Arizona is about to push through a bunch of really shitty vote suppression legislation, including restricting vote-by-mail and making the voting window shorter. Arizona is a Republican trifecta (House, Senate and Governor), and a healthy majority of Republicans support these restrictions. Consider this recent Change Research poll of attitudes towards HR.1:
Republicans are united on restricting voting rights. Though this Change Research poll, and another recent poll, show that Kyrsten Sinema is much less popular than Mark Kelly, Sinema could be buoyed by this result from the Change Research poll:
If Sinema votes to kill the filibuster, it’s unlikely to change her standing in the next general election. 49 percent of voters say they’d either be more likely to vote for her or that it wouldn’t make a difference. 44 percent of voters said they’d be less likely to vote for her.
Well, it’s a nice theory, but the important fact that neither of these polls gets at is that Sinema can’t win if Democrats can’t vote, and in her state, Republicans are gearing up to make it impossible for traditional Democratic constituencies to vote.
Anyway, I can’t pretend to understand a death wish, but any Democrat who wants to keep the filibuster and/or is squishy on the main provisions of HR.1 has one.
Professor Bigfoot
Yup.
The question is, will Manchin and Sinema see the handwriting on that wall?
[ed: what? first?!!! ME????]
Constance Reader
THANK YOU. That’s what I just do not get about Manchin and Sinema. Either they are too dumb to see what this means for their future elections, or they’ve hired staff too dumb to point it out to them. Now I think either answer should disqualify them from public office to begin with but then, I grew up in the district that keeps sending Louis Gohmert to congress, so I don’t have a leg to stand on.
germy
germy
dmsilev
@germy: Which is good news for Infrastructure Week ™, but it’s hard to contrive a way to make voting rights fit in with the reconciliation constraints so we really still need to trash (or at least effectively trash) the filibuster.
Nicole
They can say anything they want; in the end it comes down to how they vote. So far, Manchin has never been the deciding vote against something that Democrats want. He has figured out the magical alchemy of getting elected, and reelected, as a Democrat in West Virginia, so I don’t question his political smarts. Sinema, my personal jury is still out. She doesn’t have enough of a track record yet.
Eolirin
@germy: But it will still have the same restrictions of needing to be focused on spending and taxes, so it won’t help get HR 1 through. And whatever we need to change to get HR 1 through will probably make the reconciliation process less important. Might still be helpful, but not that vital.
Joe Falco
@germy:
What’s not being said is the parliamentarian could be overruled or fired and replaced if I remember right. I mean, c’mon, Chuck, if you’re going to pull obscure rules out to get shit done, let’s leave nothing off the table!
MomSense
@Nicole:
Agreed on Manchin and Sinema. We know that Sen Kelly is very popular in AZ, but he is also a man and a freaking astronaut so it may be easier for constituents to accept more liberal stances from him. Let’s see how this plays out before we freak out about her. My hunch is that this is a lot of posturing on both their parts.
Suzanne
Her name is Kyrsten, not Krysten.
That aside, I don’t think mistermix is self-evidently correct here. A lot of GOP voters vote for Sinema. That’s the state that loves their “mavericks”. I know it’s bullshit, but it’s bullshit that a lot of them honestly believe. She’ll switch parties, if it comes to that.
Betty Cracker
Florida Republicans (who also a state-level trifecta AND a lock on the US Senate) are gearing up to do the same, even though Turnip won big here and the state GOP brags about its flawless 2020 election. FL GOP motto: If it ain’t broke, FIX IT.
Anyhoo, my completely worthless prognostication is that the filibuster-philes among the Dems (which probably comprise folks other than just Machinema) eventually agree to a special voting rights carve-out modeled on the Reid carve-out for appointments and the Senatortoise SCOTUS carve-out. And maybe a talking filibuster for everything else.
The voting rights bill is getting most of the ink-pixels these days and rightly so, but filibuster reform that makes the minority take the floor and yap for hours is worth pursuing in its own right, IMO. McConnell gets away with 86ing so much popular legislation without his fingerprints indelibly on it, which lets Republicans off the hook AND undermines public confidence in the government’s power to do big things, which largely redounds to Democrats’ debit.
It’s not fair at all. But the reality is that people don’t understand how this shit works, and if all McConnell has to do is send an email to kill a jobs-creating infrastructure bill — without it ever coming up for a vote — people will conclude “the Senate” doesn’t work, not that Republicans are evil obstructionist pricks.
Suzanne
@MomSense: Kelly is also popular because his wife is beloved in many corners.
EdinNJ
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Suzanne:
In that case, in your opinion, does she care at all about American democracy? Or does she only care about being re-elected?
trnc
@Joe Falco: Definitely fine with overruling. If we’re going to fire the parliamentarian every time they rule in a way we don’t like, we might as well get rid of the position.
rp
@Constance Reader: With Manchin, I think it’s mostly theater. He has to go through the motions of being independent, centrist, etc., but ultimately supports Schumer and filibuster reform. With Sinema OTOH…who knows?
schrodingers_cat
Why do progressives like M^2 here spend more time attacking fellow Democrats (Cuomo and Sinema, over the last two to three weeks in M^2’s case) than elected Republicans.
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I think she has done that mental gymnastics that most craven people do. I am sure she considers her re-election as vital to the cause of democracy.
Also, I really think that y’all need to come to the realization that she is likely the best you’re going to get out of Arizona. Ruben Gallego and Raul Grijalva are not going to win statewide.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Suzanne: I fixed the spelling of her name.
Looking at the OH Predictive Insights polling, Sinema is 5/27 Very Favorable / Somewhat Favorable among Republicans, Kelly is 6/14. In the Change Research poll, it is 2/15 for Sinema and 2/2 for Kelly among Republicans and leaners. So she is more “popular” among Republicans, but I wouldn’t take “somewhat favorable” as a prospective vote.
Walker
Mail voting has historical favored Republicans. The bigger issues are these laws that allow the legislature to nullify voting precincts because reasons. That is the really scary thing in the Georgia law that just passed.
Served
She made the choice of centering herself on the filibuster by releasing that bizarre statement about how she not only wants to keep it, she wants to make it stronger. She went even further than Manchin ever did, and now she owns a hot potato that it is starting to look like her political skills can’t handle.
Suzanne
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: If she changes parties, as I have long suspected that she will, that will shoot up. Most partisans will vote for anyone who has the right letter next to their name.
Look, she’s built her political identity on being a spoiler, and that’s been very successful for her. She’s had primary opponents in almost every race, and those opponents are almost universally far more progressive than she is. Hell, she used to be much more progressive than she is now. For the life of me, I don’t know why anybody thinks that hewing closer to the Dem party line is going to be a good career move for her. The Dems there vote for her in general elections because they have nowhere else to go and are tired of losing, and she wins primaries because she has years of goodwill built up around constituent services, a deep network of political favors, and because many Dems there are pragmatic and are tired of losing.
Did I mention “tired of losing”?
Ocotillo
@Suzanne:
I get your point but I would offer Kelly is better.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: Yep. Good morning, Ms. Cat.
Betty Cracker
Just got notified that my COVID-19 vax (tomorrow!) will be Moderna. So, thank you, Dolly Parton! :)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@schrodingers_cat:
I get that MM has some tendencies, but he’s absolutely right that we need to pressure Dems like Sienma and Manchin to reform the filibuster. Our democracy, and frankly the world, depends on it.
Also, Andrew Cuomo is a piece of shit:
WaPo:
Andrew Cuomo’s family members were given special access to covid testing, according to people familiar with the arrangement
Cuomo is a terrible Dem (and person) and needs to go
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
A talking filibuster is harder to demonize, particularly if Sinema wants to keep the support of right-leaning moderate voters. Those voters do exist, even if moderate right-leaning Republican politicians don’t. I would hope she’d get on board for that. Its hardly radical change if it is just going back to how it used to be.
Suzanne
@Ocotillo: Kelly is indeed better. But there is not a deep bench of former astronauts married to former congresswomen who survived assassination attempts. AZ is still blood red in some places, and squishy, centrist Dems are probably the best you can expect for a while.
WaterGirl
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: “Somewhat favorable” may translate to “useful tool for Republicans”.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Suzanne:
Then she’s an awful, terrible person who’s just fucking fine with the New Jim Crow being supported by the GOP she’d so willingly join if it meant saving her political career. She’s apparently just fine with joining an autocratic, fascist party that will probably gladly outlaw opposition parties and do who knows what the hell else in the coming years. Republicans only get worse with time it seems
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Oh, yay! Our national treasures need to be vaccinated. :-)
Elizabelle
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: Mark Warner probably polled fairly well among Republicans, as being the “more reasonable” Senator, and was making all these “work across party lines” noises, and then barely scraped through one race when Republicans went home (to Ed Gillespie, 2014).
Never, ever, ever count on GOP votes. They are cake if you get them, as a Democrat.
From wiki re the 2014 Virginia Senate race: Came down to 49.1 to 48.3; that’s too scary. (There was a Gliberatarian in the race, too.)
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
I think the GQP has underestimated (yet again) the depth and determination of their opposition. You come for our voting rights? It’s all hands on deck. Long lines? Been there. Documentation? Done that and there was already a push to get ID for those who needed it last two cycles? No food or water? Our ancestors ate scraps. We will find a way.
These clowns are going to get the fight they want, but they will find out wanting was more fun than having.
Elizabelle
ETA: thank you, to whoever freed my comment
Baud
@Suzanne:
I blame the DNC.
Suzanne
I want to point out that, prior to Sinema, the last Dem senator from AZ was Dennis DeConcini. DeConcini won his last election in 1988. Sinema won back that seat in 2018. That’s 30 years. Things there are changing, for sure, but as noted above, the state government is all red. It isn’t changing that fast.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Yea!!
I bet Dolly Parton would enjoy a meal with you.
schrodingers_cat
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The criticism is all very one-sided though.
The two times Biden administration didn’t get what it wanted has to do with the actions of the great St of Vt. Tacking the minimum wage to the COVID relief and Neera Tanden’s confirmation. Yet I don’t remember seeing a single post on the FP of Balloon Juice about how BS botched the confirmation hearings of Tanden by focusing the hearings on her “mean” tweets
ETA: Yes and I know that BS had an able assist from Manchin in tanking Tanden.
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Yeah.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Elizabelle: The number of links, probably. I released it.
And, yes, counting on Republican votes is a fool’s errand. What concerns me about Sinema’s poll numbers is lack of enthusiasm by Democrats. The good news is that she’s up in 2024 so it’s not an off year election.
Belafon
@Suzanne: IIRC, she didn’t do as well as Kelly in the election.
randy khan
They talked about this poll on Pod Save America last week. (No surprise – I think they paid for it.) There are a bunch of things that are interesting a bit deeper in the poll. Most important is that voter opinion on the specifics of the For the People Act, and for the legislation itself, is very high across party lines unless you identify it as a Democratic initiative. People like the anti-gerrymandering provisions, the dark money provisions, the mail-in voting provisions, etc., etc., often by extremely high margins.
IIRC, there’s also some bad news for Sinema on the D-side in that poll, which I will paraphrase as Dem support dropping if she won’t act like a Democrat. In a close state, a lack of enthusiasm could be a problem for her. Of course, she’s not up until 2024, so she has some time to work on that.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Suzanne:
Then she will lose the primary after an ugly fight based on her sexual orientation.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: Dang, I sure hope she doesn’t switch parties. If either Manchin or Sinema do, we’ll be so screwed. Both of them know it too, and I suspect they aren’t the only centrist Dems we’ll see making a power play in a closely divided Congress.
It is irritating as fuck to have to vote for squishes, but I understand what you’re saying about the “best we can do.” I voted for Bill Nelson for decades for that very reason and wish to dog he had held that seat in 2018. The alternative is infinitely worse.
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: My response was gonna be Pretty much, so I won’t argue with your Yeah.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Suzanne:
Sorry if I went overboard, but these authoritarian laws being passed in Georgia and everywhere else has me really mad. If Sinema would rather switch to the party that’s enacting these laws, then I don’t know what to say
You’re agreeing with me right?
Belafon
@Suzanne:
Switching parties will cost her Democrats and the power she does have in Congress. It’s the same argument made about Manchin, and he’s not going to switch. Switching parties does not guarantee her a win, especially considering both Senators are Democrats, even with Republicans trying to play voting games.
Suzanne
@Belafon: Sinema beat McSally in 2018 with 50 points to 47.6 points. Kelly then beat McSally in 2020 with 51.2 to 48.8 points. Very similar spread.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix:
Yup.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Betty Cracker:
Hey, I know you’re Central Florida/Tampa-ish, but any thoughts on the likelihood of GOP yahoos succeeding in killing Key West’s power to throttle ship size and the number of disembarking passengers after their November vote?
Suzanne
@Belafon: Nothing guarantees her a win, of course. But again, unwavering Dem support isn’t worth a whole lot there. She knows this. The Dems have nowhere else to go, really. I voted for her in every general election because the alternatives are fucking crazy.
schrodingers_cat
If Sinema switches parties she will lose her first primary as a Republican.
ETA: M^2 got there first
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Can’t disagree with you here.
FWIW, I’ve actually held off on Cuomo posts because I think I made my point, which is (a) he’s awful in many ways and not a good fit, politically, for the state; (b) his COVID response was a tall hobbit compared to the short hobbit responses of red state governors; and (c) he’s not going to resign.
Michael Cain
The partisan split of Arizona’s voters is 35/32/32 for Republicans, Democrats, and other (mostly unaffiliated). It’s a veto referendum state: if they get petition signatures totaling at least 5% of the ballots cast in the last governor’s race, the measure does not go into effect until it goes on the November ballot for approval/rejection. These are the same voters who passed an independent redistricting commission, higher minimum wage, and recreational marijuana over the howls of the state Republican Party. The current vote by mail system is well liked, with >80% of voters signing up for it voluntarily. The chances that drastic changes will survive that process is zero.
For that matter, the Republican majorities in the state legislature are small (two seats in each chamber). Gov. Ducey is term-limited, has said he’s not running for the US Senate seat, and was sanctioned by the state party for saying good things about the voting system back in November. Redistricting in 2022 is done by an independent commission. There’s a reasonable chance that the worst things either won’t pass or won’t get signed.
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Look, I have been the one on this blog warning y’all about Sinema for a long time. I remember a thread in 2018 where everyone was celebrating, and I was the wet blanket saying, “Dude, don’t get excited, she sucks, she’s worse than Manchin”. She fucking sucks. But Dems that win statewide there are almost unicorns. We had Janet Napolitano and Rose Mofford and not a whole lot else. We ran a lot of good candidates who routinely lost. Richard Carmona, Terry Goddard, DuVal, Garcia….. all good, smart, capable people…. who lost. Therefore, she is not susceptible to the same kinds of pressure. Adjust your expectations accordingly.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: I don’t get Sinema. Everything about her voting/political profile suggests someone who really wants attention– I don’t think Manchin cares about national media, but there are lots of reports that he’s really enjoying his prominence. Sinema… I’m a political junkie and I couldn’t pick her out of a line up. I watch too much MSNBVC, no CNN or Fox, but if she was talking to anybody, I think I’d have seen it at least as a twitter clip. So I have no sense of her, no idea if she’s a likely flip, no idea if she’s enjoying being talked about, but judging from the various excuses her staff put out, that thumbs-down stunt didn’t play the way she wanted it to.
I think if Manchin were going to jump the aisle, he would have done it already. And for now, I take that quote about wanting his friend Joe Biden to succeed. I also think he’s sincere in his belief in “bipartisanship”. The cult of the Senate is weird, really fucking weird, and I think Manchin’s version of it is that he’s a statesman who can bring back– to drag a favorite phrase out of David Broder’s grave– comity in the Senate. That was Broder’s version of Tip’N’Ronnie Bourbon.
On MSNBC yesterday someone said Dems shouldn’t be afraid of Mitch McConnell, and Jonathan Capeheart kind of adopted that as his motto for the show. I think that fundamentally misunderstands the current dynamic of Manchin (and maybe Sinema, and maybe Tom Carper…): He’s not afraid of Mitch McConnell, he believes in Susan Collins. Which is just as wrong-headed, more so, really, but he doesn’t look in the mirror and see someone weak and frightened, he sees someone noble and principled.
kindness
Why do some Congresscritters live for the spotlight even when that spotlight is bad? I just don’t get that one.
Betty Cracker
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Unfortunately, I’d say their odds are pretty good since wingnut governors and statehouses routinely squash voter ballot initiatives and have yet to pay a political price for it. But that’s just a guess.
Suzanne
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: I’m not sure about that, either. Because she is susceptible to political pressure from the GOP and I can see her easily remaking herself in the mold of Doug Douchey (tax cut ice cream man) an winning a GOP primary. AZ isn’t the Bible Belt.
She is a transactional politician in a state that likes that.
Suzanne
The AZ GOP wants to develop the state until it is nothing but low-density super-gridded suburbs to the state line. They want to lower taxes, attract tech employers from CA, remove regulation, cripple the universities, exploit public lands, keep Mexicans out except the ones who maintain the freeways and do janitorial work, and let everyone carry guns into every convenience store. Sinema already is good for this agenda. They DGAF about her being a bisexual atheist.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Suzanne: MM, SC, and I aren’t talking about the state electorate as a whole, just the Republicans. Are there open primaries in AZ? That could save her, but if she has to convince Republicans to vote for her over a “Real Republican”, not a chance.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Your take on Manchin aligns with mine. I have no idea what Sinema is up to. I remember being excited when she was elected, but I’ll admit I assumed her back story would translate to more progressive policy stances, and she’s turning out to be Susan Collins with a more interesting fashion sense. Next time, I’ll listen to @Suzanne about Sinema — she was right.
artem1s
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
I believe the talking filibuster reform proposed means the speaker has to stick to the subject of the filibuster. This change would have the added advantage of making the GQP stand up and talk about why they hate America. If they want to repeat the Big Lie about the 2020 election or any other election, they may open themselves up to lawsuits or out themselves as conspiring to murder the VP on Jan 6. There are a lot of good reasons to open the new VRA up to a talking filibuster. Not the least of which puts them on record as being against letting Memaw and Papaw vote by mail or early or away from their anti-vaxer neighbors.
I would love to make GQP go on record, especially for this bill – so those people in GA and AZ and all the other states understand why we need them to turn out in 2022 in record numbers no matter what happens with this or any other bill. The GQP will still throw obstructions in the way of BiPOC voters and the Dems need to keep putting pressure on the states to formally adopt the federal minimums. Passing the bill will mean decades of court battles and reversals and whatnot. it won’t mean the job of GOTV is over anyway.
I hope they can make a deal with the nervous Dems on the talking filibuster on VRA and get the stimulus done by reconciliation.
Jeffro
I look at it as kind of an IQ test for Dem Reps and Senators: if you vote for HR 1 (including voting for a filibuster exemption in the Senate) then you’re not a complete fucking moron. Otherwise…
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Suzanne:
Wouldn’t attracting tech employers (and naturally tech employees) from CA also mean bringing in more liberal people and potential Dem voters into AZ?
Suzanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Primaries there are closed. I think she could potentially win a GOP primary there, depending on her opponent. There are a few psychos there, like Kelli Ward, who I think Sinema would beat. Ward is a culture-war true believer, and she lost a primary to McCain. Against someone like Ducey or Schweikert, I think Sinema would lose.
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Well, yes, but that would be why they haven’t been too successful so far. Phoenix is a very large city — larger than Seattle or San Francisco — but it doesn’t have any prominent, high-paying employers, and much of the GOP would like to change that. But they don’t want liberals to come to AZ, but they are fine with libertarian dudebro types. Many people there have significant antipathy toward California. They were thrilled when Apple was gonna build a sapphire glass factory in east Mesa because it was Apple money without actual people.
Jinchi
I agree. I think he didn’t fire the parliamentarian last time because Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema had said they would defer to her on the matter of the minimum wage increase (which neither wanted to pass). If Schumer had fired her then, it would have made their argument look foolish unless they voted against a bill with a minimum wage increase, anyway.
Voting rights is a different matter.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Suzanne:
I understand what you’re saying. It’s a tough state still for Dems to get elected statewide. Still, working to save American democracy is a pretty low bar as far as I’m concerned. I shouldn’t need to adjust my expectations down that low, y’know? If she can’t bring herself to do that much, then honestly she’s little better than a Repuke imo, because her inaction would mean failure to pass HR1, which would likely mean the United States’ transition to an authoritarian state under GOP rule, like Orban’s Hungary or Putin’s Russia
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
Thanks very much for your insightful comments on Sinema and Arizona politics.
Very interesting stuff.
surfk9
@Suzanne: As a former San Diegan, I can assure you that the antipathy towards Californians is reciprocated towards Arizona folks in spades.
Suzanne
Now you’re getting it.
Suzanne
@surfk9: Dude I feel you. Mr. Suzanne lived his whole life in CA before moving to AZ. I am not defending this attitude. Just describing.
surfk9
@Suzanne: I have some relatives in AZ and don’t share the antipathy either
Suzanne
@Brachiator: Thanks. I want everyone to understand that Sinema sucks in a distinctly representative way.
WhatsMyNym
In honour of the Ever Given reaching the next lake and finally out of the way of traffic, here’s the list of largest largest container ships. See if you can find the Ever Given.
Who pays?
Redshift
@Betty Cracker:
I agree, but would add that that while the talking filibuster is also getting all of the ink-pixels, arguably the more important change to undo from 1974 is the change that made couture a supermajority of all senators instead of a supermajority of those present. If that’s undone, then it’s the constant burden of the minority to maintain the filibuster, rather than the burden of the majority to end it.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
YEAH!!!!
rikyrah
‘I am scared’: CDC director warns of ‘impending doom’ as US Covid cases rise 10% to nearly 60K a day, hospitalizations rise to 4,800 a day and average daily deaths increase by 3% compared to last week
By NATALIE RAHHAL U.S. HEALTH EDITOR and KEITH GRIFFITH FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and WIRES
PUBLISHED: 02:15 EDT, 29 March 2021 | UPDATED: 12:23 EDT, 29 March 2021
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Suzanne:
Well, I’m not exactly sanguine about that to say the least. The GOP terrifies me and I’m a white guy. They keep getting nuttier and nuttier and I’m not sure how far they’ll go. This and their anti-democratic actions lately is a bad combination. I’m afraid I will lose my voice in my own government because I will have no where else to go politically if Dems are locked out from the federal government. I’m worried what will happen to friends of mine I know who are LGBTQ+/other minorities, even if over the internet, if the worst comes to pass. I’m worried what will happen to my rights, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid. I’m worried about the United States’ place in the world as well as other people in other countries. I don’t trust the GOP with the military. I want to genuinely feel proud to be an American; I don’t want to feel ashamed.
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Little better than a Republican? If Sinema had voted with Senate Republicans on the $1.9 trillion rescue package, it would not have passed. And if she and Manchin had not hung with the Democratic Caucus to make Chuck Schumer Majority Leader, that bill would not even have made it to the floor. Much less would voting rights legislation.
Sinema knows she will be challenged from the left in a 2024 Democratic primary. But she needs to win an Arizona primary, not a Balloon Juice primary.
In the meantime, the only thing Democrats can do about her is to defend four vulnerable Senate seats next year, including the one in Arizona which Mark Kelly won by only 80,000 votes. And then pick up seats in states like Ohio.
Redshift
@Jinchi: The really bizarre thing, if I understand correctly, is that the parliamentarian’s role in reconciliation is purely advisory, not binding. So technically, they don’t have to fire the parliamentarian or even vote to overrule, they can just ignore it, but it’s one of those Senate traditions that they take it very seriously, so they act like it’s a binding decision.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
I’m a day behind you, but same gratitude to Dolly and the scientists for the vaccine! I may sing vaccine vaccine vaccine vacciiiiiiiinnnne when I get my shot.
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I get all of that. But what I am saying is that AZ Dems are not really able to put pressure on Sinema in an effective way to get her to be different. Things would be different if there were more Dem senators and she wasn’t so critical, or if there was a stronger Dem contingent in AZ. Until then, I submit that she at least keeps Mitch McConnell in the minority, and that is worth a lot.
James E Powell
@Elizabelle:
Agree completely, but if I were an elected Democrat and I heard that Republicans liked me, I’d wonder what I was doing wrong.
James E Powell
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix:
I don’t think Sinema would have any hope in a Republican primary.
sdhays
@Geminid: Also, admit DC and Puerto Rico as states before 2022. I think ending territories one way or another is good too, but DC and Puerto Rico have said they want statehood now, and there’s no good reason to wait.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Geminid:
Sorry, I get that she’s been an important vote. I’m just worried she won’t be for filibuster reform so we can pass a badly needed voting rights bill to preserve a functional democracy
New Deal democrat
This is your periodic reminder that, when it comes to Congressional districts, Congress has plenary power to do away with gerrymandering under Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution:
“The 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, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”
germy
The Chauvin trial is being shown on CourtTV.
Networks seem to have pre-empted regular programming as well.
piratedan
and yes, while endorsing a tech bleed off from Cali is a “mostly” good thing, not every CA ex-pat is a liberal, lots of them are glibertarian dude-bros seeking tax relief.
I have a hard time believing that Sinema would leave for the GOP but perhaps she could do it out of spite and while it would be tough for road for most AZ Dems, perhaps the mayor of Phoenix (Ms. Gallego) could run, as would Congressman Gallego. As Suzannne has noted, AZ has its own immediate issue with what it wants, as a state, its votes pretty moderately, but with the state lege being gerrymandered, its hard to make inroads, although they ARE being made.
The biggest sea-level change has been the successful registration of native american voters and their immediate impact (see Biden carrying the state), and hoping that we can continue to get them to turn out (hence the voting limitations)
WaterGirl
@New Deal democrat: I understand how that potentially impacts the voting restrictions that are being put in place, but I don’t see how that has anything to do with gerrymandering.
MattF
OT. Anya Taylor-Joy does a trailer for Waffles + Mochi: The Queen’s Yambit.
Yutsano
@MomSense:
Video uploaded to WaterGirl and posted on the blog or it doesn’t count!
New Deal democrat
@WaterGirl: Congressional districts didn’t even exist until 1842, when the Whigs used their power under Art I , sec 4 to create them.
No less an authority than Chief Justice Roberts pointed this out several years ago.
Shakti
@Betty Cracker:
My Florida House and Senate reps are d-bags. And I literally don’t understand this “reform” since there’s barely any Democratic representation in those houses at present. It’s literally different groups of Republicans fighting each other. They still have a veto proof majority right?
Omnes Omnibus
Manchin is a reliable Democrat. He will not be the one who tanks important legislation. If it is already going down, he may join in the noes. I don’t have a feel for Sinema, but I don’t trust her loyalty the way I do Manchin’s. Also, you will note that Manchin has never gone out on a rhetorical limb; he has always left hImself room to maneuver. Sinema may need to walk things back.
Geminid
@piratedan: Another big change in Arizona last year, at least according to a Politico article, was an effective voter registration effort lead by Mexican Americans, mobilizing Latino voters. Something must have worked: I forget what the rise in Arizona voters 2020 over 2016 was, but I remember that it was greater than the rise in Georgia, which itself was 33% or better.
Another Scott
@New Deal democrat: Interesting.
Way back in the Before Times, there was talk about giving DC a vote in the House state and to make it “fair” give Utah an extra congressional seat to be an “at large” seat. (Which coincidentally would give them an extra EC vote.) I thought it was nuts and unconstitutional – why should someone in Utah get 2 representatives in the House (their own + the at large seat), but no report I saw about it seemed to have a problem with it.
That bit of the Constitution saying they can do what they want with elections probably was the reason.
Of course, it didn’t go anywhere.
The idea of every House seat being “at large” would certainly throw a monkey wrench in a lot of the political calculations that we take for granted. No more gerrymandering! But voting restrictions could still be a huge problem (“number of voting precincts and hours determined by voting patterns in 1860…”).
:-/
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
cain
But Jolene would take it away from you.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m looking at this as her audition for Democratic importance. Right now she’s not covering herself in glory. But maybe we’re being too hasty because we want this thing passed yesterday. Let’s see where the thumbs are being screwed before we declare preemptive surrender.
Soprano2
All of us, I guarantee you that.
Geminid
@Geminid: The 2016 Arizona Presidential vote totaled ~2.4 million. In 2020, the total was ~3.3 million. That is close to a 40% increase.
trollhattan
@WhatsMyNym:
They’re mostly eerily similar in dimension, aren’t they. And wow are there a lot of them.
Looks like at some point they said “fuck it” and decided to ignore the Panama Canal, which accommodates a maximum beam of 49 meters (and informs a lot of naval ship design).
WhatsMyNym
@trollhattan:
We get the big ones on the west coast. Off course we also use very large tugboats to dock them.
Spanky
@Nicole: Exactly my take, except I may be less prone to cut Sinema slack at this point.
Geminid
@piratedan: The Politico article I referred to above is titled “Inside the Machine to Turn Out Arizona Latinos- and Flip the State Blue.” Dateline Nov.1, 2020.
janesays
I wish it were Sinema facing the voters again in 2022 rather than Kelly. I think the fact that she’s not up for re-election until 2024 is likely to make her position more intractable.
Yutsano
@WhatsMyNym:
Those usually come from a direct sailing from Asia. The Suez Canal SNAFU fortunately won’t affect US commerce much. We mostly just get a giggle out of the whole situation.
Brachiator
@piratedan:
Some news clips about Arizona voting in the 2020 election. Voter turnout….
Early voting and mail voting. Arizona voter suppression efforts go against what voters want…
Native American voting…
janesays
@dmsilev: Yeah, this. If the parliamentarian has already ruled that a minimum wage increase can’t be passed via reconciliation, it’s hard to fathom any scenario in which we could get a favorable ruling to try to pass any legislation related to voting rights through reconciliation.
rikyrah
rikyrah
janesays
@Suzanne: I’ve come to the realization that Mark Kelly is better than Kyrsten Sinema, so she is clearly not the best we are going to do in Arizona. Yes, I’m sure he gets more leeway to be more reliably progressive because of his gender, but it doesn’t change the fact that if we had to lose one of those two seats, we would be better off losing her seat than his.
patrick Il
@artem1s:
I don’t think requiring a talking filibuster on a voting rights fill will matter. Republicans will talk until the end of time to stop it. For other, lesser hillk it might work.
rikyrah
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: I agree. She may not be as agile walking on the edge and coming down on the good side as Manchin. She hasn’t fucked us over yet, and if she doesn’t I am fine with her pulling a Hamlet over every vote. I am not worried about the theater.
rikyrah
janesays
@Suzanne: Janet Napolitano says hi. And she got re-elected in that state. 2006 was some time ago, but it’s not as if the Republicans have had a lock on all state government positions for numerous decades.
Geminid
@sdhays: If the District of Columbia was made a state, it would add two Democrats to the Senate. If Puerto Rico was made a state, it might elect two more Democratic Senators. But are there 50 votes for statehood in this Congress? I don’t think there are. I still think we will have to increase our Senate majority the hard way- by flipping some of the 20 Republican seats up for election in 2022, in existing states.
Geminid
@janesays: Not all statewide positions have been held by Republicans for decades. But when Sinema beat McSally in 2018, she was the first Democratic Senator from Arizona since 1988.
janesays
@Suzanne: Identical spread. But, to Kelly’s credit, he was running against an incumbent senator, which tends to be tougher than winning in an open race, as Sinema did when she ran against McSally. And 2018 was more of a wave election for Democrats than 2020, at least in terms of congressional races.
Geminid
@Geminid: Correction: Dennis DeConcini represented Arizona until 1996; his 1988 election was the last Senate election won by a Democrat in Arizona until Sinema’s 2018 win.
Suzanne
@janesays: As I noted above, Dems that win statewide there include Janet Napolitano, Rose Mofford, and….. no one else until Sinema and Kelly.
The list of Dem losers is much longer than the list of winners.
Suzanne
@janesays: I agree with you that Kelly is better than Sinema. But I think much of why he got elected has to do with his name recognition, his biography, and the fact that his wife is awesome. And he was running against Martha McSally, who is far from beloved by the state GOP. He is not reproducible. I think Greg Stanton miiiiiiiight have potential statewide. Again, the list of Dem losers is much longer than the list of winners there. Please entertain the idea that Sinema wins there because some people really like her. And the things about her that we do not like are specifically the things that other people do.
Arizona re-elected Jan Brewer, y’all. Recently. Manage expectations.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: When Joe announced the May 1 date for this, I was certain we would be seeing it before April 1. Go Joe.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: That is excellent news! I have seen that the 95% protection number for the general population is really at 80% for people 65 and older. I do not recall where I read that – something that was linked here on BJ is all I remember.
Geminid
@Suzanne: When voting rolls closed a month before last November’s election, Arizona party registration stood at 35% Republican, 32% Democrat, and 31.7% non-affiliated and third party. These totals merited a headline from one state media outlet, because up until then registered Democrats had lagged in 3rd place.
So winning Arizona is still an uphill battle for Democrats. One good thing is that Arizona Republicans are having a bit of a civil war right now. But they will at least paper over their divisions for next year’s election.