The Sweep: Biden Pushes for Voting Reform

Plus: Has Donald Trump backed another losing candidate in Alabama?

By , and
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Campaign Quick Hits

Thune and RoJo Decide Retirement Is a No-Go: Republican Sens. John Thune of South Dakota and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin both  said over the weekend that they will run for reelection in 2022. The announcements came as a relief to GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is hoping to retake the upper chamber this fall. This is good news for Republicans not only because it means two fewer open seats to defend—always more expensive and time consuming than defending an incumbent—but it is also  a pretty good sign that even internally Republicans are feeling bullish about their chances of taking back the Senate. But Republicans still have to win a Democrat-held seat in New Hampshire, Georgia, Arizona, or Nevada and hold onto all of their current seats in battleground states like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. 

Worth the Read: Michael Kruse over at Politico had an intriguing longform piece, “Does John Katko Have the Secret to Thwarting Trump?” Not thwarting Trumpism, mind you, which isn’t so much a secret as an impossibility it would seem. But how is it that Katko—one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach the former president—may be the only one who gets reelected. 

Politically, Katko is an enigma wrapped in a mystery riding on top of a unicorn:

Katko wasn’t just one of the 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump — he was the first to announce his intent…He was one of 13 Republicans to vote for Joe Biden’s $550 billion infrastructure bill, one of 11 to vote to censure incendiary Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of five to vote for the pro-union PRO Act and one of three to vote for additional protections for LGBTQ Americans in the Equality Act — all while also being a firm no on Democratic priorities like voting rights, abortion rights and Biden’s Build Back Better Act. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    “ But it’s unclear if anyone is really on the side of federalism as a guiding principle anymore.”

    I am. I am on the side of federalism as a guiding principle. (There are dozens of us!)

    Ha, RoJo!

    “ This is good news for Republicans”

    Is it, though? RoJo (your term, not mine) recently said Listerine cured COVID…

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  2. Avatar photo
    NashLives

    I appreciate the attempt to engage with political science research here, however, the literature on the effects of voter ID on turnout is not entirely well captured by your description. Two things can be true simultaneously (as Grimmer and Yoder 2021 building on Cantoni and Pons 2019 argue): 1) The OVERALL effect of voter ID laws on turnout is likely very small, maybe entirely negligible in some contexts (to be clear, this is the effect of voter ID laws on both the subpopulations with & without voter ID), and, 2) The effect of voter ID laws on turnout ONLY on the small subpopulation without ID is (as best we can tell with in many cases difficult data) real, significant, and may even persist after the repeal of voter ID restrictions in some cases. Now the effect sizes here aren't huge, we're only talking about a few percentage points. But of course many elections are often decided by a few percentage points. For those interested: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/political-science-research-and-methods/article/durable-differential-deterrent-effects-of-strict-photo-identification-laws/E97B3308FDA75972A6374EDCD26333BF

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  3. Avatar photo
    Everett Zabriskie

    I hope there are more advocates for the principle of federalism than Sarah implies. The thread here on the Alabama story illustrates why I hope that. I live in New Jersey so we hear about Pharma and Media (AT&T et.al.) not defense contractors. It is fun to read the detail in these comments, but that's because I had a few quiet moments with nothing else pressing. If I did not know what I learned here today, it would not change my life at all. But without federalism, if we have DC treating the whole country as one tribe, the fights we are having now will be sandbox in comparison. And perhaps not containable.

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  4. Joe Bruno

    To show what a two-faced creep Joe Biden really is, in his voter’s right speech in Georgia, he mentioned the name of noted racist, the former Alabama Democratic Governor George Wallace in a derogatory manner even though Wallace had praised Biden decades ago. And Biden, to this day, has never renounced that praise.

    Also, Biden failed to mention that he gave the eulogy at the funeral of Senator Rober Byrd, who had been an “exalted cyclops” in the KKK.

    So, I guess Joe Biden is fine with racists, as long as they can get him votes.

    Disgraceful.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Kmregan7

      Senator Byrd renounced his racism, if I remember correctly. And Wallace should be spoken of in a derogatory manner even if he was nice enough to the white guy.

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      1. Joe Bruno

        So you believe a man with a long history of racism who renounces his racism for political purposes? I have a condo in Afghanistan you might be interested in buying.

        As for Wallace, in the 1980s, Biden actually said that George Wallace was a major player in the Democratic party. And he didn't say this in a derogatory manner. This was after Wallace had praised Biden years before.

        Birds of the feather.

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        1. Gerald Cuesta

          Yes all the black Americans who helped put Biden over the top voted for a racist, yes, of course. The right is always digging up the Byrd crap as a sign of hypocrisy while those same people actively vote for current new breed racists and scum like trump. Got it. Sheesh. Try again.

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          1. Joe Bruno

            So you are all right with Biden associating and approving racists because you think Trump is a racist. Trump may be a racist or maybe not . But That’s got nothing to do with Joe Biden. However you are right Donald Trump is not a very nice guy. I know from personal experience.

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  5. Joe Bruno

    Let me get this straight.

    Stacey Abrams, the Democrats’ presumptive gubernatorial nominee in Georgia, had a scheduling conflict with the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES???

    Biden was appearing in her home state of Georgia, but Abrams found it more important to speak at a Kiwanttes meeting rather than join her President on the stage to push a voting reform bill.

    If that’s not a smack in Biden’s face, I don’t know what is.

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    1. Avatar photocircle-angle-nib
      Sarah Isgur vertical-nib Author

      FYI sorry it def wasn’t clear but the kiwanis this was a joke. They never said what her scheduling conflict was. Colonoscopy? Who knows!

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      1. Joe Bruno

        Ok. But the fact remains that it was a distinct slap to Biden's face for Abrams to give a speech somewhere else when her Democratic President was in Georgia pitching a voter's rights act.

        She should have been on the same stage with Biden, plain and simple. No excuses.

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      2. Vic

        Abrams's "conflict" was Biden's declining approval rating.

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        1. Joe Bruno

          Absolutely correct.

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  6. Vic

    I live in Alabama and this story is 100% accurate. I'm a conservative who is enthusiastically supporting, and have contributed to, Katie Britt. Mo Brooks is a smart man, but is posturing as a lunatic because he thinks that sells. He may be seriously off-base on that. If you look at the contributions the two have received, Britt's financial support is overwhelmingly from Alabamians, while Brooks's contributions are heavily from out-of-state people who don't know any better. Katie is young, conservative, and can accumulate seniority in Washington to benefit the state, much as Sen. Shelby has. Mo Brooks has never accomplished anything and is just a noisemaker. The third candidate, Durant, would be far better than Brooks in my opinion. Thanks for covering this primary.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Jen

    I don’t get what Biden and Schumer are doing. The plain fact is they don’t have the votes for any of the voting reform bills out there. Maybe they feel they have to do this to placate their progressive base but in the process they’re also showing they couldn’t care less about getting any Republican votes. Especially with Biden’s very partisan speech today where he essentially said if you don’t support the Democrats partisan voting rights legislation you’re equivalent to George Wallace, Bull Connor and Jefferson Davis. Really Joe? Is that really helpful?

    Mitch McConnell already said if Democrats do partisan Senate reforms or filibuster carve-outs Republicans are going to make their lives hell. They’ll force votes on things that would normally get unanimous consent. McConnell will invoke a rarely used rule to bring Republican sponsored bills (that wouldn’t otherwise get floor time) up for floor votes. The only thing that may save Democrats from themselves is Manchin and Sinema refusing to go along. Still I don’t get what Biden’s strategy is here.

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    1. Vic

      I think they're just grab-bagging since their BBB legislation has collapsed and is dormant and they don't know what else to do. It seems to me the Dems' legislative aspirations likely are over for this session of Congress. Today's inflation report (bad) didn't help them. Many of them are headed for the exits and for the rest it's every man, or woman, for himself/herself.

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      1. Joe Bruno

        Exactly right.

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    2. Joe Bruno

      Biden has to make a show of trying to do something, even though his strategy is doomed for failure. It also sets the stage for a vote on the filibuster, which he will also lose.

      It's like a guy being hung from a tree; he knows he's dying, but he still feels the need to kick his legs.

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      Dave Conant - MO

      You're assuming that there is a strategy.

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  8. Avatar photo
    MG

    I’m proud of Sarah for writing an entire paragraph about Romney and binders.

    I only wish she had slipped something in there about orcas…

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    1. Avatar photo
      Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

      I was totally triggered by the proximity of "binders" and "Romney," and angry all over again about all the calumnies directed against that man.

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  9. Mathew A

    “academic research shows that voter ID laws have little to no effect on turnout”

    Maybe but they darn sure have an effect on voters belief in whether fraud occurred or not.

    Any real election law will need to mandate voter ID. Failing to do that is adding fuel to the election fraud lies, and is literally destabilizing our country.

    The fact that Democrats seem unwilling to put that in, shows how unserious they are.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Sad Trombone

      The only plausible reason I can think Dems fight voter ID tooth and nail is because they think an appreciable portion of their voters are fraudsters with no civic attachment to their local community. I understand how invested Sarah is in the narrative that conservatives that want de minimus safeguards on the franchise are all wet, but it's a case of believing Sarah or my own lying eyes - there are too many political activists out there, almost all on the left, that believe stuffing the ballot box would be obeying a higher law.

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      1. Joe Bruno

        Exactly right. And remember, just because their was no evidence that there was cheating in the 2020 Presidential election, doesn't mean it didn't happen; only that three was no evidence. Crimes are committed every day and no one is arrested because of the lack of evidence. And circumstantial evidence is almost never allowed in a court of law

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    2. Joe Bruno

      The academic research that someone else referred to must have been done either by Mad Magazine or the National Enquirer. There's document cases of the same people voting four, five, six different times. And what's so hard about getting voter ID? You can get a drivers license by taking a test. But for voter ID there is no test.

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      1. Mathew A

        "And what's so hard about getting voter ID"

        nothing at all, it's the easiest thing in the world, and ID is required to do basically everything

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  10. Mark Holmlund

    Enjoyed Sarah’s piece in Politico Magazine arguing for making amending the US Constitution easier. I’m curious what amendments Dispatchers would like to make. Here’s mine:

    “Regarding the power granted to Congress in Amendment XVI to lay and collect federal taxes on personal incomes, the text delineating such power shall not exceed what can fit on one 8 ½” x 11” piece of paper. The appropriate font shall be Times New Roman with a font-size of 12; margins shall be one inch on the top and bottom and either side of the page; and the text shall be single-spaced, except for double spacing between paragraphs.”

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    1. Avatar photo
      Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

      I'm pro-serifed fonts. But I prefer Georgia to Times New Roman, because it's Times New Roman optimized for viewing on computer screens. Exception: I'm in favor of picking a sans serif font for titles and headings; and for that, I prefer Verdana to Arial, again because it's made for viewing on screens. No more than two fonts per document, period and no exceptions.

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      1. Mark Holmlund

        Georgia and Verdana it is, Bill!

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    2. Avatar photo
      JohnM.

      Sarah is a great writer and thinker in my view, but I think that her position on amending the Constitution was plain wrong. David Harsanyi at NRO posted a very effective rebuttal:
      https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/01/how-to-wreck-the-constitution/

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        Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

        I'm "convention-of-states" curious, but strongly against amending the amendment language. Naw, dog.

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        Jen

        I haven’t read that NR piece but I am wary about making it easier to amend the constitution. I feel like it would be abused and another way to bypass Article 1 like Article 2 does with executive orders.

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