantage (really just mitigating the GOP's national advantage), & their internal divisions complicate passing legislative gerrymanders more than at the federal level
Read 5 tweets
Stephen Wolf Profile picture
19 Nov 20
Michigan's state legislature has operated under GOP minority rule for practically the entire decade since their current gerrymanders went into effect, with Dems winning more votes but no majorities.

Trump keeps trying to get them to steal the election. Every R must condemn this
There's a good chance Michigan Dems won more votes than GOP for state House in 2020 but no majority once again. I'll update this table once the results are fully certified, & you can find the underlying data here taken from the secretary of state's website docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
After a decade of GOP minority rule, Michigan will have a new independent redistricting commission drawing the districts after 2020. But the Supreme Court's hardline right-wing majority threatens to strike down such commissions that block GOP gerrymanders dailykos.com/story/2020/11/…
Read 4 tweets

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