Today, Senators Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) reiterated their continuing opposition to changes in Senate rules, including filibuster reform. Given the razor-thin Democratic majority in the Senate, their position more or less dooms the Biden administration’s plans with respect to a wide range of issues.
It also threatens principles at the core of our democracy, including voting rights, as well as majority rule in the Senate.
In 2017, I wrote an article for Truthout titled “Elusive Victories: Voting Rights, Desegregation and the Erosion of Civil Rights.” In it, I explained how policy victories that many have taken for granted had largely eroded under our feet:
The Voting Rights Act (VRA) eventually grew widely supported across the political spectrum. Under the Bush administration, in 2006, when the Senate was controlled by Republicans whose party opposed voting rights in other forums, the chamber passed a bill to reauthorize the VRA’s provisions by a unanimous vote.
At the time, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) said, “The Voting Rights Act is vital to America’s commitment to never again permit racial prejudices in the electoral process.” Then House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) described the VRA as “an effective tool in protecting a right that is fundamental to our democracy.”
15 years ago, House Republicans were more willing to commit to voting rights than Democratic Senators are today.
Seven years later, in 2013, the Supreme Court struck down one of the VRA’s most critical provisions as unconstitutional in Shelby County v. Holder….
Predictably, over a dozen states assaulted voting rights in the wake of the Shelby decision. Although courts in several jurisdictions did intervene before the 2016 election, those new rules suppressing voters could alone account for the result of the 2016 presidential race. It was the first in 40 years conducted without the VRA’s full protections.
But even before the Shelby case, voting rights had been largely eviscerated, reduced to a shadow of the civil rights movement’s goal of securing rights to fair and equal representation. The right to merely cast a ballot in no way correlates to fair representation, which the Supreme Court has affirmatively rejected as a component of voting rights….
Narratives describing the historic victories for voting rights obscure the ultimate reality. What few gains the civil rights movement did secure, unfortunately, on the most part did not survive.
We know that Sinema & Manchin are playing the same roles played at other points by figures including Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and the parade of corporate Democrats who surround them.
Democrats in Washington play a shell game to protect Wall Street from We the People of the United States.
Today, it’s Manchin & Sinema.
But capital has many allies throughout the Democratic Party, including the millionaires who lead it.
We recognize how deeply corrupted the political process has become. It’s exactly why I’m running for public office, and why I think that my voice—and the movement we are building together—can help make a difference with your support.
Shahid