Reshuffling the Legislative Agenda
The “For the People Act of 2021” (otherwise known as “H.R. 1” and “S.1”) was the very first piece of legislation proposed by the Democrats in the current session of the Congress. It was introduced in response to the 253 Republican legislative proposals made in 43 states designed to suppress voting. The voter suppression tactics incorporated in those Republican bills are described in “Confronting the Pillars of Republican Politics. The “For the People Act’s place at the top of the Democrats’ legislative agenda was intended to underscore the urgency of preventing further extensions of the voter suppression tactics that have been practiced in this country over the past 150 years. Yet, three months have now passed since its introduction and Democrats have seemingly set aside this legislation deem vital to the survival of both their party and democracy in this country and turned their attention to other legislative issues. This is somewhat surprising especially since the number of such voter suppression bills submitted in state legislatures throughout the nation has now grown from 253 to 361.
The obvious explanation is that Democrats are not likely to receive any Republican support for voter protection legislation for which the budget reconciliation process is not available (see, “Biden’s Legislative Strategies”). As a result, their only hope for enacting legislation protecting voting rights is to modify the Senate’s filibuster rule and there are at least two Democratic senators (Manchin and Sinema) who have voiced their opposition to amending that rule.
In the article referred to above, I suggested that one option in such cases is for the Democrats to circumvent Congressional Republicans by first seeking the support of both voters in general and Republican governors. Even though most Americans, including a majority of registered Republicans, are opposed to the restrictions on voting now being proposed by Republican state lawmakers, that strategy does not seem promising in this case. Time and again Republican legislators have favored the interests of their donor base over the interests of those voters who help them to win elections. Thus, it’s not surprising that they would pursue actions which facilitate their own re-elections even if those actions are not favored by their voter base. It is this realization that seems to have caused Democrats to defer their efforts to pass their voting rights bill and pursue first their $2 trillion infrastructure bill which can be passed using the budget reconciliation process.
As expected, Mitch McConnell has already announced that the Biden administration’s infrastructure bill will also not receive a single Republican vote in the Senate. It’s truly amazing that a man who has spent so many years as a member of Congress has so little interest in actually legislating. While total opposition is an instinctive reaction by McConnell & Co., in this situation it could prove to be an unwise tactical move. That’s because the Democrats are likely to come up with an infrastructure bill that they can unite behind and pass via the budget reconciliation process with the help of the Vice President casting the tie-breaking vote. Thus, announcing a scorched earth attitude at the outset is only going to help Chuck Schumer convince Senators Manchin and Sinema that their notion of trying to maintain bipartisanship in the Senate by retaining the filibuster rule is already a lost cause.
At the same time, Democrats have commenced a campaign aimed at convincing corporations based in states controlled by Republicans to speak out against the pending voter suppression efforts. So far they have succeeded in encouraging Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines and Microsoft to express their disapproval of the voter suppression law recently enacted in Georgia. Rather than ignore this corporate opposition and allow the story to die, Georgia’s governor has asserted that his state’s new law actually facilitates voting (which it does in a few minor respects) and has attacked the corporations opposing it as being ungrateful for the various tax breaks that his party has enacted for them. This reaction seemingly defies conventional wisdom which admonishes that “When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”
To be sure, we are now living in an era of Trump when mistakes are never admitted and falsehoods are continuously repeated. This Republican behavior is not as crazy as it may appear. Our country is deeply divided along political lines with each side listening only to its own information sources. Republicans can count on their supporters to get their information from Fox News and right-wing social media and to avoid tuning in to CNN, MSNBC and even PBS as if they were spreading the devil’s gospel. This enables them to not only get away with disseminating falsehoods, but in the process to also aggrandize themselves in the eyes of their supporters
The controversy over the Georgia statute escalated last week when Major League Baseball decided to move this year’s All-Star baseball game out of Atlanta in protest of the actions taken by the state’s government. This was countered by a public relations campaign claiming that Major League Baseball had acted in response to a smear campaign conducted by by Stacey Abrams and “socialists.” Contrary to these assertions, Stacey Abrams actually opposed moving the All-Star game because of its detrimental economic impact on the state. Atlanta businesses earned $49 million when the All-Star game was last played there in 2000, and Cleveland businesses earned $65 million in 2019 when the All-Star game was played in that city. In reality, Major League Baseball took this action in response to the demands of its players, almost half of whom come from communities targeted by Georgia’s new voting law. If these players are socialists, they may be the world’s only ones earning seven and eight figure annual incomes.
There is a similar story taking place in Texas. There, the Republican-controlled legislature is already well on its way to adopting legislation similar to that enacted in Georgia. This time the Democrats moved into action before the legislation was actually passed and have been successful in getting American Airlines and Southwest Airlines as well as Dell Technologies (all major employers in the state) to speak out against the proposed legislation. Again, the Republicans have chosen to push back against this criticism. They apparently figure that these corporations know which party has been buttering their bread and assume that they will not take any meaningful action against their own financial interests. The willingness of Republicans to stand up against their own major donors in this fashion is further evidence of their determination not to be deterred from severely limiting voting in this country.
This past weekend the conflict escalated further with almost 200 corporations across the country now expressing opposition to Republican efforts to suppress voting. If this backlash is successful in stemming the tide of Republican voter suppression efforts, it would undoubtedly provide evidence for Senators Manchin and Sinema that there is no pressing need for federal legislation preventing state voter suppression efforts. Thus, it would seem advisable for Republicans to delay moving forward with their legislative plans as a means of delaying and possibly preventing retaliatory action by the Democrats. It would also help deflate some of the pressure they are currently receiving from their corporate donors. So far, however, the Republicans do not appear inclined to put their voter suppression efforts on hold.
While it is probably true that following the Trump playbook will help achieve a positive result with Republican voters, the message the Republicans are sending will likely be poorly received by most independent voters. Moreover, the longer voter suppression legislation stays in the news, the easier it will be to convince voters that it is the Republicans, and not the socialists, who pose the greater danger to our democracy. Perhaps more importantly, if Republicans continue with their voter suppression efforts over widespread objections from their donor base it will provide Chuck Schumer with incontrovertible evidence that only federal legislation is likely to stop them from undermining democracy in America.
In the meantime, by enacting infrastructure legislation on top of the COVID rescue legislation Democrats will undoubtedly score points with members of the middle class who have been waiting 40 years for their government to do something that will actually improve the quality of their lives. President Biden in his first Cabinet meeting made it clear that one of the principal jobs of his Cabinet members will be to sell his administration’s agenda to the American people. This effort has already begun with the erection of billboards around the country stating that as a result of the efforts of Democratic lawmakers “Help is on the Way.” Unlike President Obama, President Biden has learned that it’s not enough to do good things for Americans--you have to make sure they understand why their lives are improving.
My guess is that after the Democrats have succeeded in passing their infrastructure bill which should happen by mid-summer, they will move on to other legislative matters with substantial popular appeal in the hope that Republicans continue to demonstrate their overpowering inclination to oppose anything and everything the Democrats seek to achieve. This will inevitably precipitate Republican complaints that the Biden administration is abandoning its bipartisan agenda in favor of the extremist demands of Progressive Democrats. In this connection, the Biden administration has already anticipated such charges by redefining bipartisan legislation as legislation favored by the members of both parties even if Republican legislators don’t vote for it.
Another facet of the reshuffled Democratic legislative strategy will be to fight Republican efforts to suppress voting in the courts. In one sense such efforts are likely to be a waste of time and money as the courts don’t like to become involved in such matters and tend to give great deference to legislative judgments in the absence of clear evidence that the legislation violates voting rights protected by the 14th Amendment. Even so, continuing to shine a spotlight on the efforts of Republicans to suppress voting rights is likely to encourage Democratic voters to participate in the 2022 election. More importantly, it will also help Senator Schumer convince Senators Manchin and Sinema that if the For the People Act is not adopted voting rights all over the country will erode, all for the sake of maintaining a rule that has proven unable to engender constructive legislative activity.
In addition, Democratic public relations efforts should be targeted in each state in which Republicans have introduced voter suppression measures. This should not only the directed toward Democratic voters in an effort to excite them to go to the polls, but should also be directed at Republican voters, admonishing them that THEIR party’s proposed new legislation is designed to also make it harder for THEM to vote. This would place Republicans politicians in an uncomfortable position. They clearly don’t want to convey to their own voters that they are trying to make it harder for them to vote. At the same time, they can’t say that their new voting restrictions are simply designed to make it difficult for “those other people” to vote as that would provide a basis for the courts to find the restrictions unconstitutional.
In the final analysis, it remains imperative for Senator Schumer to convince the reluctant members of his caucus to amend the filibuster rule as soon as possible because the prohibitions in the For the People Act have to be enacted by the Congress and implemented in the states long in advance of the 2022 elections. In addition, there will be inevitable Republican legal challenges to the Act which might delay its implementation. This means that it must be carefully crafted to avoid constitutional issues that might give the courts a basis for staying its implementation. Stated another way, time is on the side of the Republicans who will use every means at their disposal both to prevent the Act from being passed and, failing that, to delay its implementation so that it will not impact the 2022 election. The latter will at least give them a chance to regain control of the House and/or the Senate in the 2022 election. It’s a desperate strategy, but that doesn’t mean it won’t work. This means that Democrats must keep applying pressure on the Republican in the hope that it will compel them to act in a way that will make it abundantly clear to the reluctant Democratic senators that the For the People Act is indeed critical to America’s remaining a viable democracy.