End the Filibuster To Restore Voting Rights

 

Is Sen. Joe Manchin corrupt?

It makes me seriously sick to my stomach to see all the Republican-dominated state legislatures, like Georgia's, like Pennsylvania's, like Arizona's, moving rapidly to suppress voting before the 2022 mid-terms. They're doing their nasty deeds in response to Twitterman's relentless claims that absentee-by-mail voting is inherently fraudulent and that his reelection was stolen by double-voting Black people and tons of mysterious ballots dumped at the backdoors of polling places. Republicans are claiming they need to pass new laws to "restore faith" in the electoral system. That's their cover story, and it's part and parcel of the Big Lie.

Democrats in the US House have introduced H.R.1 that would establish national standards for voter access. It mandates online registration, voting by mail, at least 15 days of early voting, and the restoration of voting rights for released felons. H.R.1 would also establish universal congressional redistricting by independent commissions and require the disclosure of “dark money” contributions to political groups.

H.R.1 can pass the House, but there's no hope of its passing the Senate unless and until the filibuster is ended. If voter suppression is a function of the Big Lie, then the filibuster is just another function of political corruption, and any Democrat defending it needs to be flogged by public opinion until he (Joe Manchin) or she (Kyrsten Sinema) come to some reckoning with civic responsibility (let alone civil rights and ballot access).

They either end the filibuster or we'll be in the worst period of our history as Trumpists refine their techniques to keep themselves in power forever.