Federal control of elections, and getting the filibuster out of the way – Bluefield Daily Telegraph

Good Congressional legislation that benefits the country and its citizens will have broad bi-partisan support. If a bill has strong support from one side, but little or no support from the other, it likely is good for the majority and/or bad for the minority.

Many bills, perhaps most, have only one party supporting them, the party in the majority, and are hotly contested.

A bill currently with this partisan split is the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named for the late Georgia congressman and civil rights leader. The voting rights bill has strong support from Democrat majority, but strong opposition from the Republican minority.

As reported by Politifact, Supporters say the bill would renew the power of the federal government to oversee state voting laws and protect minority voters at a time when more GOP-led states have passed new restrictions. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-VT., who introduced the bill, said it would ensure that the Voting Rights Act continues to have the effect long intended: to protect the right to vote.

The report continues, But Republicans say the John Lewis bill is federal overreach and would make it too easy for plaintiffs to challenge state election laws that Republicans say are designed to prevent fraud. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, has called it unnecessary and said that its against the law to discriminate in voting on the basis of race already.

Republicans view their election laws as mechanisms to reduce fraud, and Democrats view them as efforts to restrict voting to certain groups. Democrats see their election laws as making it easy for people to vote, while Republicans view them as mechanisms that make fraud and cheating easier.

The Democrat bill will transfer much of the control over elections that now resides with the states to the federal government. The system of federalism under which the United States was formed left much power to the states, deliberately not giving the federal government total control. The control of election procedures resides with state legislatures.

In addition to trying to federalize control over elections, Democrats also are now talking about eliminating the Senate filibuster, or eliminating certain of its uses. The filibuster, however, is a mechanism that both protects the Senate minority from being run over by the majority, and also helps to encourage the introduction of bills that will have bi-partisan support, which do not encourage a filibuster.

Some Democrats now favoring the changing or elimination of the filibuster have done an about face from just a few years ago.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who in 2017 as Minority Leader spoke to the Senate, saying there should be a firewall around the legislative filibuster. Let us go no further down this road, he said. I hope the Republican Leader and I can, in the coming months, find a way to build a firewall around the legislative filibuster, which is the most important distinction between the Senate and the House.

He and other Democrats condemned efforts by Republicans to challenge the filibuster back then. Here are some of their comments:

From Schumer:

They want to make this country into a banana republic where if you dont get your way you change the rules.

Change the rules in midstream to wash away 200 years of history.

Ideologues in the Senate want to turn what the founding fathers called the cooling saucer of democracy into the rubber stamp of dictatorship.

Itll be a doomsday for democracy.

From President Joe Biden when he was in the Senate:

It raises problems that are more damaging than the problem that exists.

Youre going to throw the entire Congress into chaos and nothing will get done.

Nothing at all will get done.

It is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power.

Ending the filibuster is a very dangerous thing to do.

It is a fundamental power grab.

From Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.:

That would be the end of the Senate.

You cant change the rules in the middle of the game.

Preserve checks and balances so that no one party can do whatever it wants.

From Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.:

You cannot change the rules in the middle of the game because you do not like the outcome.

Partisan power grab that will stomp on the rights of the minority and leave fundamentally changed for the worse.

I will not stand by when a party drunk with power tries to overturn 200 years of precedent.

From Sen. Chis Coons, D-Del.:

Im committed to never voting to change the legislative filibuster.

The one most important rule that requires compromise requires working across the aisle.

From Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.:

The legislative filibuster should stay there and I will personally resist efforts to get rid of it.

From Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.:

I dont think that we ought to be coming in willy-nilly and changing the rules.

From Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.:

If you dont have 60 votes yet, it just means you havent done enough advocacy and you need to work a lot harder.

Isnt it interesting how politicians forego their support of important things when they get in the way?

James H. Smokey Shott, a resident of Bluefield, Va., is a Daily Telegraph columnist. Contact him at shottcommentary@gmail.com

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Federal control of elections, and getting the filibuster out of the way - Bluefield Daily Telegraph