Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️
As I run by armed National Guard troops gathered at my metro station, look across the river at the potentially soon-to-be-hijacked public golf course on Hains Point, pass the now-lopsided White House, I think about how easily these things could have been avoided.
Democrats, remarkably, had the votes to make Washington D.C. a state for two years. In a move completely alien to the Republican Party and its much stronger commitment to wielding power, Democrats — specifically, ex-Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) — forwent an opportunity to balance out Republicans’ built-in Senate advantage. They chose the filibuster over the calculated play to improve their party’s odds of holding the Senate and the principled move to protect D.C.’s 700,000+ residents from a Republican president turning their home into his shrine and playground.
It’s not the only opportunity missed by Democrats then that seems even more baffling in hindsight than it did at the time.
They could have married political opportunism with an earnest desire to protect people again if they’d been willing to reform or abolish the filibuster to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the For the People Act, nominally the most important pieces of their agenda (again, Manchin and Sinema remain the primary villains in this story, who have since been driven out of Congress).
The first bill would have restored the Voting Rights Act to its former glory, including by resurrecting Section 5, the part of the law that requires regions with a history of racially discriminatory voting to get any election law changes “precleared” before they go into effect. The Supreme Court made this part of the law dead letter in Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, when it required a Congress paralyzed by hyperpartisanship and the Senate filibuster to pass a new formula to determine which jurisdictions must go through preclearance. Democrats in Congress have not been able to do so, and Republicans have no interest in making it harder to restrict Black votes.
The For the People Act would have instituted nationwide redistricting reform, requiring states to use independent commissions to redistrict. Republicans took advantage of its absence after President Trump took office, trying to manipulate enough districts that they can keep their House majority before anyone casts a vote. Democrats were forced to respond, giving voters pitifully little control over who represents them in Congress.
Now, in the interest of fairness to Manchin and Sinema, it must be stated that these laws, like all else that pass under a Democratic administration, would have been at risk from the Supreme Court. The right-wing partisans on the bench may have found some pretext to invalidate them.
To avoid that and reap both the political and principled benefits, congressional Democrats in the next trifecta will have to look nothing like the party that unilaterally disarmed in 2021. Far from being precious about the filibuster, they’ll have to expand the Supreme Court in order to govern as freely as Republican administrations do. At present, it’s not even an idea most elected Democrats will entertain.
— Kate Riga
Trump Claims He’s Ignorant to Nat’l Emergency Talk
President Trump’s conspiracy theorist friends have been reportedly coordinating with the Trump administration to draft a potential executive order the president could release to declare some sort of national emergency ahead of the midterms so they can attempt a bunch of election administration changes that will disenfranchise voters.
But if you ask Trump, he doesn’t know anything about it.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that lawyer and Trump ally Peter Ticktin, who worked on failed efforts to sue Democrats over the 2016 Russia investigation, has been working on a 17-page draft executive order that elevates debunked conspiracy theories about China supposedly interfering in the 2020 election. TPM obtained a copy of the order on Friday, which you can read here.
He reportedly hopes to use those debunked claims as a springboard for Trump to declare a national emergency, which Ticktin and other Trump allies believe will give Trump new authority to change election administration rules ahead of the midterms, including banning mail-in ballots and electronic voting machines.
Both the Post and ABC News’ report on the Trump pal plan say that Trump has looked at some versions of the draft document. Speaking to reporters Friday, Trump, who has been issuing vague threats about his interest in making Republicans do something to “nationalize” voting, denied knowing anything about it.
“Who told you that?” Trump asked when he was asked about the possibility of declaring a national emergency ahead of the midterms. “No … I’ve never heard about it.”
— Nicole LaFond
Taking a Cue from Trump Admin, Florida House Passes Voter Suppression Bill
On Wednesday, the Florida House passed an election bill requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. A companion bill is being considered in the state Senate as well. The legislation, which experts tell TPM will disenfranchise eligible voters, is similar to a federal bill known as the SAVE America Act that President Trump has been pressuring Congress to pass, but that is currently stalled in the Senate.
The state lawmaker pushing for the bill’s passage has cited Trump’s fixation on the myth of non-citizen voting and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election in promoting the legislation.
“Just as the SAVE America Act is common sense, this election integrity bill is common sense,” Republican state Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, the sponsor of the bill, told the Florida Phoenix. “Floridians want election integrity. They want to ensure that only U.S. citizens vote. They want to ensure that only proper forms of voter ID is allowed. They want to fight back against foreign influence in our elections.”
Similar to the SAVE America Act, Florida’s bill, known as HB991, serves as another platform for Republicans to perpetuate the myth that non-citizens are voting en masse for Democrats in federal elections, which is not happening and is already illegal. Florida’s bill and related bills in other states also help President Trump take action on his agenda at the state level, even though federal efforts appear to be failing, for now.
So far, Arizona, New Hampshire, Louisiana, Ohio, Wyoming, and Indiana, have all passed similar documentary proof of citizenship bills.
“I think an effort that’s being made (is) to kind of push this at the state level where they can’t pass it at the federal level,” Danielle Lang, Campaign Legal Center’s Senior Director of Voting Rights told TPM.
— Khaya Himmelman
Deadlock on DHS Negotiations
You’d be forgiven for forgetting we’re more than two weeks into a DHS-specific government shutdown, as Democrats withhold their votes to fund the agency in lieu of meaningful Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reforms.
Congressional Democrats and the White House have been exchanging largely private proposals for a few weeks now, but the two sides have not made much progress as Republicans and the Trump White House refuse to enact several key reforms Democrats are demanding to rein in ICE agents’ recent lawless actions.
Late Thursday, the White House sent Democrats a new funding proposal to restore cash flow to many of the agencies under the DHS umbrella, including TSA, FEMA and the Coast Guard.
“Democrats need to make a move to end the shutdown before more Americans are harmed by a lack of funding for critical services like disaster relief,” a White House official said, trying to spin blame for the ongoing shutdown on Democrats.
The White House also described the latest proposal as a “serious counter offer.”
As of Friday afternoon, Democratic leadership had not publicly commented on the new proposal, but earlier this week Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters Republicans haven’t made any meaningful changes to their stance.
“They’re just trying to pass paper back and forth with no real changes,” Schumer said.
— Emine Yücel
Amid all the iran crap, let’s not forget that the Republicans beclowned themselves deposing the Clintons and credible sources have accused Trump of raping children.
FIRST!
Trump appears to think they can decapitate the regime, and hope the iranian people stick their neck out the rest of the way…
I think the best way to make sure they don’t stick their neck out is to have Israel a big part of the face of the operation.
How long until Donnie backs a new Iranian leader who will surrende tanker loads of oil to the regime, which will sell them on the open market and deposit the proceeds into a Qatari bank account under Dear Leader’s control.
For US and Iranian, development, of course.
Maybe reinstall the Shah? I mean, was no problem last time…
With Dear Leader, in the short run, it’s usually a safe bet that his ‘successful’ outcome will appear to be most beneficial to himself, most unsatisfactory to the country suffering from his action and most destructive to relatively detached bystanders.
I’ll make book that the people who most immediately suffer from this war will not be the principals who started it.