The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: bipartisanship
Sen. Joe Manchin

New Study Shows Manchin’s ‘Bipartisan’ Approach On Voting Rights Is Misguided

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

When Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia shot down Democrats' signature voting rights legislation in an op-ed last week, he said that protecting voting rights "should never be done in a partisan manner."

But a new Brennan Center analysis of the voter suppression laws sweeping the nation shows what a preposterous and indeed hypocritical position that is. The center's examination of the 24 state-level voting restriction laws enacted as of early June proves the suppression efforts have been an almost exclusively Republican enterprise.

"Overall, we find that these new laws were enacted as part of an overwhelmingly partisan Republican push," reads the report. "Republicans introduced and drove virtually all of the bills that impose new voting restrictions, and the harshest new laws were passed with almost exclusively Republican votes and signed into law by Republican governors."

Still somehow Manchin insists that GOP lawmakers at the federal level are both interested in and fundamental to playing a corrective role to their counterparts in the states.

In Iowa, where one of this session's most restrictive bills passed on a party-line vote, Jennifer Konfrst, Democratic whip in the Iowa House of Representatives, is practically tearing out her hair over Manchin's intransigence.

"It is unfathomable to me that we would look at this issue and say we have to bring Republicans along, in this political climate, in order to make true change," Konfrst toldThe Atlantic's Ron Brownstein. "I don't see anywhere where Republicans are inviting Democrats along, or inviting Democrats to the table. Why are some Democrats saying 'I won't do this unless it's bipartisan?'"

Here's a snapshot of the Brennan Center findings courtesy of Brownstein:

  • 14 states have passed 24 laws restricting voting access so far this year (with dozens still pending in another 18 states)
  • 17 of those passed in nine states are deemed "highly restrictive" by the Brennan Center
  • All nine of those states are under unified GOP control with the exception of Kansas, where Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the law only to be overridden by the Republican-dominated state legislature
  • No Democrat co-sponsored any of the 17 bills
  • Not one Democrat voted for 13 of those 17 laws. Another three of those laws drew support from a single lonely Democratic lawmaker in the legislatures of Arkansas, Montana, and Wyoming. (The only highly restrictive bill to receive meaningful Democratic support was a voter ID law enacted in Arkansas)
  • Among all the state House/Assembly Republicans who voted on these 17 bills, just 12of 1,143 voted against them; among state Senate Republicans, just seven of 458 voted no on them.
Why Manchin Is So Wrong On Voting Rights

Why Manchin Is So Wrong On Voting Rights

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia officially announced in an op-ed Sunday that he would vote against the For the People Act, infuriating progressive critics who view the bill as a crucial tool for countering the Republican Party's anti-democratic tactics.

But Manchin's announcement wasn't particularly surprising, as he has repeatedly signaled that he was not fully supportive of the bill and prefers the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a more modest proposal. Even more critically, though, he has insisted that he doesn't want to end the filibuster, the Senate rule requiring 60 votes to pass a bill, which would've doomed the For the People Act whether Manchin supported it or not. No Republican senators support the bill, and at least 10 would be needed for join all 50 Democrats to pass it into law under the current filibuster rule.

It wasn't just Manchin's opposition to the For the People Act that infuriated his critics, though. The particular arguments he gave struck many as weak, condescending, and hypocritical.

He insisted that any voting rights legislation that will pass must be bipartisan. He warned: "Whether it is state laws that seek to needlessly restrict voting or politicians who ignore the need to secure our elections, partisan policymaking won't instill confidence in our democracy — it will destroy it."

But he refused to answer the simple and natural question that this demanded raises: What if congressional Republicans refuse to support any voting rights legislation?

He wrote:

I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy, and for that reason, I will vote against the For the People Act. Furthermore, I will not vote to weaken or eliminate the filibuster. For as long as I have the privilege of being your U.S. senator, I will fight to represent the people of West Virginia, to seek bipartisan compromise no matter how difficult and to develop the political bonds that end divisions and help unite the country we love.
American democracy is something special, it is bigger than one party, or the tweet-filled partisan attack politics of the moment. It is my sincere hope that all of us, especially those who are privileged to serve, remember our responsibility to do more to unite this country before it is too late.

But he didn't acknowledge that "partisan voting legislation" is already being passed across the country. Republicans are rewriting the voting rules in state legislatures where they have total control, redesigning the process to fit their own partisan purposes. They hope to make it much easier for their own party to win control, and there are even indications that their policies could make it easier for Republicans to steal elections if they don't win. And Republicans are also poised to redraw congressional districts across the country to increase their advantage in the U.S. House of Representatives to be even greater than it already is, further making Congress even less representative and less democratic than it already is.

By blocking any effort from Democrats in Congress to reform voting rights, Manchin is guaranteeing that these partisan efforts by Republicans at the state level to reshape our elections to fit their desires will largely succeed. He says any federal legislation to reform voting rights must be bipartisan, but why would Senate or House Republicans do anything to weaken the advantage they have in control of state governments? Instead of insisting on bipartisanship, what Manchin is really insisting on is unilateral surrender by the Democratic Party. And if the GOP uses the opportunity to entrench their power, it may be a long time before Democrats can ever get it back.

And Manchin's demands are patently absurd on their face. For example, he wrote:

Democrats in Congress have proposed a sweeping election reform bill called the For the People Act. This more than 800-page bill has garnered zero Republican support. Why? Are the very Republican senators who voted to impeach Trump because of actions that led to an attack on our democracy unwilling to support actions to strengthen our democracy? Are these same senators, whom many in my party applauded for their courage, now threats to the very democracy we seek to protect?

There are seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump because he inspired an attack on the U.S. Capitol to overthrow the 2020 presidential election. Manchin believes that this suggests they are willing to "strengthen our democracy" — but there's no reason to think this is true. Opposing Trump's brazen abuse of power and literal threat to the lives of U.S. lawmakers doesn't suggest that those Republicans don't also support restricting democracy in various ways or even even finding less violent ways to overturn elections. Many Republicans are happy to restrict democracy, even if they think Trump went too far. And Manchin and the Democrats weren't even able to convince all seven of those Republicans to support a commission to study the insurrection, further demonstrating the fact that their votes to convict didn't show a lasting good faith commitment to democracy.

Even still, had all seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump supported a bipartisan voting rights bill, that wouldn't be enough to pass under Manchin's demand to keep the filibuster. Manchin's standard requires at least 10 Republicans support any bill — which means he's insisting that Democrats let Republicans who voted to let Trump get away with the insurrection have a veto over voting rights laws.

Manchin promoted the John Lewis bill as an alternative to the For the People Act, touting it as "bipartisan." But he can only name one Republican senator who has come out in support of the bill — Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. No other Republican seems interested, and even Murkowski's interest appears tepid. And there's no sign that she or Manchin is doing the hard work to get nine other Republicans to vote in favor of the bill so it could actually pass in the face of a filibuster.

As Fox News' Chris Wallace pointed out on Sunday, Manchin has actually made the job of getting bipartisan agreement on a voting rights bill much harder by coming out firmly against reforming the filibuster. If he left open the possibility that he might support eliminating it were bipartisan negotiations to fail, Republicans would have more of an incentive to actually agree to a deal.

Since Manchin has taken filibuster reform off the table, though, Republicans know exactly what will happen at the federal level on voting rights if they refuse to play ball: nothing. At the state level, Republican legislatures will have free rein. Manchin is guaranteeing more partisanship in voting rights law, not less.

How The Press Botched Coverage Of Covid Relief For A Year

How The Press Botched Coverage Of Covid Relief For A Year

Reprinted with permission from Press Run

President Joe Biden stands poised to pass one of the most substantial and popular pieces of spending legislation in half-a-century, following the Senate's passage of the $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill. The American Rescue Plan will not only provide $1,400 checks for most American families and extend jobless aid, the bill provides money for vaccine distribution and financial relief for cities, schools, and small businesses hit hard by the pandemic.

The sprawling legislation also represents the largest increase in safety net spending in a generation. It includes huge assistance for day care, broadens eligibility for Obamacare, helps renters, and will likely cut the U.S. poverty rate by one third this year.

Reporting on the six most important "takeaways" from the bill's Senate passage this weekend, guess what USA Today ranked as the most significant detail about the American Rescue Plan? Answer: The fact that Biden wasn't able to win over Republican backing for the wildly popular bill, which has 83 percent public support.

Chalking that up as a White House failure, USA Today stressed, "Biden campaigned on bipartisanship following four divisive years under Donald Trump. Yet he was not able to win over a single Senate Republican." The paper made sure to penalize Biden: "The lack of bipartisan support shows that breaking through the gridlock isn't as easy as Biden predicted as a candidate."

Detailing the GOP's deeply radical and dangerous tendencies is not a story the press wants to dwell on. That's a key reason the media screwed up Covid relief coverage for the last twelve months, constantly presenting a false picture of legislative negotiations, told through the prism of the GOP.

USA Today didn't include one sentence about how bizarre it was that every Republican member of the House and Senate stands opposed to a bill that 70 percentof Republican voters support. Instead, the press continues to depict the GOP's obstruction as being normal and understandable. That way they can ding Biden for failing to make the bill "bipartisan." (Beltway media Golden Rule: Democrats alone are responsible for creating bipartisanship.)

Republican behavior over Covid relief last weekend at times bordered on madness, as they tried to drown the process with sure-to-fail amendments. At one point, they even tried to strip out funds specifically targeted for poor women and children. But that was definitely not the dominant media narrative in recent days. The New York Times insisted it was Democrats who faced an "awkward episode" on late Friday when details over extending unemployment payments had to be ironed out after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) raised objections. The event "threatened to defect and derail" passage, the paper reported excitedly.

Like USA Today, the Times was oblivious to the idea that Republicans faced any awkwardness for unanimously objecting to an emergency spending bill that the vast majority of Americans support, and doing everything in the party's power to slow down its passage, including the demand that the massive bill be read out loud in its entirety in the Senate, a move that wasted hours.

The Times waved off the GOP's extreme behavior as nothing more than, "a minority united in opposition." (i.e. Nothing to see here!)

Over the last twelve months, Republicans sabotaged all Covid relief negotiations, including Trump who routinely, and publicly, gave wildly contradictory statements about the need for assistance. Yet since last April, the press tagged Both Sides for failing to pass a relief package that was universally seen as crucial to the country's economic survival. ("Capitol Hill's failure to compromise" is hurting America, CNN emphasized.)

Fact: House Democrats in May passed a massive $3 trillion Covid relief package. To win over Republican support in the Senate, they then agreed to pass a smaller $2 trillion version. They were then ready to sign off on a further reduced $908 billion proposal. Republican leaders wouldn't even agree to that, yet the press consistently blamed "Congress" for not being able to meet halfway and pass much-needed assistance.

CBS News wondered, "Why hasn't Congress done more at this point?" The Congressional Covid failure represented "an institution gripped with paralysis," the Times stressed, while the Washington Post claimed the lack of legislation was due to "bickering."

Last summer, journalists claimed "Congress" was to blame for weekly $600 relief checks being cut off. Wrong — the payments were ended because Republicans forced them to end. In October, CNN's Wolf Blitzer launched into a heated argument with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, demanding to know why she wouldn't accept a White House relief proposal, even though Senate Republicans didn't support it, which meant the White House proposal would never be voted on.

Twelve months ago, the Beltway press echoed GOP talking points by loudly claiming Democrats were "blocking" the first Covid relief bill, which was eventually signed into law under Trump. The Times stressed that Democrats "risked a political backlash," by lobbying hard for additional unemployment aid, as well as more money for hospitals, healthcare workers, and local governments. (Democrats won, and improved the bill.) Today, there's very little media coverage of Republicans "blocking" the recent Covid bill, or facing "political backlash."

Republicans never supported a second Covid relief bill, yet the press spent the last year pretending otherwise — insisting that of course GOP leaders urgently wanted to aid struggling Americans, where there was little evidence that they did.

The country will be well served by the American Rescue Plan, but the slow-motion train wreck of Covid relief coverage represented a distressing failure of journalism.

New Poll Shows Overwhelming Support For Biden’s Vision Of Unity

New Poll Shows Overwhelming Support For Biden’s Vision Of Unity

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

President Biden's unity pitch has gained steam since November, with fully 71 percent of Americans saying they would rather see Republicans in Congress find ways to work together with Biden instead of focusing on keeping him in check (25 percent).

The new finding from a Monmouth University poll shows a notable nine-point increase in the public's thirst for Republican cooperation with Biden since just after the November election when 62 percent said the same. But perhaps more importantly, the widespread support for GOP lawmakers working with the president to tackle problems suggests that Biden's unity push is very much in sync with the public. Biden recently clarified that to him, unity means coalescing around what a majority of Americans think will improve their lives, but not necessarily securing Republican votes for those policies. In short, it's about the public, not the lawmakers.

"If you pass a piece of legislation that breaks down on party lines, but it gets passed, it doesn't mean there wasn't unity, it just means it wasn't bipartisan," Biden explained this week.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was also asked to clarify what "unity" means to Biden. "Unity is about the country feeling that they're in it together, and I think we'll know that when we see it," she said, adding that Biden would be working on that at "every opportunity he has to speak to the public."

Now we know that more than seven in 10 Americans agree with Biden's vision—they like his pitch and want GOP lawmakers to join him in his effort to solve the nation's problems. That includes 41 percent of Republicans (up from 28 percent in November) as well as 70 percent of independents and 94 percent of Democrats.

The public's penchant for GOP compromise also seems to be at a high point, with several surveys over the past decade showing less appetite for bipartisan compromise. The questions aren't a perfect match, but an October 2017 Gallup poll found 54 percent of Americans wanted political leaders in Washington to compromise to get things done. That finding came after nine months of unified GOP control in Washington during which Republicans tried and failed multiple times to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

And in November 2014, just weeks after voters handed Republicans control of the Senate, 63 percent of Americans wanted candidates who were elected to office that year to remain flexible enough to broker deals, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. What a cruel joke voters played on themselves by putting grim reaper Mitch McConnell in charge of the Senate and then hoping for bipartisan compromise.

Not this time around. Voters put Democrats in charge of the White House and both chambers of Congress—albeit by very narrow margins—and now they're hoping against hope Republicans won't serve as the perennial destroyers of progress they always angle to be.

Perhaps part of that public sentiment is a function of the dire times we live in. As Civiqs right tack/wrong track polling shows, Americans across the partisan spectrum tend to agree on one thing: The nation is headed in the wrong direction. Nearly three-quarters of respondents feel that way, including 68 percent of Democrats (though their outlook is improving), 73 percent of independents, and 79 percent of Republicans.

But perhaps more than anything, Americans want results. And while the Monmouth polling suggests they want Republicans to be part of the solution rather than the problem, GOP involvement may ultimately not matter so much. The bigger takeaway here is likely that if Biden and congressional Democrats deliver, that will be far more important than bipartisan compromise as long as it measurably improves the lives of most Americans.