#shelby county election commission

[soberscientistlife]

JUST IN: Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson will likely be reappointed to their seats after they were expelled from the Tennessee House!! For Jones, his now empty seat will be filled by the Metro Nashville Council, and a majority of members already say they’ll reappoint Jones back to the seat for the duration before the special elections occurring later this year. For Pearson, The Shelby County Commission, which has a Democratic majority, is expected to do something similar.

This is GREAT NEWS! 💙

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 13, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 14, 2024

There are really two major Republican political stories dominating the news these days. The more obvious of the two is the attempt by former president Donald Trump and his followers to destroy American democracy. The other story is older, the one that led to Trump but that stands at least a bit apart from him. It is the story of a national shift away from the supply-side ideology of Reagan Republicans toward an embrace of the idea that the government should hold the playing field among all Americans level.

While these two stories are related, they are not the same.

For forty years, between 1981, when Republican Ronald Reagan took office, and 2021, when Democrat Joe Biden did, the Republicans operated under the theory that the best way to run the country was for the government to stay out of the way of market forces. The idea was that if individuals could accumulate as much money as possible, they would invest more efficiently in the economy than they could if the government regulated business or levied taxes to invest in public infrastructure and public education. The growing economy would result in higher tax revenues, enabling Americans to have both low taxes and government services, and prosperity would spread to everyone. 

But the system never worked as promised. Instead, during that 40-year period, Republicans passed massive tax cuts under Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump, and slashed regulations. A new interpretation of antitrust laws articulated by Robert Bork in the 1980s permitted dramatic consolidation of corporations, while membership in labor unions declined. The result was that as much as $50 trillion moved upward from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%. 

To keep voters on board the program that was hollowing out the middle class, Republicans emphasized culture wars, hitting hard on racism and sexism by claiming that taxes were designed by Democrats to give undeserving minorities and women government handouts and promising their evangelical voters they would overturn the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion. Those looking for tax cuts and business deregulation depended on culture warriors and white evangelicals to provide the votes to keep them in power.

But the election of Democrat Barack Obama in 2008 proved that Republican arguments were no longer effective enough to elect Republican presidents. So in 2010, with the Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission decision, the Supreme Court freed corporations to pour unlimited money into U.S. elections. That year, under Operation REDMAP, Republicans worked to dominate state legislatures so they could control redistricting under the 2010 census, yielding extreme partisan gerrymanders that gave Republicans disproportionate control. In 2013 the Supreme Court’s Shelby County v. Holder decision greenlighted the voter suppression Republicans had been working on since 1986.  

Even so, by 2016 it was not at all clear that the cultural threats, gerrymandering, and voter suppression would be enough to elect a Republican president. People forget it now because of all that has come since, but in 2016, Trump offered not only the racism and sexism Republicans had served up for decades, but also a more moderate economic program than any other Republican running that year. He called for closing the loopholes that permitted wealthy Americans to evade taxes, cheaper and better healthcare than the Democrats had provided with the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare), bringing manufacturing back to the U.S., and addressing the long backlog of necessary repairs to our roads and bridges through an infrastructure bill. 

But once in office, Trump threw economic populism overboard and resurrected the Republican emphasis on tax cuts and deregulation. His signature law was the 2017 tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy at a cost of at least $1.9 trillion over ten years. At the same time, Trump continued to feed his base with racism and sexism, and after the Unite the Right rally at Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, he increasingly turned to his white nationalist base to shore up his power. On January 6, 2021, he used that base to try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. 

Republican senators then declined to convict Trump of that attempt in his second impeachment trial, apparently hoping he would go away. Instead, their acquiescence in his behavior has enabled him to continue to push the Big Lie that he won the 2020 election. But to return to power, Trump has increasingly turned away from establishment Republicans and has instead turned the party over to its culture war and Christian nationalist foot soldiers. Now Trump has taken over the Republican National Committee itself, and his supporters threaten to turn the nation over to the culture warriors who care far more about their ideology than they do about tax cuts or deregulation.

The extremism of Trump’s base is hugely unpopular among general voters. Most significantly, Trump catered to his white evangelical base by appointing Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, and in 2022, when the court did so, the dog caught the car. Americans overwhelmingly support reproductive freedoms, and Republicans are getting hammered over the extreme abortion bans now operative in Republican-dominated states. Now Trump and a number of Republicans have tried to back away from their antiabortion positions, infuriating antiabortion activists. 

It is hard to see how the Republican Party can appeal to both Trump’s base and general voters at the same time. 

That split dramatically weakens Trump politically while he is in an increasingly precarious position personally. He will, of course, go on trial on Monday, April 15, for alleged crimes committed as he interfered in the 2016 election. At the same time, the $175 million appeals bond he posted to cover the judgment in his business fraud trial has been questioned and must be justified by April 14. The court has scheduled a hearing on the bond for April 22. And his performance at rallies and private events has been unstable. 

He seems a shaky reed on which to hang a political party, especially as his MAGA Republicans have proven unable to manage the House of Representatives and are increasingly being called out as Russian puppets for their attacks on Ukraine aid.  

Regardless of Trump’s future, though, the Reagan Era is over. 

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have quite deliberately rejected the economic ideology that concentrated wealth among the 1%. On their watch, the federal government has worked to put money into the hands of ordinary Americans rather than the very wealthy. With Democrats and on occasion a few Republicans, they have passed legislation to support families, dedicate resources to making sure people with student debt are receiving the correct terms of their loans (thus relieving significant numbers of Americans), and invested in manufacturing, infrastructure, and addressing climate change. They have also supported unions and returned to an older definition of antitrust law, suing Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple and allowing the federal government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies over drug prices.

Their system has worked. Under Biden and Harris the U.S. has had unemployment rates under 4% for 26 months, the longest streak since the 1960s. Wages for the bottom 80% of Americans have risen faster than inflation, chipping away at the huge disparity between the rich and the poor that the policies of the past 40 years have produced. 

Today, in an interview with Jamie Kitman of The Guardian, United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, who negotiated landmark new union contracts with the country’s Big Three automakers, explained that the world has changed: “Workers have realized they’ve been getting screwed for decades, and they’re fed up.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#GOP #Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #UAW #the economy #history #income inequality #culture wars #trickle down #supply side #deregulation #white nationalism #tax cuts

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Tennessee Rep. Justin Jones will reclaim his seat in the state House of Representatives with the backing of Nashville's Council, which voted to reappoint him four days after he was expelled for leading chants for gun reform with a bullhorn on the chamber floor.

Shortly after the council vote, Jones led a crowd of hundreds in a march to the Capitol, where he was sworn in, reported The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network.

In one of its first legislative actions following a shooting at a Nashville elementary school that killed six people, the House Republican supermajority ejected Jones with a 72-25 vote for defying House decorum — making him the first House member to be removed from elected office for a decorum violation.

Nashville's progressive-leaning council, responsible for filling the vacancy, overwhelmingly voted Jones back into the District 52 House seat Monday as an interim representative until a special election can be held to permanently fill the position. Jones is eligible to run for reelection.

House members called for the expulsion of Jones, D-Nashville, Rep. Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, and Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville — dubbed the "Tennessee Three" — after they approached the podium between bills during the session without being recognized, breaking chamber rules.

Pearson, who also used a bullhorn during the floor protest, was expelled in a 69-26 decision after hours of fierce debate. But the House failed by one vote to achieve the two-thirds majority needed to oust Johnson, who is white. Jones and Pearson are Black.

In Shelby County, at least one of 13 county commissioners has vowed to similarly reappoint Pearson to his House seat. The commission will meet Wednesday to consider the matter.

JONES RE-ENTERS HOUSE

Within minutes of taking the oath, Jones re-entered the House Chamber from which he had been expelled just four days before. Crowded galleries broke out in cheers as he walked to his desk on Johnson’s arm.

Protesters gathered at the legislative plaza on Monday to await the council's vote, chanting "No Justin. No peace."

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, NAACP BACK OUSTED LAWMAKERS

The expulsions drew a national outcry. President Joe Biden spoke by phone with the ousted lawmakers and Vice President Kamala Harris visited them in Nashville. The NAACP described the ousters as "horrific (but) not surprising."

"Extremist legislators, funded by corporate interests, have a history of undermining our democracy and failing to protect their constituents – especially in the South," the NAACP said in a statement.

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that Republicans may think they won in Tennessee, "but their fascism is only further radicalizing and awakening an earthquake of young people, both in the South and across the nation."

WHY WERE TENNESSEE DEMOCRATS BEING EXPELLED?

Jones, Pearson and, Johnson dubbed the "Tennessee Three," faced expulsion for protesting over gun reform after three students and three staff members of The Covenant School were killed in a shooting in the school on March 27. Three days later, Jones and Pearson approached the House podium without being recognized, a breach of chamber rules. They led protesters in the galleries in several chants calling for gun reform.

"Their actions are and will always be unacceptable, and they break several rules of decorum and procedure on the House floor," Sexton claimed days later in a social media post. "Their actions and beliefs that they could be arrested on the House floor were an effort, unfortunately, to make themselves the victims."

Johnson has suggested race was likely a factor on why Jones and Pearson were ousted.

“I don’t think there’s a question how those two young, Black men were spoken to was in a different manner than the way I was spoken to," she said.

But GOP leaders have said Johnson's actions were less egregious – she was a less-active participant and had not used a megaphone. They said the expulsions had nothing to do with race but were necessary to avoid setting a precedent that lawmakers’ disruptions of House proceedings would be tolerated.

#us politics #news #usa today #tennessee #the tennessean #tennessee house of representatives #2023 #Democrats #tennessee republicans #gun control #gun rights #gun violence #protests #Justin Jones #covenant school shooting #Justin Pearson #Gloria Johnson #tennessee three #tweet #@angele_latham #Vice President Kamala Harris #president joe biden #Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez #NAACP #Cameron Sexton

[ausetkmt]

Expelled Tennessee lawmakers both seeking seats again | AP News

Tennessee lawmakers expelled

Expelled Tennessee lawmakers both seeking seats again

By JONATHAN MATTIS

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Two former Black Democratic lawmakers who were expelled by Republican colleagues in Tennessee say they want to be reappointed, then elected back to their seats, following their ouster for a protest on the House floor urging passage of gun-control measures in the wake of a deadly school shooting.

Nashville’s metro council is likely to reappoint Justin Jones to the seat during a specially called Monday meeting. Mickell Lowery, the chairman of the Shelby County Commission, said in a statement Sunday that the panel will consider at a meeting Wednesday whether to reappoint Justin Pearson, who is from Memphis, to his seat.

Lowery said he understands the need to respond to those who “transgressed the rules” of the state House of Representatives.

“However, I believe the expulsion of State Representative Justin Pearson was conducted in a hasty manner without consideration of other corrective action methods. I also believe that the ramifications for our great State are still yet to be seen,” he said.

[tomorrowusa]

A Tennessee legislature variant of musical chairs which Republicans won’t win.

The anti-freedom MAGA GOP in the Tennessee House of Representatives expelled black Democrats Justin Jones and Justin Pearson this week. But the two Justins may be back in the chamber soon.

Carolyn Fiddler at Daily Kos explains what happens now that there are two legislative vacancies.

Now that there are two vacancies in the House, special elections will be scheduled to fill them within 100-107 days; local county officials may appoint interim House members.

The expelled members are both expected to be reappointed and to re-run for their seats in the special elections.

Real talk: Both of these men are locks to win back their seats, given the heavy Dem lean of their districts.

One feature of gerrymandering is that you pack as many opposition voters into as few districts as possible. So GOP gerrymanderers created districts for Justin Jones and Justin Pearson which are heavily packed with Democrats. The chances of Jones and Pearson losing a special election are approximately zero.

But the duo could be back even before special elections take place. CNN describes how. 

In the time between when a seat becomes vacant and when a special election can be held, “the legislative body of the replaced legislator’s county of residence at the time of his or her election may elect an interim successor,” the state Constitution says.  

In Jones’ case, the local legislative body is the Metropolitan Council of Davidson County in Nashville. The council has scheduled a special meeting on Monday afternoon to address the vacancy of the District 52 seat and possibly vote on an interim successor.  

Nashville Mayor John Cooper has expressed his support for Jones and said on Twitter he believes the council will send him “right back to continue serving his constituents.”  

Jones told CNN’s Don Lemon on Friday that if he’s appointed by the council, he will serve. “I have no regrets. I will continue to stand up for my constituents,” he said.  

For Pearson’s District 86 seat, the local legislative body is the Shelby County Board of Commissioners in Memphis.  

Commission chairman Mickell Lowery plans to call a special meeting regarding Pearson’s expulsion, CNN affiliate WMC reported, but the timing of the meeting isn’t yet known.  

Pearson said he hopes to “get reappointed to serve in the state legislature,” and referring to the Shelby County commissioners, he said, “A lot of them, I know, are upset about the anti-democratic behavior of this White supremacist-led state legislature.” 

So all the Tennessee GOP managed to do was to get a lot of voters angry while putting on international display a lot of blatant racism. And in practical terms, Pearson and Jones will be back anyway. In the process, the Trumpist Tennessee House GOP elevated Pearson and Jones to the status of national figures.

In strictly political terms, the party whose leader once proclaimed himself to be a “stable genius” has created yet another pointless fiasco which costs them credibility and probably votes.

You can’t begin preparation for a political campaign too early. So I made these signs for the upcoming re-election campaigns for the two Justins.

BTW: Carolyn Fiddler’s “This Week in Statehouse Action” posts at Daily Kos are informative and idiosyncratic. They are not as weekly as they once were but are always worthwhile reads for those wanting to keep up with state legislatures. She also posts at Substack. 

#tennessee #tennessee legislature #tennessee house of representatives #fiasco #expulsion of two black democrats #justin pearson #justin jones #tn house district 52 #tn house district 86 #racism #tennessee gop #republicans #maga zombies #carolyn fiddler

[kp777]

By Prem Thakker

The New Republic

April 7, 2023

From the article:

[....]

Meanwhile, in Shelby County, home to Memphis, the county commission is considering reappointing Pearson to his seat. Chairman Mickell Lowery had said last week that if Pearson were expelled, he would call a special meeting to vote on an interim representative and inquire whether Pearson could be legally reappointed. The county’s assistant attorney told The Commercial Appeal that she saw no reason why he couldn’t. The 13-person commission has a nine-member Democratic supermajority, and one Democrat, Britney Thornton, has already said she supports the move.

“As a fellow millennial elected to serve, I believe it’s crucial for my generation to be represented,” Thornton told The Commercial Appeal. “I stand with Representative Pearson and his fellow colleagues—all of whom are unfairly being mislabeled and othered. Wholeheartedly will I support his reappointment.”

Read more.

#memphis county commission #justin pearson #tennessee state house

[carsonjonesfiance]

In Alabama, state-wide and county-level referendums are presented to public vote as amendments the State Constitution of 1901

The 10 amendments up for vote tomorrow, November 8th, 2022 are:

Amendment to allow judges to deny bail to suspects arrested for violent crime. This is a complicated situation as the laws are already in place for pre-trial determination of bail eligibility (which must be decided within 48 hours) but without the amendment, the laws cannot go into effect. This one is mostly formality but important to understand the context.

Amendment to allow funds to be allocated by cities and counties for expansion broadband internet. County and municipal governments are constitutionally prohibited from giving money to private companies by Section 94, so exception must be granted by amendment. This amendment

Amendment to the process of gubernatorial death sentence commutation. Requires the victims family and the AG to be notified before a sentence is commuted.

Amendment stating that all election laws passed within a general election year must take effect at least 6 months prior to the election. This one's a little controversial as one could argue that the frequency of American elections makes this a significant cut to the window of time an election law can be passed. There's also the potential that a dissenter to a future law might delay proceedings just past the deadline for it to apply that year. Proponents say it would allow election boards enough time to prepare without sudden changes.

A linguistic update to the constitution regarding the duties of Probate judges. No practical effect.

Amendment to the process by which funds are allocated to public capital improvements.

Another amendment about city and county financial authority this one designed to clarify that public works are an exception to the previously mentioned Section 94 and what qualifies as a public work.

Only applicable to Shelby County: puts privately owned sewage companies under regulation of the Alabama Public Service Commission

Only applicable to Jefferson and Tuscaloosa counties: puts the privately owned sewage system of Lake View, Alabama under regulation by the APSC

Amendment approving the recompilation of the Alabama State Constitution, which infamously has 977 amendments, several redundancies, (the reason for proposed Amendment 7), and a lot of outdated language (see proposed Amendment 5)

[checkthreetimes]

Justin Pearson — The Tennessee Lawmaker Who Fought Back Against Expulsion

Justin Pearson is a state representative from Memphis, Tennessee, who made national headlines when he was expelled from the Republican-led House of Representatives for participating in a gun control protest on the House floor. Pearson, along with another black Democrat, Justin Jones, was removed by a majority vote on April 6, 2023, after they joined a group of activists who demanded action on gun violence following a mass shooting at a Nashville elementary school that killed six people.

Pearson and Jones denounced their expulsion as an act of racism and voter suppression, and received support from prominent Democrats such as President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. They also filed a lawsuit against the House speaker and other Republican leaders, alleging that they violated their constitutional rights and the Voting Rights Act.

A week after their expulsion, Pearson and Jones were reinstated to their seats by unanimous votes of their local commissions in Memphis and Nashville. Pearson celebrated his return with hundreds of supporters who marched with him to the Shelby County Board of Commissioners meeting on April 13. He delivered a fiery speech outside the Capitol building, where he vowed to continue fighting for justice and equality.

Pearson is a 28-year-old activist and lawyer who was first elected to the House in 2020. He represents the 86th district, which covers parts of Memphis. He is a graduate of Morehouse College and Harvard Law School, and has been involved in various social movements, such as Black Lives Matter and Fight for $15. He is also the founder and executive director of The Campaign for School Equity, a nonprofit organization that advocates for educational opportunities for students of color.

Pearson has been described as a rising star in the Democratic Party and a voice for the marginalized communities in Tennessee. He has sponsored bills on criminal justice reform, voting rights, health care access, and environmental justice. He has also been vocal about the need for more diversity and inclusion in the state legislature, where only 17 out of 99 representatives are black.

[dnaamericaapp]

The Other Expelled Black Lawmaker Justin Pearson To Return To Tennessee House

Less than a week after being expelled, the Shelby County Board of Commissioners has reappointed Justin J. Pearson to his seat representing Tennessee House District 86.

Shelby County is home to Memphis, the area Pearson represents. Wednesday, in a 7-0 vote, the board decided to reinstate Pearson while six of the 13 members, including Republicans, were absent from the meeting.

While talking with reporters after the vote, Pearson says he will head to the Capitol in Nashville Wednesday night to be in place for Thursday's House session.

Chairman Mickell M. Lowery of the commission, who put forth the resolution to reinstate Pearson, said he had heard from people across the country who disagree with the expulsion.

"I think that it's important that the people of District 86 are represented by the person that they voted overwhelming to have in the office," he said in an interview.

Wednesday afternoon, Pearson led a march from from the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis to the Shelby County Commission building telling the rally-goers to "show me what Democracy looks like."

"This is the Democracy that is going to transform a broken nation and a broken state into the place that God calls for it to be," he said. "This is the Democracy that is going to lift up the victims of gun violence instead of supporting the NRA and the gun lobbyists."

Pearson and Jones are returning to the legislature on an interim basis, but they can both run in a special election to regain the seat until the next general election, in 2024.

Pearson and Jones were kicked out of the House on April 6. Jones was reinstated to his seat on Monday. -(source: npr)

Stay tuned…

DNA America

“it’s what we know, not what you want us to believe.”

#dna #dnaamerica #news #politics

#dna #dnaamerica #news #politics

[trascapades]

✊🏿#ArtIsAWeapon

👏🏿@brotherjones_

#NoJustinsNoPeace

Reposted from @nowthispolitics With a unanimous vote on Monday, the Metro Nashville Council agreed to reinstate Justin Jones to the Tennessee House of Representatives.

The move came just days after the state's Republican supermajority expelled him from the same body, ostensibly over his participation in a gun violence protest at the state Capitol following the March 27 mass shooting at at The Covenant School.

The second state rep who was ousted by the GOP, Justin Pearson [@justinjpearson], could also be reappointed to the legislature as soon as this Wednesday, during a meeting of the Shelby County Commission. However, even if both representatives are reappointed, they will have to run for their seats again in a special election later this year.

This is a developing story.

📷 @gettyimages

#justinjones #tennessee #politics #breakingnews #justinpearson #GunControl #SchoolShootings #MassShootings #WhiteSupremacy

[cozyaliensuperstar7]

#Repost @bcgmag

——

JUST IN: Democratic Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson will likely be reappointed to their seats after they were expelled from the Tennessee House!!

For Jones, his now empty seat will be filled by the Metro Nashville Council, and a majority of members already say they’ll reappoint Jones back to the seat for the duration before the special elections occurring later this year.

For Pearson, The Shelby County Commission, which has a Democratic majority, is expected to do something similar.

This is GREAT NEWS! 💙

#rep. justin jones #rep. justin pearson

[don-lichterman]

Shelby County Commission Approves New Voting System Funding | Tennessee News

Shelby County Commission Approves New Voting System Funding | Tennessee News

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Commissioners in Tennessee‘s most populous county have approved $5.8 million for a new voting system for the November general election that would replace aging machines and servers currently available. News outlets reported that the Shelby County Commission voted 9-4 on Monday to fund a new system Election Administrator Linda Phillips said would let voters choose between…

View On WordPress

#approves #Associated Press #Commission #County #Funding #News #Shelby #system #Tennessee #Tennessee News #voting

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 18, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

DEC 18, 2023

Reporters at ProPublica have uncovered yet more news about the right-wing network of wealthy donors who have supported Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. According to Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan, Alex Mierjeski, and Brett Murphy, in January 2000, on a plane flight home from a conservative conference, Thomas complained to Representative Cliff Stearns (R-FL) about his salary. He warned that if lawmakers didn’t give Supreme Court justices a pay raise, “one or more justices will leave soon.”

After the trip, Stearns wrote to Thomas that he agreed “it is worth a lot to Americans to have the constitution properly interpreted.” Stearns immediately set out to pass legislation separating the salaries of Supreme Court justices from the rest of the judiciary, and then raising pay for the Supreme Court justices alone. But the top administrative official of the judiciary, L. Ralph Mecham, in June 2000 wrote to then–chief justice William Rehnquist to suggest that this was the wrong approach for this “delicate matter.”

“From a tactical point of view,” Mecham wrote, “it will not take the Democrats and liberals in Congress very long to figure out that the prime beneficiaries who might otherwise leave the court presumably are Justices Thomas and Scalia. The Democrats might be perfectly happy to have them leave and would see little incentive to act on separate legislation devoted solely to Supreme Court justices if the apparent purpose is to keep Justices Scalia and Thomas on the Court. Moreover, the fact that Representative Stearns is a conservative Republican may not help dissuade the Democrats and liberals from this view.”

Mecham distinguished between Republicans he thought of as “liberals,” and those, presumably like himself, Rehnquist, Thomas, and Scalia, who were pushing “to have the constitution properly interpreted.” By this, he meant those who wanted the concept of “originalism” to undermine the federal government’s regulation of business, provision of a basic social safety net, promotion of infrastructure, and protection of civil rights, principles on which “liberal” Republicans and Democrats agreed.

Although the extremist faction has now captured the Republican Party, as late as 2000 there were enough “liberals” in the Republican Party that members of the extremist faction worried they could not enact their chosen program. So they must have the Supreme Court. Stearns told the ProPublica reporters that Thomas’s “importance as a conservative [as they called themselves] was paramount…. We wanted to make sure he felt comfortable in his job and was being paid properly.” 

About this time, wealthy Republican donors began to provide Thomas and his wife Ginni with expensive vacations and gifts. Ginni went to work for the Heritage Foundation, making a salary in the low six figures. Yale law school professor George Priest, who has joined Thomas and billionaire donor Harlan Crow on vacation, says that Crow “views Thomas as a Supreme Court justice as having a limited salary. So he provides benefits for him.”

That is, a Republican billionaire donor “provides benefits” for a Supreme Court justice who voted in favor of—among other things—the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision that reversed campaign finance restrictions in place for over 100 years, permitting corporations and outside groups to spend unlimited funds on elections, and the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision that gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act protecting minority voting rights in the United States. 

The determination of wealthy Republicans to control our political system for their own economic benefit is now matched on the other side of the political equation by religious voters hellbent on overthrowing democracy to impose their religious will on the American majority.  

After voters in Republican-dominated states have tried to protect the right to abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the constitutional right to abortion, antiabortion forces are trying to stop voters from having the right to decide the matter. They are trying to prevent voters from signing petitions to put such measures on ballots. 

Steven Aden, the chief legal officer of the antiabortion group Americans United for Life, told Alice Miranda Ollstein and Megan Messerly of Politico: “Because we believe that abortion is truly about the right to life of human individuals in the womb, we don’t believe those rights should be subjected to majority vote.”

Breaking faith in democracy has led us to a place where the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination is openly praising dictators, trying to join the United States into a rising global authoritarian movement based in the idea that democracy, with its focus on equal rights, is destroying traditional society by getting rid of patriarchy, racial hierarchies, and heteronormative society.  A Fox News poll released over the weekend showed that 3 in 10 Republicans agreed that “things in the U.S. are so far off track that we need a president willing to break some rules and laws to set things right.”

Today, Pope Francis undermined that argument when he said in a landmark ruling that Roman Catholic priests can bless same-sex couples. While this is not the same as the sacrament of heterosexual marriage, the Vatican’s doctrinal office said this is a sign that God welcomes everyone. 

Pope Francis has tended to ignore the rise of right-wing extremism in the U.S. church but now appears to be defending his message that the church should be tolerant and welcoming in the face of the growing intersection of religion and authoritarianism. Last month, he relieved from duty Bishop Joseph H. Strickland of Tyler, Texas, who has vocally supported right-wing politics and openly revolted against the Pope’s positions. 

There is a strong economic reason to reinforce the idea of democracy, as well. After forty years in which a minority worked to push tax cuts and deregulation with the argument that they would promote investment in the economy, the Biden administration quite deliberately has used the government not to prop up the “supply side,” but rather to bolster the “demand side.” Despite the history that showed such a system worked, economists and pundits warned that Biden’s policies would dump the U.S. into a terrible recession. 

The 2023 numbers are in, and they show exactly what the U.S. Treasury under Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen predicted: inflation has dropped significantly, unemployment is at a low 3.7%, the economy grew at an astonishing 4.9% in the last quarter, and the stock and financial markets are at or near all-time highs. 

The economic news is tangible proof that a government that serves the majority, rather than a wealthy few, works.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#letters from an american #heather cox richardson #SCOTUS #Corrupt SCOTUS #a bought court #income inequality

[inthecityofgoodabode]

The City: The Post-Election Post

Trump may have won Tennessee but The City Of Good Abode & the county where it resides maintained their status as blue bastions of freedom: 

Here are the combined unofficial elections results from the Shelby County Election Commission:  

Below is a graphic from the Associated Press showing the break down of the results of the presidential election results in Tennessee overall. Look at all those third party candidates. People say following politics is boring but I remember when a vampire ran for president. 

Kanye West received 10,216 votes in Tennessee. 

Word to the wise, if your significant other voted for Kanye West, drop them then run fast & far because you have all the evidence you’ll ever need that their decision making is unreliable & unsound:  

#the city of good abode #memphis #memphis politics #tennessee politics #Northern Mockingbird #kanye west #2020 presidential election #shelby county election commission #associated press #democrat #liberal independent #social liberal #life in memphis #relationship advice

[yourreddancer]

Heather Cox Richardson

January 12, 2022 (Wednesday)

The struggle between the Trump-backed forces of authoritarianism and those of us defending democracy is coming down to the fight over whether the Democrats can get the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act through the Senate. 

It’s worth reading what’s actually in the bills because, to my mind, it is bananas that they are in any way controversial. The Freedom to Vote Act is a trimmed version of the For the People Act the House passed at the beginning of this congressional session. It establishes a baseline for access to the ballot across all states. That baseline includes at least two weeks of early voting for any town of more than 3000 people, including on nights and weekends, for at least 10 hours a day. It permits people to vote by mail, or to drop their ballots into either a polling place or a drop box, and guarantees those votes will be counted so long as they are postmarked on or before Election Day and arrive at the polling place within a week. It makes Election Day a holiday. It provides uniform standards for voter IDs in states that require them. 

The Freedom to Vote Act cracks down on voter suppression. It makes it a federal crime to lie to voters in order to deter them from voting (distributing official-looking flyers with the wrong dates for an election or locations of a polling place, for example), and it increases the penalties for voter intimidation. It restores federal voting rights for people who have served time in jail, creating a uniform system out of the current patchwork one.

It requires states to guarantee that no one has to wait more than 30 minutes to vote.Using measures already in place in a number of states, the Freedom to Vote Act provides uniform voter registration rules. It establishes automatic voter registration at state Departments of Motor Vehicles, permits same-day voter registration, allows online voter registration, and protects voters from the purges that have plagued voting registrations for decades now, requiring that voters be notified if they are dropped from the rolls and given information on how to get back on them. The Freedom to Vote Act bans partisan gerrymandering.The Freedom to Vote Act requires any entity that spends more than $10,000 in an election to disclose all its major donors, thus cleaning up dark money in politics. It requires all advertisements to identify who is paying for them. It makes it harder for political action committees (PACs) to coordinate with candidates, and it beefs up the power of the Federal Election Commission that ensures candidates run their campaigns legally. 

The Freedom to Vote Act also addresses the laws Republican-dominated states have passed in the last year to guarantee that Republicans win future elections. It protects local election officers from intimidation and firing for partisan purposes. It expands penalties for tampering with ballots after an election (as happened in Maricopa County, Arizona, where the Cyber Ninjas investigating the results did not use standard protection for them and have been unable to produce documents for a freedom of information lawsuit, leading to fines of $50,000 a day and the company’s dissolution). If someone does tamper with the results or refuses to certify them, voters can sue.  

The act also prevents attempts to overturn elections by requiring audits after elections, making sure those audits have clearly defined rules and procedures. And it prohibits voting machines that don’t leave a paper record. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA) takes on issues of discrimination in voting by updating and restoring the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) that the Supreme Court gutted in 2013 and 2021. The VRA required that states with a history of discrimination in voting get the Department of Justice to approve any changes they wanted to make in their voting laws before they went into effect, and in the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, the Supreme Court struck that requirement down, in part because the justices felt the formula in the law was outdated.

The VRAA provides a new, modern formula for determining which states need preapproval, based on how many voting rights violations they’ve had in the past 25 years. After ten years without violations, they will no longer need preclearance. It also establishes some practices that must always be cleared, such as getting rid of ballots printed in different languages (as required in the U.S. since 1975). 

The VRAA also restores the ability of voters to sue if their rights are violated, something the 2021 Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee decision makes difficult. The VRAA directly addresses the ability of Indigenous Americans, who face unique voting problems, to vote. It requires at least one polling place on tribal lands, for example, and requires states to accept tribal or federal IDs. That’s it. It is off-the-charts astonishing that no Republicans are willing to entertain these common-sense measures, especially since there are in the Senate a number of Republicans who voted in 2006 to reauthorize the 1965 Voting Rights Act the VRAA is designed to restore.  

McConnell today revealed his discomfort with President Joe Biden’s speech yesterday at the Atlanta University Center Consortium, when Biden pointed out that “[h]istory has never been kind to those who have sided with voter suppression over voters’ rights. And it will be even less kind for those who side with election subversion.” Biden asked Republican senators to choose between our history’s advocates of voting rights and those who opposed such rights. He asked: “Do you want to be…on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor?  Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?

Today, McConnell, who never complained about the intemperate speeches of former president Donald Trump, said Biden’s speech revealed him to be "profoundly, profoundly unpresidential."The voting rights measures appear to have the support of the Senate Democrats, but because of the Senate filibuster, which makes it possible for senators to block any measure unless a supermajority of 60 senators are willing to vote for it, voting rights cannot pass unless Democrats are willing to figure out a way to bypass the filibuster. Two Democratic senators—Krysten Sinema (D-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV)—are currently unwilling to do that. 

Nine Democratic senators eager to pass this measure met with Sinema for two and a half hours last night and for another hour with Manchin this morning in an attempt to get them to a place where they are willing to change the rules of the Senate filibuster to protect our right to vote. They have not yet found a solution.

This evening, Senate Majority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced that he would bring voting rights legislation to the Senate floor for debate—which Republicans have rejected—by avoiding a Republican filibuster through a complicated workaround. When the House and Senate disagree on a bill (which is almost always), they send it back and forth with revisions until they reach a final version. According to Democracy Docket, after it has gone back and forth three times, a motion to proceed on it cannot be filibustered. So, Democrats in the House are going to take a bill that has already hit the three-trip mark and substitute for that bill the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. They’ll pass the combined bill and send it to the Senate, where debate over it can’t be filibustered.

And so, Republican senators will have to explain to the people why they oppose what appear to be common-sense voting rules.

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Trumpthuglikkkons know they can never win elections because their agenda is fascist.  The only way they can win is to suppress voting. McConnell, that slimeball, needs to have the recording of Trump talking about grabbing women's genitals played, and then asked why he didn't call that out as "profoundly unpresidential". Or the inciting of the 1/6 insurrection as "profoundly unpresidential". HYPOCRITES to the max!

[glitterypeanutmugnickel]

June 8, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

Jun 9

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After Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced this weekend that he would not support either the For the People voting act or an attempt to break the filibuster for a voting measure, but would work to get bipartisan agreement on the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, today Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell pulled the rug out from under him.

McConnell said today that restoring the provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that protect minority voting would give too much power to the federal government and that such protection was unnecessary anyway. “The Supreme Court concluded that conditions that existed in 1965 no longer existed,” McConnell said. “So there’s no threat to the voting rights law. It’s against the law to discriminate in voting on the basis of race already. And so I think it’s unnecessary.”

To say there is no threat to the voting rights law is delusional. The reality is that In 2013, within 24 hours of the Supreme Court’s Shelby County v. Holder decision ending the Justice Department’s oversight of certain states’ voting requirements, Texas enacted a strict voter ID law. Other states quickly followed suit. And now, in the wake of the 2020 election, Republican-dominated state legislatures across the country are drastically curtailing voting access.

Today, more than 300 “advocacy, civic, faith and labor groups representing nearly 2.5 million Americans from 43 states and the District of Columbia” asked the president and vice president to fight for the For the People Act. “[F]air representation and voter access in America are under direct attack,” the letter read. “We are extremely worried about the very survival of our democracy. We ask that you place the urgent passage of this bill at the top of your administration's agenda.”

This afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that the Senate will still vote on the For the People Act, as scheduled, in late June. He says he is open to changes to the measure if they will help get Manchin on board. But he is going to force senators to go on record for or against voting rights.

Gone are the days when McConnell could protect his caucus from unpopular votes simply by refusing to bring anything to a vote. Republicans have had to vote on the bipartisan, independent January 6 commission, which was popular, and voted to go before the country as a party protecting insurrection. Now they will have to take a stand on other popular measures like voting rights and, if the Senate breaks up the bill, getting big money out of politics, which is even more popular, and so on.

Today, Republicans filibustered a measure designed to prohibit discrimination in pay based on sex. The bill would have limited pay differentials to things like education, training, and experience, and would have prohibited employers from retaliating against workers who compared their salaries. Blaming the Democrats for advancing what he calls “partisan” bills, McConnell pointed to the equal pay act as a sign that the "era of bipartisanship is over.”

In fact, we had an illustration of what “bipartisanship” means in today’s Senate when the Senate Rules and Administration and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees that investigated the January 6 insurrection today produced a bipartisan report on the events of that day. Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee chair Gary Peters (D-MI) told reporters: “There were significant, widespread and unacceptable breakdowns in the intelligence gathering. . . . The failure to adequately assess the threat of violence on that day contributed significantly to the breach of the Capitol… The attack was, quite frankly, planned in plain sight.”

To gain bipartisan support, the report focused on communications failures. It did not explore the roles of government officials, including former president Trump, in the January 6 crisis, and it did not use the word “insurrection” apart from quotations of witness testimony. The result was a curiously sanitized rendition of the events of January. Representative Ted Lieu (D-CA) commented: "January 6th didn't happen because there were security failures, it happened because there was a violent mob that attacked the Capitol, and we need to know why that happened."

McConnell’s comment about the end of bipartisanship was a sweeping declaration that he would lead Republicans in opposing the Democratic program, and that includes the American Jobs Act, the extensive infrastructure bill that President Biden initially pegged at $2.3 trillion. Biden has been negotiating with Republicans, led by Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, on the measure, but today called it quits after they refused to raise their offer more than $150 billion despite his offer to cut more than $1 trillion off his initial ask. Republicans blamed Biden for ending the talks.

Biden has not, in fact, ended the talks, though: he has handed them to a different group of lawmakers who have shown a willingness to work across the aisle. That group includes Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema (D-AZ), who might be persuaded to be more reliable Democratic votes if they have a bigger hand in the infrastructure bill. If this group does manage to hammer out a bipartisan infrastructure package, a vote on it could undercut McConnell’s ability to hold his caucus in opposition to the Democrats.

The biggest sticking point in negotiations is that Democrats want to fund much of the American Jobs Act by increasing corporate taxes from the lows of the 2017 tax cuts (although not to the level they were before those cuts), while Republicans are adamant they will not sign on to any such increases.

The Republican position took a hit this morning, when ProPublica published an investigation based on leaked tax documents. It revealed that America’s 25 richest people—some with more than $100 billion in wealth—pay remarkably little in federal income taxes…sometimes nothing. They can avoid taxes through various accounting methods, while ordinary Americans pay full fare.

Also this morning, Biden tweeted: “I’m working hard to find common ground with Republicans when it comes to the American Jobs Plan, but I refuse to raise taxes on Americans making under $400,000 a year to pay for it. It’s long past time for the wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share.”