In no surprise, HR1 passes in the House…
…along strict party lines.
This is the Democrats’ top priority, something I’ve written about several times before on this blog (see this, for example). One would think that if Democrats cared to fix the fact that half the nation doesn’t trust elections anymore, and to reassure people that future elections would have integrity, HR1 would be the last way to go about it after the debacle that was the 2020 eletion.
But to Democrats, that election was no debacle. COVID gave them the opportunity to sneak parts of HR1 – a bill they first passed after the election of 2018 gave them the House – into the election rules of certain states. They were intent back in early 2019 on making those changes mandatory for the entire nation and overriding the wishes of any state that wanted to make its rules more secure, and they are intent on the same thing now.
And now they hold the Senate – but barely. Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema have said they will not vote to end the filibuster. Since passing a bill like HR1 requires the ending of the filibuster, can you imagine the pressure being brought to bear on those two right now (if in fact they are serious about their defiance, that is, and it’s not just for temporary show)?
And note that every single Democrat in the House voted for HR1. The idea that some of them are moderate is a fiction, although come election time a lot of people seem to forget (or perhaps don’t pay attention in the first place) and vote for them anyway. We’ll see whether, in the Senate, Manchin and Sinema hold to the moderate line.
I also notice that this Fox News story doesn’t even mention the bill’s federalization of the insecure voting rules that is the proposed change that arouses the strongest objections from the GOP. That is a remarkable omission.
You can find a summary of those changes here, here, and here. What is in this bill should make your hair stand on end, and should outrage all Americans. Of course, much of America will probably applaud and in addition a goodly number of voters will be unaware of what’s happening.
[ADDENDUM: Actually, one lone Democrat voted against the bill, although not because of its voting rules changes.]
If it gets passed in the Senate the Dems (not dim, just evil) assume it will go the the SCOTUS where it would take at least two years to be ruled unconstitutional. After Nov. 2022 pack the House, pack the Senate, pack the Courts. And we have already seen that the Johnny Boy SCOTUS majority doesn’t really care to much about that piece of parchment and precedents. No standing for mute (SIC intentionally) latches after all.
om:
It’s even worse than that. I believe it would be found constitutional. Somewhere I have a post about that – don’t have time to find it now, though. Basically, Congress is given the power to set rules for the states as long as the rules are for federal election such as the presidency and Congress, rather than state elections.
That indeed is worse. I’d read some others who claimed it was not constitutional, but of course I don’t have links. 🙁
@neo:Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema have said they will not vote to end the filibuster. Since passing a bill like HR1 requires the ending of the filibuster, can you imagine the pressure being brought to bear on those two right now (if in fact they are serious about their defiance, that is, and it’s not just for temporary show)?
The Minority Leader surely can lend them some R’s for cloture. “Severely conservative” Senator Romney is probably available….
@neo:Basically, Congress is given the power to set rules for the states as long as the rules are for federal election such as the presidency and Congress
I see that in there for Congressional elections. Presidential elections are not mentioned probably because that is really done by the Electors and states can choose Electors any way they want. I don’t think Congress can constitutionally change how state choose Electors:
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.”
Frederick:
For Congress it seems they can do it. For presidential elections there is more scope to challenge it, but it’s not at all clear that the challenge would succeed. After all, this would not change the states’ rights to choose electors. It would change voting rules, but if a state decides to go against the voters’ wishes and choose electors differently I believe it still could (at least, theoretically).
I figured that the fraud machine we saw during this election was a work-in-progress designed for when the interstate compact about the national popular vote determining the electors for enough States to win the election got enough States signing on. Large Democrat States and cities had been setup to fraudulently throw an election always to the Dem under that compact.
For this election they had to activate the machine in large cities that weren’t ready for the amount of fraud needed and so it was noticed. Do the same in NYC or LA and it would go unseen as everybody knows NY and Cal. always get Dem electors.
Now Congress is set to enshrine the fraud forever.
“…every single Democrat in the House voted for HR1…”
One voted against (according to “The Epoch Times”):
https://www.theepochtimes.com/lone-democrat-explains-why-he-sided-with-republicans-against-hr-1_3721140.html?utm_source=news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-03-04-3
(Not that this materially affects the point of your post and in any way distracts from the elemental Democratic Party goal to destroy the country.)
Barry Meislin:
Interesting.
His reasons were not the ones I would have hoped, however.
No, they were pretty lame, actually, verging on the non sequitur…; but at least he has his constituents in mind (or claims to), which seems to becoming rarer and rarer these days on the “Left” side of the aisle.
(On the other hand why keep your constituents in mind when you can be a star in the “Transform America” Circus?)
On the third hand he may be trying desperately to protect himself by hiding behind the old “I care for my constituents” excuse—so that he won’t be tarred and feathered by his oh-so-“tolerant-of-diversity” buddies…
I was given this link. They ask for your name, email and ZIP.
I don’t know anything about them really but they say they are trying to ease people into action via “armchair activism”, for example asking people in Sinema and Manchin’s states to send them emails about HR1.
Something to consider if you want to help but don’t know how.
75 million and rising
https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/Op6CMY6
“What is in this bill should make your hair stand on end, and should outrage all Americans. Of course, much of America will probably applaud… neo
“So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause” Revenge of the Sith
Frederick,
“I don’t think Congress can constitutionally change how state choose Electors”
SCOTUS having issued its new twin standard of “standing-moot” the metric of constitutional validity has been replaced by political ‘might’.
@JimNorCal:
I’d be very cautious about giving any political campaign my name, email, ZIP in the current climate.
Do you trust them (a) to be legit and not a phishing expedition and (b) sufficiently tech-savvy to not be hacked and have their database stolen?
There is no entity of any sort for which (b) is guaranteed, but it’s fair to say that it gets worse on the Right as the Devil has most of the best hackers.
@GB:
Re your comment, I maintain that the Good Burghers of this Site are missing out on much Gab Mirth:
https://gab.com/TheZBlog/posts/105834913190111025
Sure they’re missing out on a whole lot of other reprehensible, deplorable, and some even just plain wrong stuff…. but that’s the nature of Free Speech.
This was going to pass the House. The Senate will pass it and it will be mired in legal challenges. The Red States can chose not to enforce it. The people are woke up and aware. The fraud the deep state are trying to put in place will be exposed. They know that the time frame is very limited so hence the rush. They will fail because now that law puts state legislatures at risk.
Politics are not static. Ask Gavin Newsom and Mario Coumo. Heck ask Donald Trump.
Then there is re-apportionment. You will see the real fight between the totalitarians vs. the Tech Overlords then when more seats leave blue states to red states. Republicans will have to figure out how to divvy up the gains.
I am optimistic. Determined, ready for battle and ready to act with cold anger.
Ps. Anyone believe Romney’s story about falling down after looking at his face? The forehead would be more bruised than the eye socket for about a week.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mitt-romney-got-a-black-eye-in-boston-this-weekend/ar-BB1e9VUO
I am Spartacus:
I have no trouble believing it. I fell many years ago and pretty severe black eyes were the most noticeable of my facial wounds, although I also had a very scraped (and broken) nose that would have been hidden by a COVID mask – except we didn’t wear COVID masks back then.
Neo – the black eye lasts a long time. I got hit in the forehead during a pick up football game and got a goose egg size bruise above my right eye that leaked down to my eye socket like Romney’s. It looked pretty bad for a month. Romney’s “injury” happened over the weekend and the bruise area in his upper head area is not the forehead but the temple area. Blood seepage doesn’t happen that fast. It is unlike your injury which was frontal.
So I remain suspicious but I am open to persuasion.
I am Spartacus:
I actually think Romney is probably telling the truth on this. When I fell, I hit mostly in the forehead area and nose, but that part of the forehead was certainly close to the temple. I got two black eyes (a worse one on the side where I hit) within a day, and they lasted for weeks.
HR1 is a true embarrassment, but no surprise based on our citizenry’s overall ignorance of their rights, checks and balances, the three branches of government, republicanism vs. democracy.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Well, morality and religiosity are waning, but I think Adams should have also included “non ignorant” in his list.