Marc Elias thinks Heather Cox Richardson's newsletter should be read into the Senate record

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-16-2022



Republicans say they oppose the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act because it is an attempt on the part of Democrats to win elections in the future by “nationalizing” them, taking away the right of states to arrange their laws as they wish. Voting rights legislation is a “partisan power grab,” Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) insists.

In fact, there is no constitutional ground for opposing the idea of Congress weighing in on federal elections. The U.S. Constitution establishes that “[t]he Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.”

There is no historical reason to oppose the idea of voting rights legislation, either. Indeed, Congress weighed in on voting pretty dramatically in 1870, when it amended the Constitution itself for the fifteenth time to guarantee that “[t]he right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” In that same amendment, it provided that “[t]he Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

It did so, in 1965, with “an act to enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution,” otherwise known as the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a law designed to protect the right of every American adult to have a say in their government, that is, to vote. The Supreme Court gutted that law in 2013; the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act is designed to bring it back to life.

*snip*

[alwaysinasnit]

1. k&r for visibility

[Progressive Jones]

2. K & R

[Mr. Evil]

3. The SCOTUS used to have at least some semblance of integrity and honor.

Now, it's saddled with 6 purely partisan lackeys. We have a beer swilling sexual deviant, a religious freak, a mute, a wide-eyed axe murderer lookalike, a backwards ass originalist and a chief justice that thinks racism is non-existent and that more money solves our electoral problems.

No ethics, no integrity, no honor. Should we survive long enough to recognize the decisions of this SCOTUS, history won't be kind to them.

[dchill]

5. This sounds about right.

[burrowowl]

4. Kick