Sen. Manchin’s op-ed on the #ForThePeopleAct is full of unsound, unserious arguments. 

Let’s unpack it.
Only Democrats are having a “debate about how to best protect our right to vote.” State Republicans are ramming through voter suppression laws along party lines. There’s no comparison.

The solution is not to unilaterally surrender. It is to undo the damage.
Not a single Democrat voted for the 15th Amendment. Did that destroy our republic?
Yes.

In any event, only 7 Senate Republicans voted to impeach Trump — not enough to overcome a filibuster.

If there aren’t 10 Republicans willing to investigate an insurrection that almost claimed their lives, there aren’t 10 Republicans willing to protect the right to vote.
Four years and one insurrection later, Democrats have learned that today’s Republican Party poses a mortal threat to our democracy.
The filibuster has nothing to do with the Founders. In fact, the Founders specifically rejected the idea of requiring supermajority support for passing laws.

We cannot let this Jim Crow relic cement the new Jim Crow.
That is exactly what we’re facing if we don’t pass the For the People Act: a generation of far-right minority rule by a party hostile to democracy itself.

The #ForThePeopleAct would simply give people the power to choose a better future.
If we introduced H.R.4 and brought it to a vote, it would receive no more than 51 votes — not enough to overcome a filibuster.

And the bill would do nothing about gerrymandering, Big Money in politics, or the damage the GOP has already done in the states.
Actually, we’re arguing that we should pass necessary civil rights legislation that is bipartisan *among the people*. Just not with GOP politicians and the billionaires who bankroll them.

By dooming our democracy in the name of bipartisanship, Senator Manchin is betraying both.
Senator Manchin is correct — democracy is special. 

But if he refuses to budge from his position, ours will continue to unravel.

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More from @MondaireJones

21 Apr
It’s not unprecedented for Congress to adjust the size of the Supreme Court to defeat white supremacy. We’ve done it three times before.

Here are some examples from our nation’s First Reconstruction. 🧵🧵
The year was 1861.

The Supreme Court was run by white supremacists who decided Dred Scott.

President Lincoln warned that if Congress didn’t check the Court, “the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.”

In 1863, Congress answered Lincoln’s call — expanding the Court.
Then in 1866, after Lincoln’s assassination, the white supremacist Andrew Johnson was President. A seat on the Court sat empty.

If Johnson filled it, the Court could have halted Reconstruction.

So Congress shrank the Court from 10 justices to 7, and Johnson never filled a seat.
Read 5 tweets
28 Dec 20
COVID-19 rates are soaring across this country and across #NY17. We must do everything we can to keep ourselves and our communities safe.

That's why today, at the advice of the Capitol Attending Physician, I received the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
I’m doing this now to instill confidence in the vaccine. I’m aware that there is significant skepticism towards the vaccine, especially in the Black and brown communities that have been most impacted by the virus. I completely understand.
We have work to do to counteract the devastating legacy of racism in our medical system. That's why I'm committed to ensuring the vaccine reaches our most vulnerable communities and our essential workers as quickly as possible.
Read 4 tweets
19 Dec 20
Today, I was nominated to serve on @HouseJudiciary. To say I’m honored would be an understatement.

The committee has jurisdiction over so many vital issues that affect us: voting rights, the courts, antitrust, racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights.

Here’s what I’ll be fighting for 👇🏿
Our democracy is broken.

Voter suppression is rampant. People of color are systematically excluded from our political process. And due to unjust campaign finance laws, the wealthy and well-connected have outsize control over our political process.

We must restore our democracy.
The far right has spent decades on a hostile takeover of our federal courts. There is now a 6-3 hyper-partisan, conservative majority on the Supreme Court that favors big business over working people, and seeks to undermine our democracy.

We must expand the Court.
Read 7 tweets
21 Nov 20
Rahm Emanuel covered up the murder of a Black teenager, Laquan McDonald, while he was Mayor of Chicago.

That he's being considered for a cabinet position is completely outrageous and, honestly, very hurtful.

cnn.com/2020/11/19/pol…
During negotiations over the Affordable Care Act, President Obama's signature achievement, Rahm tried to weaken the bill.

nytimes.com/2010/03/21/hea…
In his first year as Mayor, he closed more than half of Chicago's public mental health clinics.

Those clinics disproportionately served Black clients, and caused a spike in mental health crises leading to psychiatric hospitalizations.

chicagoreporter.com/its-time-to-re…
Read 5 tweets
19 Sep 20
The way we talk about court expansion is important. It’s not about Democrats vs. Republicans. Justice John Paul Stevens was a Republican. So was David Souter.

Due to the hyper-partisan majority on today’s Supreme Court, expansion is about what it means to live in a democracy.
In 2006, Congress reauthorized the Voting Rights Act by near-unanimous margins: 390-33 in the House, and 98-0 in the Senate. President Bush signed it into law.

The Supreme Court gutted it in 2013.

Almost immediately, Jim Crow returned, and our democracy unraveled.
The current Congress made its first order of business to fix democracy by passing the For The People Act (H.R. 1).

The next Congress will surely do the same -- and this time, we'll have a President who will sign it.

But the Supreme Court will almost certainly strike it down.
Read 5 tweets
10 Sep 20
November 3rd is about more than just getting Trump out of office — it's about rebuilding a better country that works for working people.

Today, I’m proud to throw my support behind 6 candidates who will truly represent our values — not big corporations and special interests. 👇🏿
.@dana_balter knows that too many people in this country are sidelined from opportunity, and she knows firsthand what it's like to work paycheck to paycheck.

The people of #NY24 deserve a representative who can carry that perspective and empathy to Washington, and that’s Dana.
If we are ever going to achieve racial, environmental, and economic justice, we need champions in Congress from every corner of this country. As a fellow nonprofit leader, @karaforcongress shares a deep commitment to serving her community. I look forward to working alongside her.
Read 7 tweets

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