The New American Journal Editorial Board –

WASHINGTON, D.C. – If The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, CBS and other news outlets won’t take a strong stand on this, we will. The time is now for national action to pass a federal voting rights law. If that means eliminating the filibuster in the United States Senate, so be it. The future of honest voting by all citizens in this country is critical to any future for American democracy.

Former Congressman John Lewis from Atlanta, Georgia, who died last summer, called the filibuster – rules allowing a single senator or a minority of senators to hold up a vote on legislation by the majority — “a relic of the Jim Crow South.”

“If all this takes eliminating the filibuster, another Jim Crow relic, in order to secure the God-given rights of every American, then that’s what we should do,” former President Barack Obama said in an interview with The New York Times in June.

“To save our country’s future, Democrats must abolish this arcane Senate rule,” former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said in an editorial opinion piece in the Times in August of 2019, reacting to Republican obstruction on President Obama’s judicial nominations.

“The Senate today, after years of abusing an arcane procedural rule known as the filibuster, has become an unworkable legislative graveyard. Not part of the framers’ original vision, the modern filibuster was created in 1917. The recent use of the filibuster — an attempt by a minority of lawmakers to delay or block a vote on a bill or confirmation — has exploited this rule, forcing virtually all Senate business to require 60 of the 100 senators’ votes to proceed. This means a simple majority is not enough to advance even the most bipartisan legislation,” Reid said at the time.

He was able to get rid of the filibuster rules for presidential nominations, but kept it in place for other Senate business. It was also eliminated for key budget bills.

“Republicans over the past decade — knowing their policies are unpopular and that obstruction benefits them politically — perfected and increased the gratuitous use of the filibuster. Even routine Senate business is now subject to the filibuster and Republicans’ seeming obsession with gridlock and obstruction,” Reid argued. “The Senate is now a place where the most pressing issues facing our country are disregarded, along with the will of the American people overwhelmingly calling for action. The future of our country is sacrificed at the altar of the filibuster.”

The Republicans are now blocking a proposed law called the For the People Act that would establish a national legal framework to protect voting rights over the entire country. Voting rights are under assault in many states, mainly so-called red states where a majority of the people voted for Donald Trump for president in 2020, and where tea party-Trump supporting Republicans control all branches of state government, or at least hold a majority in the state legislature.

Republicans know they cannot win statewide, national elections in many urban areas of the country due to heavy voting majorities by poor people, people with disabilities and people of color, mainly African Americans and Latino voters. So they are rigging the system with voter suppression laws and partisan gerrymandering of districts to preserve conservative rural districts where they know they can win.

According to an analysis of the legislation by the The Brennan Center for Justice, House Resolution 1 passed the House of Representatives on March 3, 2021. The Senate version of the bill, which has been designated S. 1 and tracks closely to the House’s language, was introduced on March 17, 2021.

A previous version of the bill passed the House in the 116th Congress on March 8, 2019, by a vote of 234 to 193. The previous Senate version, S. 949, was cosponsored by all 45 Senate Democrats and both Independents, but it was blocked by Senate Republicans using the filibuster rule that requires a 60 vote super majority to end debate and vote on proposed laws.

Across 10 titles in the bill, Brennan says, “this historic legislation would make it easier to vote in federal elections, end congressional gerrymandering, overhaul federal campaign finance laws, increase safeguards against foreign interference, strengthen government ethics rules, and more.”

Most of these reforms would be implemented for the November 2022 general election, with the exception of some redistricting and public financing changes that would go into effect later.

The law would affirm the power of Congress to protect the right to vote, regulate federal elections, and defend the democratic process. It notes that the Constitution gives Congress broad authority to regulate congressional elections, a power that the Supreme Court has recently affirmed, as well as the power to guarantee a republican form of government in the states and the power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment which protects the right to vote. It also emphasizes that both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments give Congress the power to eliminate racial discrimination in voting and the democratic process, which persists in areas like voting restrictions, redistricting, access to the polls and felony disenfranchisement.

The section on Election Access aims to modernize voter registration and take other steps to improve voting access in federal elections.

The section on Voter Registration Modernization would modernize voter registration processes for federal elections. The U.S. has one of the lowest voter turnout rates among developed nations, with nearly one in four eligible voters not registered. The reforms in this subtitle seek to boost voter registration rates by eliminating unnecessary barriers and bring voter registration systems into the 21st century.

The law seeks to get rid of voter intimidation tactics and would establish a uniform national standard and boost related safeguards. It protects and promotes early voting and voting by mail.

One of the more controversial provisions would allow voters in the District of Columbia to vote to become a state, and support of federal voting rights for Americans living in the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

In one of the more important sections, the law would establish new requirements for congressional redistricting, including uniform rules for drawing districts, a ban on partisan gerrymandering, stronger protections for minority communities, and a requirement that states use independent commissions to draw maps. It would also add new safeguards against improper purges of the voting rolls.

It directs the president to develop a national strategy and implementation plan to protect democratic institutions from threats — such as hacking, cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns — from other countries and non-governmental actors (foreign and domestic). It would also establish a national commission within the legislative branch tasked with holding hearings, gathering evidence, and reporting its findings and recommendations to Congress on ways to increase protections for American democratic institutions.

The law would require campaigns and other political committees to report contacts with foreign governments that involve offers of unlawful campaign contributions or other substantial collaboration to influence U.S. elections.

It would close loopholes that have permitted dark money groups to keep the donors who fund their campaign spending secret. Its provisions are similar to legislation passed by a number of states over the last decade, often with strong bipartisan support. Among other things, this part would require any corporation, union, nonprofit, or similar organization spending more than $10,000 per election cycle to disclose all donors who gave at least $10,000 during that cycle, unless the donor restricted the use of funds, the funds were received in the ordinary course of the organization’s business, or disclosure would subject the donor to serious threats of harassment or reprisal, as well as all campaign-related disbursements above $1000, the name of the candidate supported or opposed by the disbursement, and a certification that the spending was not coordinated with any candidate. It would require reporting on every person who has a substantial ownership or control interest in the organization.

It includes the Honest Ads Act, which would increase transparency requirements for online political ads and take other steps to combat foreign interference. Most online political ads are not covered under current campaign finance laws, allowing anonymous groups to purchase targeted digital ads without disclosing who paid for them. In the 2016 election, Kremlin-backed groups took advantage of these loopholes to purchase thousands of ads, which reached millions of Americans. This subtitle would update federal transparency rules to reach the sorts of ads the Russian government and others seeking to interfere in U.S. elections commonly deploy.

It would repeal a budget rider prohibiting the Internal Revenue Service from requiring greater transparency from tax-exempt organizations. Many organizations registered under section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code engage in substantial campaign activities but are not required to disclose their donors. Repeal of the rider would allow the IRS to require them to disclose the donors who fund their political activities as a condition of their tax-exempt status.

It would also repeal a budget rider prohibiting the president from requiring entities applying for federal contracts to disclose their political spending in federal elections. Although federal contractors are prohibited from making contributions because of the heightened risk of corruption, companies can often avoid this restriction by giving through corporate affiliates, officers or shareholders. Repeal of the budget rider would allow the president to issue an executive order requiring all contractor-affiliated contributions to be disclosed, including contributions to dark money groups that keep their donors secret.

The law addresses harmful effects of Citizens United and related court decisions. It notes that Citizens United overturned more than a century of precedent allowing reasonable campaign spending limits, including restrictions on corporate and union spending. Thanks to the Court’s decisions, wealthy special interests have spent billions of dollars to influence U.S. elections, drowning out the voices and preferences of ordinary Americans. This subtitle would find that the Constitution should be amended to allow Congress and the states to set reasonable campaign spending limits that distinguish between natural persons and artificial entities like corporations.

It would establish a system of voluntary small donor public financing for elections to the House of Representatives, along with a funding mechanism — the “Freedom From Influence Fund” — that would fund public financing without using any taxpayer money.

It aims to revamp the existing presidential public financing program. The system, which was first introduced in 1976, matches small donations to primary candidates at a 1-1 ratio and provides a block grant to party nominees for the general election. Most major Democratic and Republican candidates, including every candidate who won their party’s nomination, used the system until 2008.

In 1984, President Reagan won reelection under the system without holding any fundraisers. More recently, however, the amount of funds provided under the system and its strict limits on how much participating candidates can spend have not kept pace with the mounting cost of campaigns. Since 2012, neither major party nominee has used the system. This subtitle would update the presidential public financing system to make it once again viable. Its provisions, like those in the previous subtitle, would be funded exclusively by the new Freedom From Influence Fund.

It would help small donors and provide more campaign finance oversight.

It would tighten restrictions on coordination between candidates and outside groups, such as super PACs. Federal law treats spending that is coordinated with a candidate as a direct contribution to that candidate and thus subject to limits. Under Citizens United, supposedly “independent” groups like super PACs that do not make such contributions cannot be subject to any limits, on the theory that donations to them are not especially valuable to candidates, and so unlikely to be traded for government favors.

But the independence of these groups is often fictitious. Many actually maintain strong ties to candidates and work closely with their campaigns. This subtitle aims to address the disconnect between Citizens United’s core premise and the reality of how super PACs and other outside groups actually operate.

It would require disposal of unused campaign funds. Former candidates are currently permitted to hold onto unused campaign funds indefinitely, including after they become registered lobbyists. This section would require candidates to dispose of unused campaign funds no later than six years after the last election in which the candidate ran, or earlier, if the candidate becomes a registered lobbyist. After paying off debts, candidates could dispose of funds by returning money to contributors or donating them to a charitable organization or political party committee.

It would require new ethical standards for Supreme Court justices and presidential appointees, bolster enforcement of rules governing foreign agents operating in the United States, and strengthen lobbying disclosure rules.

It would require presidential appointees to recuse themselves from government matters to which the president or their spouse is a party. Executive branch officials (except for the president and vice president) are generally required to recuse from matters in which they have a personal financial interest distinct from that of the general public, but the requirement does not extend to matters involving the official who appointed and can remove them. President Trump’s continued ownership and control of businesses that have contracts with the government and White House interference in the Mueller investigation are among the recent episodes that have raised the prospect of presidents using their authority to exert pressure on their appointees for personal gain.

It would address conflicts of interest in the executive branch. It is common in Washington, D.C. for high-level officials to move back and forth between government and the private sector (the so-called “revolving door”). Ethics rules provide some constraint on official self-dealing, but often do not prevent senior government officials from overseeing matters likely to be of interest to past or future employers, leaving government to lobby their former colleagues (following a brief one-year cooling-off period), or even selling goods and services to the government (as some of President’s Trump’s businesses routinely do). This subtitle aims to close these gaps by tightening relevant ethics standards in several respects.

It would require the president and vice president to divest from any personal financial holdings that could pose a conflict of interest with their official duties. The president and vice president are exempt from many federal ethics rules, including the prohibition on financial conflicts of interest.

To avoid even an appearance of impropriety, past presidents going back to the 1960s limited their personal holdings to assets like cash and treasury bonds, or used a blind trust — a financial arrangement in which assets are kept hidden from beneficiaries and administered by an independent trustee.

Trump broke with this tradition when he became president, choosing to maintain effective ownership and control of his many businesses. According to ethics experts, this has created at least an appearance of numerous conflicts of interest, making it hard to discern where the public’s interests end and the president’s self-interest begins. This subtitle aims to address this concern and restore the prior longstanding practice.

It would strengthen conflict of interest rules for members of Congress too.

Like the president, members of Congress are exempt from many federal ethics laws, including the prohibition on financial conflicts of interest. Members of the House (but not the Senate) are also allowed to serve on for-profit corporate boards. To address such gaps, this section would amend House rules to prohibit House members from serving on the boards of for-profit companies, and bar members of the House and Senate and their staff from working to advance legislation with the primary purpose of furthering their personal financial interests or those of their immediate family.

It would also establish a variety of new federal grants to fund election security upgrades.

Finally, it would require sitting presidents, vice presidents, and major-party candidates for those offices to disclose their tax returns.

It is now time to act. Political activists need to engage this summer in D.C. and around the country to make this happen. It won’t happen with “the people” and “the press” on the sidelines.

Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the one moderate Democrat holding things up on this issue, should stop playing polical games, trying to convince white, racist rednecks in his state that he is not a liberal, and lead on this issue by explaining to his people why voting rights are important for everybody and the future of democracy.

End the filibuster now. Protect American democracy by passing national legislation to ensure voting rights for every American citizen, no matter their race, age, or income.

Outside Links

Read more about the proposed law here.

See more on the history of the filibuster here.

Wikipedia: Filibuster in the United States Senate