When you hear GOP Senators talk about the “federal takeover” of elections today, know that they are not only defying the clear words of the Constitution, but they are using the most effective play from the 50s/60s segregationist playbook.
1/
As I tweeted yesterday, this is the exact language the more savvy Southern segregationists came up with in the 50s and 60s to fight civil rights protections for decades, and keep allies from the North on board. Caro explains this as well as anyone:
2/
Such arguments basically are a denial of not just the original Constitution, but the XIV and XV Amendments, achieved after the blood of so many Americans was shed.
3/
But here’s my ultimate question, for those who insist that the filibuster is legitimately used here & that voting rights legislation must be bipartisan:
Do you think that people using 60s segregationist propaganda to attack voting rights are serious about protecting them?
4/
I don’t.
☎️ ☎️ Please call (202) 224-3121 and tell your senators to fulfill their constitutional duties and pass these bills.
And if the person answering says it’s a “federal takeover,” please be sure they understand what they’re actually saying.
END
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
For Manchin to use the underdog Ohio effort—still not over—to justify not fulfilling HIS constitutional duty to guarantee democracy in states is truly cynical
If you’re gonna use our victory for your ends, Senator, come talk to those who led that effort
We’ll fill you in on all the attacks on democracy we’re fighting. Where we’ve fought back. Where we haven’t been able to.
And if you’re going to mention our success in striking those rigged maps down, know that that success in court occurred…
2/
because we added language to our constitution that sets clear rules on how to draw those districts
Those rules are quite similar to the rules in the Freedom to Vote Act, meaning people in all states would have a chance for fair districts as we may have here if we succeed
3/
I read all of Robert Caro a number of years ago. No better biography written.
So when I hear Portman, LaRose, Romney and others oppose the “federal takeover” of voting rights, I knew it sounded familiar.
1/
Indeed, that was the precise framing used by the Southern segregationists dedicated to stopping any and all civil rights legislation…but who knew they could no longer appeal to openly racist sentiments as their forerunners had
So they always grounded their obstruction…
2/
in the less charged narrative of a “federal takeover;” a takeover by outsiders; that the problems were already being solved within the states with no need for “federal interference.”
(And we know that those problems were NOT being solved)
True story: in 2013, I was so frustrated w gerrymandering in Ohio and no one knowing a thing about it, I decided to write a novel about it.
I’d never written fiction but thought it might inform people beyond insiders.
To be ironic, I called it “The People’s House.”
1/
But I quickly figured out that that was the world’s worst novel idea, so I spiced it up.
I added a Russian oligarch who figured out how poisonous gerrymandering was to US politics, and decided to interfere w elections in the few swing districts so he could flip Congress.
2/
I basically typed away early morning and late at night.
I had very young kids at home, and my day job was chair of the @OHDems , where of course we set a long-term goal of trying to end gerrymandering here, among other things.
3/
Senate President Huffman and Speaker Cupp “instructed” the mapmakers “to comply with certain provisions of the Constitution, but they did not instruct the map drawers to comply with Article XI, Section 6.”
1/
A map drawer testified that “President Huffman told him not to focus on it.”
They argued to the court they did not need to follow that section.
2/
“We reject the notion that Ohio voters rallied so strongly behind an anti-gerrymandering amendment to the Ohio Constitution yet believed at the time that the amendment was toothless.”
3/
Sometime in late April/early May, aghast at attacks on democracy happening in OH & statehouses across the US, I drafted a tweet that said something about how statehouses were behaving not as Laboratories of Democracy, but as Laboratories of Autocracy
1/
But I never pressed “tweet”.
As soon as I typed the words on my phone, it occurred to me that what’s happening in this country—what people in Ohio and others are going through—is so disturbing, it merited more than just a tweet.
Maybe an op-Ed.
So I started writing more.
2/
Which became a chapter. Then another. Then another.
As I wrote, I grew more disturbed by three things.
First, how things kept getting worse over the course of the year.
Second, how similar what’s happening now is to the darkest moments in our nation’s history.