Similar to how #SB8 deputizes citizens to ban abortions, new TX voter suppression law grants partisan poll watchers "free movement" inside polls & subjects election workers to criminal penalties for removing them. Vigilante "justice" across state
"Texas showed us what a post-democracy America would look like...where women cannot get abortions; where almost everybody can openly carry a gun in public without a license; where Black & Latino citizens are disproportionately denied the right to vote" washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
in states like Texas & Georgia "a systematic effort to distort the democratic process through voter suppression and gerrymandering greased the way for near-total bans on abortion and other extreme right-wing policies" motherjones.com/politics/2019/…
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New Dem voting rights bill would expand voting access for millions of Americans, ban partisan gerrymandering & crack down on dark $. Now it's time to stop giving Mitch McConnell veto power over protecting voting rights & reform filibuster to pass it motherjones.com/politics/2021/…
Freedom to Vote Act includes:
-ban on partisan gerrymandering
-automatic & Election Day registration
-no-excuse mail-in voting & access to drop boxes
-prohibitions on election subversion
-two weeks early voting & Election Day holiday
State level Republicans passing onslaught of new voter suppression laws on simple majority, party-line votes while Senate Dems requiring 60 vote bipartisan supermajority to protect voting rights. This asymmetric warfare needs to end
New analysis by @TargetSmart shared exclusively with @MotherJones finds GOP could pick up 5 seats in FL, 3 in TX, 3 in GA & 2 in NC through gerrymandering, giving them control of House in 2022
Dems could win 50% of vote in Georgia but control only 20% of House seats
Most important thing Dems can do to stop extreme gerrymandering & keep House is pass ban on partisan gerrymandering in For the People Act but time running out
“Absent the passage of HR1 the GOP is poised to gerrymander their way to a House majority” says @tbonier
If Mitch McConnell can steal 2 Supreme Court seats for Trump with 51 votes to take away voting rights, Senate Democrats should be able to pass legislation with 51 votes to protect voting rights
“For the People Act is supported by 68% of Americans & would expand voting access for tens of millions but it can be blocked by 41 Republican senators representing just 21% of the country. Biden needs to make public case for eliminating filibuster”
“Biden understands Senate rules better than anyone. He’s uniquely placed to have a Nixon goes to China moment on the filibuster. He can say to Joe Manchin there’s some things, like voting rights, that we can’t compromise on” @mehdirhasan@MehdiHasanShow
It’s ridiculous state level Republicans can unilaterally make it harder to vote with simple majority but it requires 60 votes for Senate Dems to make it easier to vote
Greg Abbott didn’t call special session after 23 murdered by white supremacist in El Paso or after 700 died when power grid failed but GOP holding special session to make it harder to vote after finding only 16 false addresses on registration forms out of 11 million votes in 2020
Texas already hardest state to vote in. GOP voter suppression bill would make far worse
“This election bill would take it to a place so far removed from democracy it would beg the question: What kind of form of government would we have?” says @BetoORourkemotherjones.com/politics/2021/…
This is how voter suppression works in Texas:
-can vote with gun permit but not student ID
-no online voter registration
-must be deputized to register voters
-voters under 65 can’t use fear of covid to vote by mail
-750 polling places closed since SCOTUS gutted VRA
SCOTUS conservative majority is quite literally making it easier to buy an election and harder to vote in one
In 2013 SCOTUS gutted Voting Rights Act. Since then 26 states have enacted new voter suppression laws
Now conservative majority shredding what remains of VRA, giving green-light to greatest rollback of voting rights since end of Reconstruction motherjones.com/politics/2021/…
Key line from Kagan dissent: "Weaken the Voting Rights Act, and predictable consequences follow: yet a further generation of voter suppression laws"
That's exactly what Court has done by gutting VRA in 2013 & eviscerating what's left of law today