The House Democrats will soon pass a bill called the For the People Act of 2019. You could call it a modern day Voting Rights Act. It would create new rules for federal elections, including same-day registration and a mandated early-voting period. It would “strip the power to set congressional boundaries from state legislatures, 30 of which are controlled by Republicans, and hand it over to new independent commissions.” It would gut Voter ID laws aimed at suppressing the vote by allowing people to give a sworn statement as to their identity.
Generally speaking, the Republicans oppose all of these measures because they would make it easier to vote or take away the disproportionate advantage they get in being able to draw districts. However, the one provision that really seems to irk Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is the proposal to make Election Day a national holiday. McConnell took to the Senate floor to call this proposal “a power grab” by the Democrats, and he sniffed dismissively, “Just what America needs: another paid holiday.”
I don’t know any people who dislike paid federal holidays. It doesn’t seem like a vote-getter to oppose giving people a day off work. But if we have too many holidays, maybe we should take one away and replace it with the day people are actually supposed to be doing their civic duty by participating in our representative democracy. I can’t see that proposal being unpopular.
Needless to say, the Republicans aren’t going to take the Democrats’ House bill up in the Senate. McConnell’s home state of Kentucky is currently disenfranchising black voters at the highest rate in the country, and that’s just how he likes it. He has no interest in making it easier for people to vote. He doesn’t want to eliminate work/school conflicts for people. He doesn’t want people to be able to register to vote at the voting booth. He doesn’t want people to be able to vote early or to have more options about where and how to vote. He doesn’t want people without photo ID to be able to swear under penalty of perjury that they are who they say they are. He doesn’t want to give up his party’s gerrymandering advantage.
Since he wants none of these things, he won’t allow any of these things.
It’s just strange that he chose to pick on the holiday provision. That’s the one thing I’d think he’d want to avoid discussing, since it is doubtlessly the most popular proposal in the whole bill.
Because of the Bush era ethos,
“Hit them where they are strongest”.
.
Gravedigger McConnell is wonderfully adept at strangling democracy and gaming the senate’s arcane rules of paralysis and obstruction, but he’s not actually a great politician….at least as the term is generally understood.
And if we are needing to ration federal holidays for some ridiculous (Repub) reason, I’m sure the ghosts of two great presidents, Lincoln and Washington, would happily surrender their national holiday for one that advanced the interests of our nation and democracy…
Mitch McConnell is very much disliked by his voters. The good news for him is that he no longer is the least popular Senator among their own state’s voters.
The thing is, he doesn’t really care- other than he wants to avoid drawing a tea party challenger, which is why he has tried to keep his head down during the whole shutdown fiasco.
I actually think that McConnell isn’t particularity adapt or clever at anything, other than being more willing than any previous Senator ever to crap all over the norms of our democracy to advance his agenda of replacing our government with a partisan kleptocracy.
You write:
Yeah, but…
It’s also the most dangerous proposal for controllers like McConnell.
I often wonder how many of the 30%-40+% of U.S. non-voters don’t vote because they simply cannot afford to take a day off…or even a morning or afternoon or evening off…because of their borderline poverty/payday lender/Walmart/Dollar Store dependence. They’re the ones who will most reliably vote against white supremacist/corporate enablers like McConnell because…well, because they know what’s really up, most of them. Black, latino. poor white…whatever…they know the enemy, most of them. It’s the one that keeps them down and out by any means necessary…gerrymandering, drug-infesting, education non-funding, police state-supporting, servile corporate servants like McConnell.
What if say only 20% of those people…it would probably be more, actually…saw a way to vote without taking the chance of getting fired from their jobs? Or at the very least, pay docked.
The McConnell types would take a licking, that’s what!!!
So…???
That’s why he chose to pick on the holiday provision.
McConnell’s no dummy.
He’s just nasty.
Later…
AG
I don’t know. Poor whites who can’t afford to take time off to vote are the white working class who vote 80% for Trump. If it were easier for them to vote, I doubt we would see much advantage for Democrats in many places. Perhaps in cities it would help, but in rural areas it might well be worse.
It might tip the Senate and leave many House districts hopelessly out of reach. It might make gerrymandering more powerful than ever. I think McConnell just hates anything that smacks of Democracy.
I don’t know that this proposal would really hurt them that much.
“Poor whites who can’t afford to take time off to vote are the white working class who vote 80% for Trump.”
If they can’t afford to take time off to vote, how do you know who they would vote for if they could?
Here’s a study that finds that “poor whites actually tend to vote for Democrats – who do better represent their interests – around 75 percent of the time.”
This is also very much worth reading.
. . . commemorating the beginning of racist, imperialist, at times genocidal conquest?
I mean, even if you bought Yertle’s bullshit that the number of fed holidays must remain forever frozen where it is . . .
. . . still, the one crying out to be sacrificed for the fed Election Day holiday could not be more obvious (Washington/Lincoln/MLK should all be able to rest very easy in this regard!).
If we add Election Day, take away Columbus Day (aka Native American Genocide Day) or Veterans Day (since we already have Memorial Day for basically the same thing).
. . . though I think CD the more obvious choice, given that it’s not merely kinda redundant (i.e., Veterans’ Day vis a vis Memorial Day), but also downright offensive to many.
Memorial Day is for the dead; Veterans Day is for the living, also commemorates the end of World War I more specifically.
I like the sentiment of creating an Election Day Holiday but how many people will it actually liberate from work that day, paid or unpaid?
I think it will only benefit Federal workers, banking, USPS, some states that may mirror Federal holidays, and some schools may close (as if kids could vote), but that’s it. Who am I overlooking?
Currently there are 10 Federal holidays. I’ve been working in private industry all my adult life and have only enjoyed a holiday on six of those ten Federal holidays. Often I’m only aware a Federal holiday has occured when my mail doesn’t get picked or delivered.
Adding a new Federal holiday is going to be a non-event for most of the workforce. I hope Democrats are willing to negotiate this away.
I understand what you are saying, but, to me, this attitude needs to be corrected. It’s not even incrementalism. It’s “there’s no way we can have nice things, so let’s not even bother”.
Also, it’s not even “negotiation”! Why would you give up the most likely part of the Democratic proposal to pass as a sacrifice for something that Republicans will NEVER agree to?
Don’t do McConnell’s dirty work for him!
Wow, Dems are suddenly talking a lot of talk I just assumed I’d never hear from them!
Trumpism seems to have emboldened the left to stand for what I’d given up hope on when they were too busy “triangulating the center” and kissing Tim Russert’s ass.
Thank you sir, may I have another?!?
I hope you’re right but I well remember how, during the Obama administration, the Republicans took countless votes to end Obamacare with the certain knowledge that since they had no power those votes were nothing but symbolic. Let’s see what the Democrats do if they actually get back to the position where they have some power.