Today’s Supreme Court decision further weakening the Voting Rights Act affirmed that the only way Democrats can reverse the wave of restrictive voting laws in GOP-controlled states is to pass new federal voting rights by curtailing the Senate filibuster. Congressional action has long seemed the only realistic lever for Democrats […] Read more »
‘New York City Is a World Unto Itself.’ But It May Tell Us Where Democrats Are Headed.
On the Democratic side of the New York mayoral contest, Eric Adams, the African-American former police captain and Brooklyn borough president, continues to hold a lead over Kathryn Garcia and Maya Wiley. From a national vantage point, the most significant element of Adams’s campaign so far lies in his across-the-board […] Read more »
Joe Manchin is trying to outrun a realignment
… If Manchin acted and voted like a garden-variety Democratic senator, Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) could enact much of Biden’s agenda. But Manchin won’t permit that — and the reason turns on home-state politics. Unlike almost all other Senate Democrats, he’s trying to outrun a decades-long realignment in […] Read more »
What Manchin and Sinema can learn from the Lincoln Republicans on voting rights
By the standards Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have set for federal action on voting rights, the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution — two pillars of the post-Civil War effort to ensure equality for all Americans — would never have become law. Every Democrat in Congress […] Read more »
Redistricting Holds Key to House Majority
It’s hard to remember a time when conventional wisdom about the outcome of the midterm elections was this hardened this early in the cycle. Even folks who don’t pay particularly close attention to House elections feel comfortable giving Republicans a significant advantage in winning control of the body next year. […] Read more »
Manchin and Sinema Now Face the Weight of History
The battle over access to the ballot is entering a precarious new stage. Democrats and civil-rights groups are pursuing a two-track strategy to preserve their embattled hopes of passing federal legislation establishing a nationwide floor of voting rights. What happens next will likely determine whether Congress can act at all. […] Read more »