Thom Tillis In Talks To Prevent Another Trump Coup

 

Sen. Thom Tillis was outed as being part of a bipartisan group of senators discussing changes to the 150-year-old Electoral Count Act, presumably to clarify procedures so that another Donald Trump can't lean on his vice president to throw out electoral votes.

Can't say I'd be opposed to such a reform, so good on Thom Tillis for learning at least one lesson from DJT.

But it comes out that the discussion was the bright idea by Republican senators to distract the Democrats from pressing for a voting rights law. "Here, take this little piece of anti-Trumpism, and then shut the hell up about keeping the right to vote easy, free, and fair!"

The bipartisan group of senators was convened by that champion of women's rights, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who's always eager to spoon pabulum. Her guardianship of women's rights got us Brett Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett, so we should quake with fear that she might turn her hands to voting rights.

The whole gambit appears really a means to entice Democratic senators Joe Manchin and Sinema away from doing anything foolish for voting rights -- like ending the filibuster to pass the law. Reforming the Electoral Count Act might give Manchin and Sinema some cover for otherwise letting democracy wither for lack of access to the ballot.

As a sure sign that this is all just a Republican feint to distract Manchin and Sinema, both Mitch McConnell and No. 2 Senate Republican John Thune told reporters they are open to changing the Electoral Count Act. Manchin and Sinema say they're only interested in legislation that has bipartisan support, so McConnell's dangle was a slick come-on.

As well as a slap-back at Trump.

What's Clear Today: Washington Dems Are NOT Going to Force the Voting Rights Issue

 

...momentum on Capitol Hill has palpably shifted away from the voting rights push....

--Mike DeBonis, WashPost

Sen. Joe Manchin
"Folksy is as folksy does"

Yeah, we can tell. Voting rights, schmighter lights. That's yesterday's cause. Today what's exciting the Senate is the budget agreement, a whopping big budget negotiated by moderates and progressives, particularly senators Mark Warner (Virginia) and Bernie Sanders (Vermont). 

So while the Texas Democrats are being hailed as "brave, bold, and courageous" (Chuck Schumer), as "defenders of the Constitution" (Jeff Merkley),  and as "freedom fighters" (Amy Klobuchar), they're also being parked in Back Burner Plaza. Hope they like the view for the next long month because their mission hit its media peak days ago and nothing's changed. Meanwhile, praise of their Texas courage costs nothing, while action has become impossibly pricey for Democrats prone to panic.

The prime target of the Texans' attention, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, apparently presented a stone wall, although he visited amicably with the Texans (folksy is as folksy does). But he's not budging, at least not without presidential pressure, which ain't coming, or the calling of the question on the Senate floor. Forced to vote, what's the fallout for him? And for us?

Bottomline: President Joe Biden himself -- ex-Senator Joe Biden -- favors not the suppression of the filibuster. I had not wanted to believe it, but isn't it clear by now? He's a traditionalist, sentimental about the unique and arcane traditions of the Senate, and he clearly has no stomach for squelching one of those traditions.

Barring Biden's pressure on Manchin, Chuck Schumer could announce that there'll be no August recess at all until there's a vote on limiting the filibuster, carving out a ban on the Rule of 60 when a Constitutional right also hangs in the balance. But Schumer has seemed frozen -- not a good look. Has Manchin threatened to re-register as Republican if the Democrats get too frisky?

Meanwhile, the president came to Capitol Hill for lunch with the Senate Democratic Caucus two days ago, a meeting reported as upbeat and congratulatory because it was devoted "to the massive multi-trillion-dollar climate and safety-net plan, not to breaking a voting rights stalemate months in the making."

Voting rights? All but abandoned, on their way to being forgotten.

If the citizens whom the Senate thinks will benefit most from that big budget cannot get access to a ballot, cannot participate in the functioning of democracy, then all the spending in the world won't save us from the return of Trump.

Pity, Joe Mancin

 

Joe Manchin doesn't care that progressives hate him. He recently taunted "liberals" mad at him for being out of step on many issues including the elimination  of the filibuster:

“What are they going to do, they going to go into West Virginia and campaign against me? Please, that would help me more than anything.”

He says he believes in the Cookie Fairy and a "bipartisan Senate." He doesn't believe that. He is not dumb enough to believe that 10 Republicans will voluntarily vote someday for something Biden wants, if everyone will just compromise. He doesn't believe that. It's a convenient excuse for being really terrified of your constituents. Do we need to be reminded? West Virginia voted for Trump last fall by 40 points. Manchin holds his seat because he's so "regional."

Found this summation of Manchin by Jonathan Martin in the NewYork Times very helpful:

A former high school quarterback who friends say still relishes being at the center of the action, Mr. Manchin is something of a unicorn in today’s Congress. As a pro-coal and anti-abortion Democrat, he reflects a less-homogenized era when regionalism was as significant as partisanship and senators were more individual actors than predictable votes for their caucus.

Twice elected governor before claiming [Robert] Byrd’s [Senate] seat, he’s the only lawmaker standing in the way of an all-Republican congressional delegation in West Virginia .... he is an unlikely majority-maker of the Democratic Senate.

"Still relishes being at the center of the action." Got it! Wants to be loved and thought of as civic savior by his voters. Who happen to hate Biden and hate most Democrats. I almost feel sympathy for Manchin's balancing act. But not his character.

So this news reached us last week: Joe Manchin's wife Gayle has been named by President Biden to head the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC). 

(I say "head" when the title is actually Federal Co-Chair, because the structure of the ARC also includes a figurehead co-chair, mandated to be the governor of one of the constituent states. Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia is currently Federal Co-Chair. But the civilian Co-Chair is the real showrunner. Has always been that way.)

What are Gayle Manchin's qualifications? The White House on Friday cited her career as an educator and her service as the first lady of West Virginia, when Manchin was the state’s governor from 2005 to 2010. In other words, she's the "missus" of somebody Biden needs to make happy. First thing I thought: The ARC appointment for Manchin's wife is reward for Manchin's vote for the American Rescue Plan (ARP).

What is the ARC? It's an economic development partnership agency established in 1965 through which the federal government works with 13 states and 420 counties across the Appalachian region to theoretically help invest in communities and spur job creation. The criticism of the ARC by actual Appalachian activists tended to highlight the ARC's aggressive four-laning of highways, to get the coal, gas, timber, you name it -- out of state faster.

I'm hoping that Biden can get more out of this clear case of social bribery than just the vote for the ARP. The vote on ending the filibuster as we know it? The vote on an infrastructure bill that will put a tax on every coal baron in the state of West Virginia? The vote on voter rights?

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.

The 'Trump Effect' in West Virginia

The Washington Examiner posted this just before 5 p.m. yesterday:

Republican Don Blankenship is filing to run for Senate in West Virginia, taking on the state's sore loser law that prohibits candidates who lost in the primary from running in the general election.

The Blankenship campaign acknowledged that the West Virginia secretary of state's office was unlikely to certify his candidacy, but described his plan to file papers as a first step toward getting around state law and earning the right to challenge Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in the midterm elections as a third party candidate.

Blankenship, a felon coal mine operator who came in third (last) on May 8th in the Republican primary for US Senate, makes it a habit to stick his thumb in the establishment's eye. We posted here on the eve of the May 8th primary:

Holy crap! Democratic incumbent Joe Manchin has been considered the most endangered Democrat in the US Senate, but the Republican voters in their primary tomorrow may grant him a reprieve ... if they choose felon coal baron Don Blankenship to run against him. National Republicans are so worried about that outcome that they induced Corporal Bonespurs to tweet this morning a warning to WVa voters not to vote for Blankenship. "Remember Alabama," DJT tweeted.

Being dissed by the Twitterman is ironic, isn't it? Because Blankenship fancies himself another Trump. In fact, "trumpier than Trump!" -- similar appetites, personality, and carelessness with the truth.

If Blankenship is able to throw a clod into that West Virginia churn, Manchin's prospects will get much brighter. Manchin is perhaps our least favorite Democrat in the US Senate, but we'll take him over any Republican on most days.

Maverick and Unpredictable Republican Candidates Embroil Senate Races

The US Chamber of Commerce has entered the fight in the Mississippi special election in November: Will the appointed woman with no pizzazz keep the seat, or will the more charismatic but extremely conservative upstart push her aside?



We profiled Cindy Hyde-Smith's Republican upstart opponent, Chris McDaniel, back on March 1, when he was thought to be a likely Trumpian primary opponent to Sen. Roger Wicker this year, but then Cochran resigned and Cindy Hyde-Smith got appointed, and well, opportunity smells.

Anyway, the US Chamber of Commerce seems worried enough about the rise of McDaniel, and the loss of the seat to Democrat Mike Espy, that they're spending millions on that 30-second TV ad.

In West Virginia, something similar is happening, with the scary upstart being a recent felon who presided over a coal company that lied about the deaths of 29 coal miners, one Don Blankenship, who's notorious in West Virginia without necessarily being electable. So the Republican funding base is rallying against Blankenship, while state polls show Rep. Evan Jenkins in the lead and with Twitterman on stage in the state appearing to endorse both Jenkins and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, while very publicly dissing Blankenship. Everyone thinks Blankenship would be a disaster running against Democrat Manchin, who might otherwise be uniquely vulnerable this year.