Manchin does *not* oppose DC statehood, but rather he thinks a constitutional amendment is needed. That's a common misconception - statehood can indeed be granted through legislation, and we look forward updating his staff after their deep dive into this. washingtonpost.com/local/dc-polit…
To be clear, it would have been easy for Manchin to say "nope, I'm opposed to DC statehood." He didn't. He raised a process concern based on a false assumption. Up to us to correct the assumption.
No state has EVER been admitted by constitutional amendment - not even WV, which was admitted through a questionable process in the middle of the Civil War.

So where does this argument come from? Well, the Koch Brothers helped. A little history:
In 1993, Dems had a trifecta and Bill Clinton supported D.C. statehood. The Koch-funded Heritage Foundation went to work. They released a report by R. Hewitt Pate which you can still read. Pate isn't a household name, but I'll come back to him. thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/1993/pdf/hl461…
Now, Heritage was co-founded by an architect of the modern Republican Party, Paul Weyrich. Weyrich's quote from 1980 is always ringing in my head:
Jane Mayer in "Dark Money" and Nancy MacLean in "Democracy in Chains" covered in depth the purpose of Heritage and related Koch-funded operations. It's simple: the people don't like a hard-right reactionary agenda, so the people must be silenced.
You can't go around advocating for deregulating Chevron and giving rich donors tax cuts and then hold free and fair elections - the people will vote you out! They'll block your agenda! So you suppress votes - particularly from brown and Black voters who won't support your agenda.
And so of course Heritage didn't want a majority-Black D.C. state in 1993. And of course they don't want one now - they're still banging the same drum with bogus arguments about a constitutional amendment. heritage.org/the-constituti…
So what happened to R. Hewitt Pate - the author of that 1993 Heritage report arguing against D.C. statehood? Oh, he's cheering from the sidelines, a Vice President of Chevron now. And now you know the rest of the story.

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More from @ezralevin

30 Mar
WOW WOW WOW. Leaked recording from 2 days after the Jan 6th Capitol mob. Koch-funded operation & McConnell's staff worry about how popular HR 1 is. So popular - even among conservatives! - that they advise simply killing it with the filibuster instead of debating it publicly.
This is also 3 days after Dems won the Georgia senate seats, giving them the trifecta that could allow the to pass the For the People Act.

At the same time at the state level, Georgia GOP started scheming to introduce the major voter suppression bill just enacted last week.
Pulling it all together:
1. Dems win Georgia + senate control
2. Driven by the Big Lie, a mob storms the Capitol
3. Georgia GOP accelerates voter suppression in support of the Big Lie
4. Dems prioritize democracy reform
5) McConnell plans to filibuster in support of the Big Lie
Read 4 tweets
24 Mar
Paul Weyrich, founder of the Heritage Foundation 41 years ago:

"I don't want everybody to vote...As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."

@Heritage is against representative democracy- that’s in its DNA.
But read the whole article! It’s terrifying! They are systematically undermining democracy in the states explicitly as a GOP strategy to win in 2022 and 2024.
If they aren’t coming for your right to vote now, rest assured they will soon. It’s all literally part of the plan - they wrote it down!
Read 6 tweets
22 Mar
If you care about climate legislation, this is a must read piece on the lessons from 2009 - the last time Dems had a trifecta and tried (but failed) to pass a big climate bill. rollingstone.com/politics/polit…
In 9 easy steps, you too can replicate the 2009 failure:
1) Start by crafting a climate bill with an eye toward GOP support

2) Introduce the House bill & allow conservatives to water it down further

3) Ignore progressive climate activists and amend the bill to get conservatives
4) Pass the House bill with almost no GOP support, despite all those concessions

5) Watch the donor-fueled reactionaries go into hyper-drive against the watered down bill

6) Wonder where the pro-climate activist energy has gone
Read 5 tweets
15 Feb
I used to handle earmarks for a Member of Congress. They get a bad rap, but I think they're good if done right. Members of Congress get to direct some (less than 1%) of the federal budget to priority projects in their district.
Local reps have legitimacy here. They know their districts, represent constituents, and so *should* get to direct some fed funds.

The alternative isn't less spending - it's local reps relinquishing this power to the executive branch, or writing one-size-fits-all legislation.
Sure, this produces some funny outcomes like the "bridge to nowhere." But in general, reps want earmarks that are locally popular - they want the positive press. They want to brag about bringing home the bacon. That's a good thing - that's representative democracy in action!
Read 5 tweets
27 Jan
Absolute must read. The GOP is on track to gerrymander themselves into a House majority next year. Trump is on track to be reelected with a trifecta after that. If you want to avery that catastrophe, Dems have pass democracy reforms NOW.
And it'd be helpful for Twitter to pass reforms so I can edit the "to" into the above tweet.
And "avert." Sigh.
Read 5 tweets
22 Jan
Short version of this argument: "But won't the GOP do a lot of damage after they win in 2022 or beyond??"

This is the anti-reform argument I hear most often, including sometimes from progressives. So I take it seriously, but don't find it persuasive for 2 reasons:
1st counter argument) McConnell + GOP have packed the courts, gutted the voting rights act, & blocked all democracy reforms. Of COURSE they're on a path to winning power again.

To fix this, we need to pass HR 1, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, DC Statehood, and court reform.
McConnell calls those bills "socialism" and a "power grab." He will filibuster them all because they threaten his power.

By eliminating the filibuster, Democrats can pass these reforms. That's good for democracy and reduces the pro-McConnell bias in the system.
Read 10 tweets

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