[y66]

Ezra Klein at NYT said:

https://www.nytimes....-democracy.html

I’ll say this for the right: They pay attention to where the power lies in the American system, in ways the left sometimes doesn’t. Bannon calls this “the precinct strategy,” and it’s working. “Suddenly, people who had never before showed interest in party politics started calling the local G.O.P. headquarters or crowding into county conventions, eager to enlist as precinct officers,” ProPublica reports. “They showed up in states Trump won and in states he lost, in deep-red rural areas, in swing-voting suburbs and in populous cities.”

The difference between those organizing at the local level to shape democracy and those raging ineffectually about democratic backsliding — myself included — remind me of the old line about war: Amateurs talk strategy; professionals talk logistics. Right now, Trumpists are talking logistics.

“We do not have one federal election,” said Amanda Litman, a co-founder of Run for Something, which helps first-time candidates learn about the offices they can contest and helps them mount their campaigns. “We have 50 state elections and then thousands of county elections. And each of those ladder up to give us results. While Congress can write, in some ways, rules or boundaries for how elections are administered, state legislatures are making decisions about who can and can’t vote. Counties and towns are making decisions about how much money they’re spending, what technology they’re using, the rules around which candidates can participate.”

“If you want to fight for the future of American democracy, you shouldn’t spend all day talking about the future of American democracy,” Wikler said. “These local races that determine the mechanics of American democracy are the ventilation shaft in the Republican death star. These races get zero national attention. They hardly get local attention. Turnout is often lower than 20 percent. That means people who actually engage have a superpower. You, as a single dedicated volunteer, might be able to call and knock on the doors of enough voters to win a local election.”

Quote

Or you can simply win one yourself. That’s what Gabriella Cázares-Kelly did. Cázares-Kelly, a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation, agreed to staff a voter registration booth at the community college where she worked, in Pima County, Ariz. She was stunned to hear the stories of her students. “We keep blaming students for not participating, but it’s really complicated to get registered to vote if you don’t have a license, the nearest D.M.V. is an hour and a half away and you don’t own a car,” she told me.

Cázares-Kelly learned that much of the authority over voter registration fell to an office neither she nor anyone around her knew much about: the County Recorder’s Office, which has authority over records ranging from deeds to voter registrations. It had powers she’d never considered. It could work with the postmaster’s office to put registration forms in tribal postal offices — or not. When it called a voter to verify a ballot and heard an answering machine message in Spanish, it could follow up in Spanish — or not.

“I started contacting the records office and making suggestions and asking questions,” Cázares-Kelly said. “I did that for a long time, and the previous recorder was not very happy about it. I called so often, the staff began to know me. I didn’t have an interest in running till I heard the previous recorder was going to retire, and then my immediate thought was, ‘What if a white supremacist runs?’”

So in 2020, Cázares-Kelly ran, and she won. Now she’s the county recorder for a jurisdiction with nearly a million people, and more than 600,000 registered voters, in a swing state. “One thing I was really struck by when I first started getting involved in politics is how much power there is in just showing up to things,” she said. “If you love libraries, libraries have board meetings. Go to the public meeting. See where they’re spending their money. We’re supposed to be participating. If you want to get involved, there’s always a way.”

[y66]

Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg said:

https://www.bloomber...-more-than-laws

As the Senate prepares to consider voting rights legislation and a special House committee opens its hearings on the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, friends of U.S. democracy should be thinking hard about what they will do to fight for it.

The Constitution and its republican form of government — democracy, that is — really are under threat. And the threat comes from former President Donald Trump and his allies. Not from all Republicans, but from Republicans.

Election-law expert Rick Hasen suggested three defense-of-democracy principles in a weekend essay in the New York Times. They are that Democrats can’t preserve free and fair elections without an alliance with principled Republicans; that all of civil society — business groups, civic and professional organizations, labor unions and religious organizations — should be mobilized to protect the rule of law; and that mass, peaceful organizing and protests may be necessary in 2024 and 2025.

It’s an excellent piece, a must-read for those who care about preserving the republic. I’d make five points to supplement, or perhaps recast, his suggestions.

1) Laws alone will not save democracy. Trump wasn’t deterred after the 2020 election by the plain meaning of the law and the Constitution. Had enough Republicans in key positions gone along with him, it’s quite possible he would have successfully remained in office despite losing the election, and that would be even more true in a future scenario in which Trump allies held congressional majorities. Moreover, there’s always a danger of fighting the last war. In 2020, the threat seemed to be in what happened after the votes were counted. Next time, the threat could be in the counting of the ballots, or what happens before the ballots are counted. What this means is that those who support the republic will need to fight for it, and not just through legislative fixes.

2) Nevertheless, the more legal protections, the better. Congress should act to update the Electoral Count Act, the poorly drafted 19th century law governing the counting of electoral votes, and it’s good to see a bipartisan Senate group starting to work on doing so. But that’s not enough. Congress should also do what it can to make sure that state and local elections are conducted on the up-and-up, and should do what it can to ensure that voting is easy for all. Friends of democracy who dislike some of the elements of the Democrats’ voting-rights legislation have a responsibility to support what they can, and work for compromise on the rest — just as friends of Democrats who like all of the Democrats’ proposals have a responsibility to find common ground with folks who try to engage with them in good faith.

3) Protections such as those in the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which has been battered by the Supreme Court, are not irrelevant to the dangers facing U.S. democracy. They are crucial to preserving it, just as the original passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was essential to the creation of a legitimate democracy in the first place. The same goes for other dangers to the republic that we’ve seen in recent years. The idea that everything was fine up until Election Day 2020 is wrong. That doesn’t mean that every provision in any Democratic voting bill is equally important, or even necessarily a good solution to current problems, but the idea that the dangers are simple and one-dimensional ignores a lot of democratic erosion that’s been obvious for well over a decade.

4) Supporters of democracy and the Constitution should always be ready to accept whatever allies they can find, for as much as those allies are willing to give. House Democrats have done so in accepting Republican Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming and even her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, as part of the pro-democracy team — despite the strong feelings many Democrats have about what they see (correctly, in my view) as the damage that Dick Cheney did to U.S. democracy, especially by his support for torture. The nature of coalition politics is that it sometimes requires painful compromises its participants could never have imagined.

5) While everyone should plan for the worst, it’s important not to assume the worst. A lot of the people who stood up against Trump after the 2020 election seemed to be standard-issue, Trump-supporting, voting-rights-impeding Republicans right up to the point where they wouldn’t go along. It’s also true that fatalism helps no one. It’s bad enough that we need to entertain the serious possibility that some Republican-majority legislatures might attempt to overturn their own states’ elections and send rogue slates of electoral votes to Congress, and that a Republican-majority Congress might attempt to accept those votes. We have to take that threat seriously because large numbers of Republicans have suggested they would do so, and more might join them the next time the situation arises. But let’s not pretend that it’s a sure thing, or ignore the crucial fact that Republican legislatures did no such thing in 2020.

[kenberg]

Both Klein andBernstein are saying the Dems need to think through things a little better. I'll throw in something from before.

Y posted a Kwanevu column, I quoted from it skeptically:

Quote

Jan. 6 demonstrated that the choice the country now faces isn't one between disruptive changes to our political system and a peaceable status quo. To believe otherwise is to indulge the other big lie that drew violence to the Capitol in the first place. The notion that the 18th-century American constitutional order is suited to governance in the 21st is as preposterous and dangerous as anything Mr. Trump has ever uttered. It was the supposedly stabilizing features of our vaunted system that made him president to begin with and incubated the extremism that turned his departure into a crisis.

So: The notion that the 18th-century American constitutional order is suited to governance in the 21st is as preposterous?

Bernstein: "The Constitution and its republican form of government — democracy, that is — really are under threat."

So: Bernstein says the Constitution is under threat, Kwanevu says the idea that the Constitution is suited for our current government is preposterous.

Are the Dems saying "Save the Constitution" or are they saying "Good riddance to bad rubbish"?

I am not saying Bernstein's views and Kwanevu's views cannot be reconciled. but I am saying that the message is garbled. This happens often and in many areas. Saying that the Constitution is under threat and so needs our protection, and saying that it is preposterous to think of the Constitution is suited to governance in the 21st century, and then telling the voters that of course they should be able to figure out how to reconcile these two arguments is not the way to win votes or win support or win much of anything.

[awm]

 kenberg, on 2022-January-10, 14:31, said:

I am not saying Bernstein's views and Kwanevu's views cannot be reconciled. but I am saying that the message is garbled. This happens often and in many areas. Saying that the Constitution is under threat and so needs our protection, and saying that it is preposterous to think of the Constitution is suited to governance in the 21st century, and then telling the voters that of course they should be able to figure out how to reconcile these two arguments is not the way to win votes or win support or win much of anything. [/size][/color]

The Constitution has already been amended 27 times. I don't think amendments are a threat to the Constitution. The threat is a more existential one, that the idea of a government elected by the people through free and fair elections might cease to be the case. The insurrection on January 6th threatened this pretty directly, and the movement by Republican state legislators to establish rules by which they could simply override the will of the people in their state is another such threat.

The founders weren't prophets -- they didn't know about gerrymandering and the modern data collection techniques that allow our politicians to select the voters. They didn't imagine a day when each member of the house of representatives would represent almost a million citizens (it was around 50,000 at the founding of the US). They certainly never imagined social media and misinformation via facebook. And of course they did things like allowing slavery and not letting women vote. Certainly we have made changes in the past and can (and should) make more changes in the future.

[kenberg]

 awm, on 2022-January-10, 18:50, said:

The Constitution has already been amended 27 times. I don't think amendments are a threat to the Constitution. The threat is a more existential one, that the idea of a government elected by the people through free and fair elections might cease to be the case. The insurrection on January 6th threatened this pretty directly, and the movement by Republican state legislators to establish rules by which they could simply override the will of the people in their state is another such threat.

The founders weren't prophets -- they didn't know about gerrymandering and the modern data collection techniques that allow our politicians to select the voters. They didn't imagine a day when each member of the house of representatives would represent almost a million citizens (it was around 50,000 at the founding of the US). They certainly never imagined social media and misinformation via facebook. And of course they did things like allowing slavery and not letting women vote. Certainly we have made changes in the past and can (and should) make more changes in the future.

I agree with all of that, sure I do. I am suggesting that Dems need to think a little about how it sounds to say "The notion that the 18th-century American constitutional order is suited to governance in the 21st is as preposterous ". That comes across differently than what you said. There is always the danger, applying to all of us and as all of us know, of visualizing the people who largely agree with us when we speak and then forgetting how easily what we say can come across very differently to others. And by "others" I don't mean people on the other extreme, I mean people who might well listen but get put off when they hear someone talking about how preposterous it is to look to the Constitution when we consider modern political problems. Just a bit more thought about phrasing things is what I hope for.
Or perhaps Kwanevu phrased the matter exactly as he thinks of it.

[y66]

Jonathan Chait at NYMag said:

https://nymag.com/in...tm_campaign=nym

Of the handful of defenses of the filibuster in common circulation, the most popular is that it deserves deference as the product of design by the Founders. This argument was repeated Monday night by Sen. Joe Manchin:

Chard Pergram at Fox News said:

Manchin on the filibuster. Says it's been "The tradition of the Senate here in 232 years now..we need to be very cautious what we do..That's what we've always had for 232 years. That's what makes us different than any place else in the world.

The problem with this argument is that it is not true.

The filibuster was not created in the Constitution. Indeed, the Founders considered, and rejected, a routine supermajority requirement. James Madison wrote:

“In all cases where justice or the general good might require new laws to be passed, or active measures to be pursued, the fundamental principle of free government would be reversed. It would be no longer the majority that would rule: the power would be transferred to the minority.”

Alexander Hamilton likewise argued:

“To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser. … If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, … Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good.”

Reflecting their disdain for a supermajority requirement, the Constitution called for its use only in limited circumstances: approving foreign treaties, Constitutional amendments, and removal of an impeached official from office. In 1805, however, as Brookings scholar Sarah Binder has explained, the Senate rules neglected to write a provision to end debate. It was not until 1837 — nearly half a century after the Constitution was enacted, and its drafters had passed from the scene — that the rules glitch was first exploited in the form of a filibuster.

Indeed, the filibuster has changed repeatedly over the years. When it first appeared, unanimous consent was required to end debate, then two-thirds, then 60 percent. For the vast majority of its time, it was reserved by custom for rare instances of especially heated dissent (frequently, by Southerners to block civil rights bills.) The filibuster only came into its modern incarnation as a routine supermajority requirement during the Clinton era. Before then, legislation often passed through a majority vote.

Manchin is correct to observe that the filibuster “makes us different than any place else in the world.” Indeed, he understates the case. The filibuster not only distinguishes the Senate from other democratic bodies around the globe, but also from all 50 state governments, none of which have copied it in their own senates.

Manchin might wonder what that difference tells us. Does the U.S. government function better than other democracies, and better than every state government? That’s not the impression Manchin seems to give — when he is not praising the filibuster as essential to the proper functioning of the Senate, he is usually bemoaning the institution’s dysfunction.

Of course, the common fallacy that the Senate has always had a filibuster resembling the current version — or even a filibuster at all — is not the only argument for keeping it. But the fact it’s repeated so often reveals the low quality of justification its advocates are able to muster.

If they had good reasons to maintain the supermajority, they wouldn’t lean so heavily on false ones.

[kenberg]

I guess it is obvious that the filibuster is not in the Constitution. We could read it. But also if it were in the Constitution then it could not be altered by a vote of the Senate. Manchin is quoted as saying it has been around for 232 years, not as saying it is n the Consitution. My school years were long ago but I vaguely recall learning about Calhoun in the pre-Civil War years using it. So it has been around for a long time. Not 232 years, but a long time.

If dreams really do come true, here is what I would like: In some quiet time, when the filibuster has not been used or threatened to be used for say six months, I would like the Ds and the Rs to sit down and see whether they think it's a good idea. Contrast that with "We have to get rid of the filibuster do that we can pass bill X". That is, I would like to know if both Ds and rs think that it would be a good thing for a simple majority to pass sweeping legislation and whether they think this is a good idea when there are 51 Ds in the Senate and a good idea when there are 51 Rs in the Senate. Perhaps it is a good idea. I just want the thinking to be long-term rather than how to push through one specific bill.

[Winstonm]

 kenberg, on 2022-January-11, 09:24, said:

I guess it is obvious that the filibuster is not in the Constitution. We could read it. But also if it were in the Constitution then it could not be altered by a vote of the Senate. Manchin is quoted as saying it has been around for 232 years, not as saying it is n the Consitution. My school years were long ago but I vaguely recall learning about Calhoun in the pre-Civil War years using it. So it has been around for a long time. Not 232 years, but a long time.

If dreams really do come true, here is what I would like: In some quiet time, when the filibuster has not been used or threatened to be used for say six months, I would like the Ds and the Rs to sit down and see whether they think it's a good idea. Contrast that with "We have to get rid of the filibuster do that we can pass bill X". That is, I would like to know if both Ds and rs think that it would be a good thing for a simple majority to pass sweeping legislation and whether they think this is a good idea when there are 51 Ds in the Senate and a good idea when there are 51 Rs in the Senate. Perhaps it is a good idea. I just want the thinking to be long-term rather than how to push through one specific bill.

But doesn't this long-term thinking emerge from a single endeavor? It seems the information in the Chait article indicates that this has already been considered, and by people who were much more serious about governing than the current bunch. If the information is accurate, the long-term fear was that the minority would be able to prevent the majority from governance - Oh, wait, isn't that where we are now?

Personally, I think it fantasy to believe reasonable people will sit together when those we live next door to, talk to daily, like, and have no problems with, suddenly, when the topic becomes politics, paint their faces, put on pointed hats, pick up spears, and attack the U.S. Capitol building trying to overturn the results of an election of which they didn't like the outcome.

Perhaps if they had no say, the minority would be more willing to compromise than if they had all the power - and used it as a weapon.

[shyams]

FYI, the filibuster is part of the UK Parliament procedures. It is recognised as a proper process provided suitable protocols are followed by the Member attempting a successful filibuster. Filibusters are not something that occurred centuries ago; there are examples on YouTube from the 2000s or 2010s. Having said that, filibusters are rare over here.

That the US Senate adopted it as part of their procedures is not unusual. What may be unusual about the US is the ease with which a filibuster can be implemented and the difficulty/impossibility of getting a procedural override within the Senate to overcome it.

[kenberg]

 shyams, on 2022-January-11, 10:37, said:

FYI, the filibuster is part of the UK Parliament procedures. It is recognised as a proper process provided suitable protocols are followed by the Member attempting a successful filibuster. Filibusters are not something that occurred centuries ago; there are examples on YouTube from the 2000s or 2010s. Having said that, filibusters are rare over here.

That the US Senate adopted it as part of their procedures is not unusual. What may be unusual about the US is the ease with which a filibuster can be implemented and the difficulty/impossibility of getting a procedural override within the Senate to overcome it.

Thank you for the info about the UK, I didn't know that.
Also I think you are onto something regarding the ease of doing it. I have sort of followed politics since an early age, but the emphasis goes on "sort of". The current usage, essentially paralyzing government, seems to me to have developed over the last twenty or thirty years. Yes, there were major and famous filibusters of the past but at least as I recall it we would go through one and then get back to legislation as usual. Now it seems we get through one we move on to the next filibuster. It's gone from being a last resort to being the weapon of choice. It's nuts.

[cherdano]

 shyams, on 2022-January-11, 10:37, said:

FYI, the filibuster is part of the UK Parliament procedures. It is recognised as a proper process provided suitable protocols are followed by the Member attempting a successful filibuster. Filibusters are not something that occurred centuries ago; there are examples on YouTube from the 2000s or 2010s. Having said that, filibusters are rare over here.

That the US Senate adopted it as part of their procedures is not unusual. What may be unusual about the US is the ease with which a filibuster can be implemented and the difficulty/impossibility of getting a procedural override within the Senate to overcome it.

To put this in perspective, in the house of commons it requires 100 MPs to vote for ending the filibuster. That's 16%.

So I guess it only works for low profile bills where attendance during the debate is low. Not sure I am a fan...

[y66]

After decades of decline, Buffalo boasts a ‘Refugee Renaissance.’ Can it last?

Now we'll probably have to build a wall to keep the Canadians out.

[barmar]

 kenberg, on 2022-January-10, 14:31, said:

Are the Dems saying "Save the Constitution" or are they saying "Good riddance to bad rubbish"?

I think they're saying that the Constitution alone isn't enough. But it's still the right starting point.

The Constitution is just a piece of paper. It depends on honorable people to implement the ideals expressed in it. But we have corrupt politicians who have used these processes to maintain their power.

As I understand it, Hitler rose to power in Germany through democratic processes in accordance with their Constitution.

[pilowsky]

The rule of law and the constitution are legal fictions that only apply to wealthy people.
There are about 11 billion people in the world today.
Total "wealth" in the world is about 500 trillion.
200 people own about 1% of it. $4,626,900,000,000.00 at last count.
They make this money from the labour of a lot of people who get nothing.

[kenberg]

 barmar, on 2022-January-12, 10:45, said:

I think they're saying that the Constitution alone isn't enough. But it's still the right starting point.

The Constitution is just a piece of paper. It depends on honorable people to implement the ideals expressed in it. But we have corrupt politicians who have used these processes to maintain their power.

As I understand it, Hitler rose to power in Germany through democratic processes in accordance with their Constitution.

Whatever it is that they are saying I think they need to work on their nessaging.

[kenberg]

 pilowsky, on 2022-January-12, 15:14, said:

The rule of law and the constitution are legal fictions that only apply to wealthy people.
There are about 11 billion people in the world today.
Total "wealth" in the world is about 500 trillion.
200 people own about 1% of it. $4,626,900,000,000.00 at last count.
They make this money from the labour of a lot of people who get nothing.

That population figure might be off a bit unless there are a lot of people hiding under stocks. As for wealth? Different definitions give different figures I suppose.
I am guessing this is bait, not to be taken seriously.

So I will let my mind wander a bit.

In Candide, Professor Pangloss is ridiculed for his philosophical answer to the problem of how there good be an all-good, all-knowing -all-powerful God, concluding that this is the best of all possible worlds, Candide concludes this is not so, and decides that we must work in the garden. OK, I read this maybe 65 years ago but I think I have it about right.

Maybe we need to go a little further. Not only is there no omnipotent all-good all-poweful god to set things right, we humans are not doing such a good job of it either. Not so long ago the world population was around 6 billion, now it's around 8 billion, so, while we have been dithering, the world has produced another couple of billion people to worry about. This is not going well. Work in the garden? Nice thought, but back in Voltaire's time they were not worried about global warming.

I am at a loss for what might actually work.

[awm]

It would be interesting to see what happens if we impose extremely high tax rates on extremely large fortunes (for example a steep wealth tax on holdings above 100 million dollars). While it's possible that the very wealthy would flee the country, the US enforces tax on its citizens abroad too, and renouncing citizenship requires paying a tax on unrealised capital gains which would also be quite expensive for the very rich. Of course it's possible to flee and simply ignore the law, but is it worth fleeing your home country (never to return) just to hold on to your second billion dollars? Maybe not, and you might not have great choices of destinations either (presuming the US can convince its allies to deport these people).

I guess some of the very rich might no longer be motivated to work (although how much motivation the possibility of getting your third billion gives is not really clear, and most of these people get money from appreciation of stock and not directly from work anyway). It's not like Amazon collapsed when Jeff Bezos retired, or Microsoft collapsed when Bill Gates retired, or Apple collapsed when Steve Jobs died... while these super-rich folks contributed key innovations when building these super-successful companies, it's not clear that retaining them at the helm decades later makes much of a difference.

And again, it's not like we're impoverishing these poor billionaires; most people can live quite luxuriously on a mere hundred million dollars.

[Winstonm]

 kenberg, on 2022-January-13, 08:28, said:

Whatever it is that they are saying I think they need to work on their nessaging.

You are right, Ken. It's all about what I've read is called, "framing".

[Winstonm]

One thing is simple and clear: the right to vote is more important than Senate rules.

[Winstonm]

 kenberg, on 2022-January-13, 08:44, said:

That population figure might be off a bit unless there are a lot of people hiding under stocks. As for wealth? Different definitions give different figures I suppose.
I am guessing this is bait, not to be taken seriously.

So I will let my mind wander a bit.

In Candide, Professor Pangloss is ridiculed for his philosophical answer to the problem of how there good be an all-good, all-knowing -all-powerful God, concluding that this is the best of all possible worlds, Candide concludes this is not so, and decides that we must work in the garden. OK, I read this maybe 65 years ago but I think I have it about right.

Maybe we need to go a little further. Not only is there no omnipotent all-good all-poweful god to set things right, we humans are not doing such a good job of it either. Not so long ago the world population was around 6 billion, now it's around 8 billion, so, while we have been dithering, the world has produced another couple of billion people to worry about. This is not going well. Work in the garden? Nice thought, but back in Voltaire's time they were not worried about global warming.

I am at a loss for what might actually work.

I doubt there is a work-a-round to prevent the end of humankind. I find it humorous to think those who smugly look at man as the pinnacle of life will someday be surpassed by the bacteria and simpler forms that already surpass us in adaptation abilities.