Joe Manchin hates children
Literally! No hyperbole!
Welcome to a premium Wednesday evening edition of Progressives Everywhere!
Give Senate Democrats credit: They may fail to accomplish much, but they certainly make it interesting along the way. And by interesting I mean absolutely excruciating and embarrassing.
Anyhoo, there’s lots of news to cover and I’m going to Tennessee tomorrow morning, so let’s get to it!
Heroes
Villains
Joe Manchin: What happened, Joe? You used to be satisfied by throwing a fit, grandstanding for the media, and insisting on making already anemic legislation 20% worse before inevitably agreeing to vote for it. Now, it seems, all those months of hallway press gaggles, lobbyist checks, and pleading from your Democratic colleagues have not only made even more annoying, but robbed you of whatever moral compass and populist instincts you ever possessed.
Indefinitely suspending the Build Back Better Act because you want to kill the Child Tax Credit? You can’t be this dense, right?
You spent much of the year justifying your obstructionism by saying that you have to be able to explain each of your votes to the people of West Virginia, and if you do wind up killing the CTC, you’re going to have a lot of explaining to do — 93% of families with kids in West Virginia have been receiving the monthly cash infusion, which has been a life-saver in a state where 20% of children live in poverty. West Virginia is 44th in the nation in children’s economic security.
Do you simply hate children? Before you flash your temper and call me bullshit like you did to that other reporter today, really consider the question, Joe. What else are we supposed to think when you go against your entire party specifically to stop poor kids from receiving desperately needed financial assistance?
Nancy Pelosi: It shouldn’t be controversial to say that lawmakers and government officials should not be permitted to actively or even passively invest in industries they are ostensibly charged with regulating and the companies whose fates they help shape. In fact, it shouldn’t even be a conversation — that anyone in DC can trade stocks is an indictment of our utterly corrupt system. And yet, here is the Democratic Speaker of the House on that very topic:
C’mon, you aren’t rich enough? You can’t even offer no comment and defer to committees? On the same day that it looks as if Democrats — save your protests, because Manchin’s antics will wind up shaping the history of the Democrats’ time in the majority — will wind up letting the Child Tax Credit expire?
It sure would be a scandal if Pelosi had some kind of skin in the game here…
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear: The son of former two-term governor Steve Beshear is forging his own legacy as a crisis manager and champion of democracy. The younger Beshear has spent the past four days traveling across the state to survey the horrific damage done by the historic tornado that ripped across the plains on Saturday, which leveled whole towns and killed at least 74 Kentuckians. It’s been a painful few days, and Beshear has shown not just the solemn resolve that is required of all politicians but also an empathy and vulnerability that is all too rare of them.
Beshear’s personal touch has helped him earned positive marks with voters in the deep red state for his responsible and proactive handling of the Covid pandemic, even as Republican legislators have pilloried him as a socialist or fascist or whatever.
The 44-year-old governor had a 54% approval rating before the storm struck, and while I don’t want to get into the gross game of speculating how mass tragedy will play out in the voting booth, Beshear should also be praised for expanding the Kentucky electorate in a pretty significant way. One of his first acts in office was to return voting rights to non-violent offenders, and two years later, over 183,000 people have had their voting rights restored.
Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock: Speaking of voting rights, the first-term senator from Georgia continues to pressure his colleagues into following through on their most basic promises and saving American democracy from the brink of extinction. He spoke at the Democratic caucus meeting on Tuesday and then delivered a rousing speech on the Senate floor, urging action in the face of a GOP assault on democracy that has become almost comically obvious and evil.
That Democrats suspended the filibuster to hike the debt ceiling set an important precedent and provided Warnock with a prime talking point: The filibuster isn’t an inevitability or immovable force and Democrats can muster the political will to bend it when the issue is important enough to them. And on that note…
Rev. Dr. William Barber III: While Warnock is fighting the good fight inside the Capitol, Barber is leading the charge on the outside — often literally. While he’s not getting a ton of media attention, but no one has put in more miles, energy, or political capital into the fight against voter suppression and poverty this year. He leads weekly protests, has gotten himself arrested several times at sit-ins, and is unafraid to call out bullshitters on their bullshit.
Here’s him throwing down today:
Gasp! He called a liar a liar!
WTF
Dash for Cash: Quick update on South Dakota Squid Game for you:
The Stampede and CU Mortgage Direct, which donated the cash for the contest, are now offering teachers an apology and an additional $500 each.
"Although our intent was to provide a positive and fun experience for teachers, we can see how it appears to be degrading and insulting towards the participating teachers and the teaching profession as a whole," organizers said in a statement on Monday. "We deeply regret and apologize to all teachers for any embarrassment this may have caused."
They reiterated that the promotion was aimed at raising funds for local teachers and classrooms and explained that they had randomly selected the 10 participants from a pool of 31 applicants. The team said it is giving them all more money, totaling an additional $15,500 for area teachers.
A mortgage company is giving teachers an extra $500 each! All better!
Wonk Stuff
Voting Rights: Senate Democrats say they’re now pivoting their focus to passing voting rights legislation, and Sen. Mark Warner, who has largely remained silent on the matter, yesterday endorsed suspending the rule to pass the Freedom to Vote and John Lewis Acts.
It’s a nice development, but once again, the legislation is ultimately going to hinge on the whims and egos of Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Several moderate Democrats met with the two people writing my Joker origin story today to discuss potential options for working around the filibuster.
It’s unclear how the meeting went, but I did find one post-meeting quote worth examining. After Sinema’s spokesperson gave the same old disingenuous talking points about the danger of passing partisan legislation, he said this:
“It is time for the Senate to publicly debate its rules, including the filibuster, so senators and all Americans can hear and fully consider such ideas, concerns, and consequences. If there are proposals to make the Senate work better for everyday Americans without risking repeated radical reversals in federal policy, Senator Sinema is eager to hear such ideas and — as always — is willing to engage in good-faith discussions with her colleagues.”
I’m not naive enough to think it augurs some dramatic u-turn toward sanity, but it’s definitely the most open-minded statement I’ve heard coming from Sinema or her mouthpieces. We are likely to at best going get some minor rules tweak or “one-time” exception to the filibuster that allows voting rights legislation to pass, and even that looks like an uphill battle, but at the risk of sounding like Lloyd Christmas, it seems like there’s a chance.
Elections:
North Carolina Senate: Democrats work strenuously to avoid contested primaries in swing races and it looks as if Chuck Schumer and the DSCC have gotten their way once again.
On the heels of the AFL-CIO throwing its support behind former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley last week, word is breaking that the party’s other main contender for the 2022 Senate nomination, State Sen. Jeff Jackson, is on the verge of bowing out of the race. He’s been touring the state pretty tirelessly and running the populist outsider playbook, but party cajoling (and maybe an offer of support if he runs for a different office) seem to have won out.
I’m generally in favor of competitive (but civil) primaries, as they help build up candidate infrastructure and name recognition and work out campaign kinks, but in an open election that’s going to be more about persuasion than beating up on an incumbent, having immediate party unity around what seems to be a decent enough candidate might not be such a bad thing.
Policy updates
Ohio: The State House voted to approve legislation to let just about anyone carry a gun without any training or background check. It’ll now go to the State House, where a Republican supermajority is certain to rubber stamp it.
Michigan: The Board of Elections approved the language for a ballot initiative to seriously curtail payday loans in Michigan. Right now these predatory loans can incur interest rates of up to 391%; the initiative, should it earn enough petition signatures to make it to the ballot and subsequently pass, would cap it at 36%.
Progressive ballot initiatives have been a rousing success in the Wolverine State over the past few election cycles, though as I reported this fall, conservative Big Lie paranoids are trying to weaponize an arcane clause in the state’s initiative system to enact a veto-proof Voter ID law.
Voting Rights and Redistricting
Ohio: Secretary of State Frank LaRose was one of the biggest proponents of Ohio’s massive new voter suppression law, but now he’s already having second thoughts on one of its more consequential changes.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said Monday that the legislature should revise a change to elections law signed in July that some prosecutors and voter-rights activists fear could lead to criminal charges for elections officials for partnering with outside organizations for activities like voter outreach and registration.
“Where I think they drafted that language maybe a bit inelegantly is where they created this prohibition against any kind of collaboration,” LaRose said. “Again, they’ve made it clear to me – the General Assembly has – that it wasn’t their intention to outlaw the normal types of collaborations that every secretary of state has done.”
The provision that banned government entities from accepting outside donations to do things like voter outreach and administer elections was adopted by a number of states across the country. Conservatives like to pretend that Facebook is out to get them (lol), and because Mark Zuckerberg donated a ton of money to election administration in 2020, the Heritage Foundation used that animosity to push an anti-government clause that is going to hurt Republicans as much as Democrats.
LaRose himself took $1.1 million from Zuckerberg to administer the state’s elections last year, though hypocrisy isn’t really a stumbling block for Republicans these days.
North Carolina: Let’s end on some potential good gerrymandering news! With a number of lawsuits pending against the Republican legislature’s absurd gerrymanders, the state Supreme Court has pushed back North Carolina’s primary elections from March to May of 2022. The court will hear arguments over the complaints in early January and issue a decision on the constitutionality of the gerrymanders on January 11th.
Though they lost two seats last year, Democrats still have a 5-4 edge on the state’s highest court right now, which, paired with the laughable 10-4 advantage gave themselves in a 50-50 purple state, gives me some hope that there will be some remedy here.
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https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/democrats-hopes-dim-build-back-better-will-pass-new-year-n1286043
