Where do we stand?

January 18, 2022

[Audio version here.]

          On the day honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., President Biden gave a speech that focused on Dr. King’s legacy of promoting voting rights.  Biden said,

In his time, through his courage, his conviction, and his commitment, Dr. King held a mirror up to America and forced us to answer the question, where do we stand?  Whose side are we on?  We’re in another moment right now where the mirror is being held up to America.

          Where do we stand?  Every Senator will be called upon this week to answer that question.  Senators will not be able to evade, obfuscate, or mislead.  They must answer whether they stand for voting rights, or against them.  For the Constitution, or against it.  For the foundational right of our nation, or against it.

          It seems unlikely that any Republicans will rise in defense of the right to vote, which will put Senators Manchin and Sinema once more in the role of coming to the aid of tens of millions of Americans or turning their backs on their fellow citizens.  At a D.C. Peace March on Monday, Dr. King’s 13-year-old granddaughter, Yolanda Renee King, called on the holdout Democratic Senators by name, saying

          Senator Sinema, Senator Manchin, our future hinges on your decision, and history will remember what choice you make.

          Yolanda’s father, Martin Luther King III was more direct, saying that history would remember Senator Sinema “unkindly.” What would have Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said on the eve of a vote to break the filibuster to advance voting rights?  Here is what he said in 1963:

I think the tragedy is that we have a Congress with a Senate that has a minority of misguided senators who will use the filibuster to keep the majority of people from even voting.  They won’t let the majority senators vote.  And certainly they wouldn’t want the majority of people to vote, because they know they do not represent the majority of the American people.  In fact, they represent, in their own states, a very small minority.

          Nearly sixty years have passed since Dr. King criticized the filibuster as a tool of voter suppression.  Six decades later, we are being asked, “Where do we stand?” Let us hope that Senators Manchin and Sinema will experience an epiphany and vote to break the filibuster so that the nation can finally—after sixty years—move past a procedure that is a relic of the Jim Crow era of suppression of Black Americans.

          Senator Schumer and his leadership team continue to suggest that there is a path forward for modest changes in the filibuster.  I confess that I do not understand what procedural maneuvers remain in Schumer’s quiver, and his surrogates have been opaque in their descriptions.  Senator Tim Kaine said on Sunday that there were “other paths” available if Republicans would not support filibuster reform.  If other paths were available at this late date, they should be apparent to the American public.  They are not.

          It is time to call the question.  Where do we stand?  Knowing the answer to that question will allow Democrats to focus their efforts in the most productive way possible to remove the roadblocks to passing voter protection legislation.

DOJ should prosecute fraudulent GOP electors.

          One of the components of Trump’s attempted coup was a plan to convince Republican legislatures to create fake “slates of electors” who would claim to represent the “real” electors chosen in their respective state presidential elections in 2020.  Rachel Maddow has been reporting on this story for two weeks.  A summary of the story and some clips from her reporting are here: HuffPo, “Maddow Exposes Trump Groups’ Shady Scheme To Overturn Biden’s Win.”

          As explained by Maddow, this story is significant because it seems beyond doubt that the effort to defraud Congress and impede the constitutional transition of power is a criminal act.  (Read next below for an explanation.) Moreover, that criminal act seems to have been directed by someone—possibly Jeffrey Clark (in the DOJ), who wrote a memo that described using alternate slates of electors as a way of throwing the election into the House of Representatives for decision.  The fake electoral certificates employed the same language and same font—suggesting that someone (Clark?  Trump?) was directing a criminal conspiracy to overturn the election.  If the DOJ were to investigate the fake certificates, they might lead directly to the Oval Office—and an indictment of Trump.

          Philip Rotner has published an essay in The Bulwark that explains in careful detail why the creation of the fake electoral certificates should be prosecuted as violations of federal criminal law.  See Philip Rotner, The Bulwark, “It’s Long Past Time to Prosecute Phony GOP Electors.” As Rotner notes, the long delay in prosecuting those who sent false electoral ballots to Congress is inexplicable:

It’s not as if we don’t know the identity of the culprits—the signers of the fraudulent certificates are all identified on the face of the documents.  The individuals who transmitted them to the federal government signed their names to the transmittal memoranda.  It’s all right there, wrapped up in a nice, tidy package that can be cut and pasted straight into an indictment.  It’s as if the feds had perfect audio and video recordings of a heist, plus signed confessions.  So why the slow walk?

          The DOJ must prosecute those who signed the false electoral certificates to prevent a second attempt of the same strategy in 2024.

          The good news is that commentators like Rachel Maddow, Philip Rotner, Charlie Sykes, and Laurence Tribe are focusing the public’s attention on this pressing issue.  And at least one state attorney general has urged the DOJ to open criminal investigations.  See The Hill, “Michigan AG calls on DOJ to probe fake GOP elector documents,” Good.  Let’s hope that is enough to get Merrick Garland’s attention.

The terrorist attack at Congregation Beth Israel in Texas.

          On Saturday, a British citizen flew 5,000 miles, landed at DFW airport, purchased a gun “on the street” and drove to the nearest Jewish synagogue.  There, the Rabbi invited him in from the cold and offered him tea.  The recipient of that kind gesture turned out to be a terrorist who took the Rabbi and other congregants hostage for the better part of a day.  President Biden and the FBI have described the act as terrorism, and Biden described the terrorist’s actions as motivated by anti-Semitism.  The terrorist’s brother claims the hostage-taker suffered from mental health issues.  The terrorist was apparently able to obtain access to a gun in Texas, notwithstanding mental health issues, if any.

          The facts are still developing and I am summarizing a confusing record from several sources, including ABC News, Newsweek, and CNN.  It is difficult to draw firm conclusions until we are on firmer ground about the facts, but the attack on another Jewish synagogue is part of a disturbing trend involving synagogues in particular and houses of worship in general.  Is it a coincidence that the terrorist believed Texas was fertile ground for an attack?  Or that its lax gun laws would allow him to find the means to carry out his attack easily?  We may never learn the answers to those questions.  But the repeated attacks on Jewish synagogues are prompting difficult conversations about the balance between the need for security and the desire to act with kindness.  See Juliette Kayyem, The Atlantic, “A Synagogue Shouldn’t Be a Fortress.” In the meantime, it should not be possible for a terrorist (or anyone) to purchase a gun “on the street” within minutes of arriving in the U.S.

Website link for The Civics Center.

          Some readers who listened to the Today’s Edition Podcast interview with Laura Brill of The Civics Center reported that their Norton antivirus filter flashed a warning when they searched for the organization’s website.  The following link is to an https site and is the official website of the organization: The Civics Center.  The podcast interview is here: The Civics Center with Laura Brill.

Upcoming Interview with Future Now / The States Project.

          On Saturday, January 22, I will interview Melissa Walker of the Future Now Fund/States Project.  The link is here: Today’s Edition Podcast, “Future Now/States Project.” (2:00 PM EST / 11:00 AM PST).

          The States Project run by the Future Now Fund focuses on supporting candidates who will shift the balance of power in state legislatures that are critical to the success and integrity of upcoming elections.  Check out the website for details and listen to my interview with Melissa Walker live on Saturday or check out the link to the recorded version in next Monday’s newsletter.

Concluding Thoughts.

          During moments of intense political events, it is easy to over-interpret the long-term effects of any particular development.  Whatever happens with the effort to advance the voting rights bills this week, the victory (or loss) will occur in the context of a long-term trend of younger voters moving into the Democratic Party.  A reader sent a link to an article (in a conservative publication) that discusses trends in voting among 18-to-29-year-olds.  The data (mainly from Roper polling) is dramatic and encouraging.  Biden and Obama won 60% of the vote among 18-to-29-year-old voters.  If you are worried about the future, that statistic alone should boost your confidence.

          As noted yesterday, there is a huge upside for registering millions of new voters in the 18-to-20-year-old group each year.  In elections routinely decided by less than ten thousand votes, registering young voters is potentially game-changing.  The good news is that registering new voters is a matter of logistics, and the less good news is that it is hard work.  But deciding to work hard is a factor that is entirely within our control.  Organizations like Field Team 6, The Civics Center, and League of Women Voters are registering voters every day.

          When more people vote, Democrats perform better at the polls.  The most potent, important, and lasting effort you can undertake is registering a young person to vote.  With any luck, you will convert an unregistered voter into a voter for life.  So, take all of your nervous energy about 2022 and channel it into voter registration—either directly or by supporting others who are engaged in the hard work of defending democracy!

          Talk to you tomorrow!