Legitimacy at Stake

23 June 2021

 

Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

GOP Filibusters Voting Rights Bill

 

The Senate voted last night on bringing a voting rights bill to the floor for debate. The party line vote resulted in a 50-50 tie, which usually would be broken by the Vice President of the United States in her capacity as President of the Senate. However, this particular vote required 60 yeas to succeed. The GOP filibuster has halted this measure without debate. With the GOP attacking voting rights at the state level, a federal law is the only counter-measure that will work. The issue now is whether the Democrats are willing to let the GOP tilt the electoral playing field in their favor for a decade or two.

The vote as illustrative of one basic truth. There are no moderates on the Republican side when it comes to fair elections. The Republicans lack faith that their message will carry a majority of the vote, so they are working to corrupt the process so that a majority is unnecessary. Disqualifying voters to make the electorate more favorable to them is the strategy they have adopted.

This journal believes that voter ID laws that form the core of the GOP approach need not be problematic. The state should provide such ID to any resident who wants one free of charge. That ID should be registered in a data base that election workers can access at the polling place. There is nothing inherently wrong with making sure a voter is registered and is voting at the right precinct. What is wrong is using such a verification system to create obstacles to voting.

Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with purging the voter rolls from time to time. It is merely an updating of a database to make the data more useful. Purging the rolls, however, must not be done in such a way as to give a political party or movement an advantage. Anyone who voted in one of the last three presidential and gubernatorial elections should not be purged at all. Anyone who failed to do so, must be contacted by the state either by mail or in person to inform them of a possible removal from the electoral rolls, after the next election. The voter must be given time to assert the right to be registered where he or she lives, and the onus should be on the state to prove the removal would fair. The only reasons for removal would be death, residency outside the jurisdiction in question or prison where a judge has specifically denied the convict the ballot.

What the GOP is doing in Texas, Georgia and Florida, to name the three worst offenders, goes far beyond these measures. When certain state IDs are accepted (gun permits for instance) but not others (state university ID), there is a definite picking and choosing of the electorate going on. Simply put, the federal government must set minimum standards for federal elections, which the 14th and 15th Amendments permit.

The way forward is simple. The filibuster is in the way, and it needs to be removed. It has already been withdrawn by the Republican Party for things like approving judges, and by both sides for budget reconciliation. A similar carve out for voting rights would not destroy the uniqueness of the Senate (the value of which this journal doubts).

Otherwise, the fate of American democracy is going to hinge on what a Trumpist Republican Party chooses to do where it can get away with it. The demographics ensure that New York and California stay with the Democrats, but Texas and Florida are going to tilt less and less to the GOP.

The argument comes down to what democracy is for. Those who seek a particular outcome are missing the entire point. Good government is not guaranteed by free and fair elections. That is not the purpose. Winning an election bestows legitimacy, an alternative to the divine right of kings. When carving up an electorate to ensure a particular outcome, one winds up undermining the legitimacy of the winner. When the government is not perceived to be legitimate, the last of the guardrails is gone.


© Copyright 2021 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.


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