Congress averts government shutdown in nick of time

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Avoiding our partisan doom loop will require fundamental electoral reform. Eliminating the Electoral College altogether and electing presidents with a straight popular vote, as Democrats want, is not desirable even if it were feasible. It will replace a systematic disadvantage against urban-dwelling, coastal Democrats with a systematic disadvantage against fly-over, rural Republicans, perhaps giving the latter even less of a shot at winning than the Democrats currently have. Changing the electoral formula to strike a better balance between rural and urban interests would be better. But it's not going to happen because even that will require amending the Constitution, which means securing two-thirds voters in Congress and getting three-quarters of the states to ratify an amendment. Republicans have no reason to give up their advantage and vote for such an amendment. And if Democrats could win that many seats, there wouldn't be a problem in the first place. Some state-level reforms such as
rank-choice voting could ultimately be applied at the federal level to even things out. But whether they can be tried, tested, and applied before the partisan doom loop brings down the country's liberal democratic edifice is an open question. The better option might be to defuse the culture wars by making ordinary Americans less invested in them. Politics is downstream of culture, after all. Changing the culture is never easy. But right now, it might be easier than fixing our political system. —Shikha Dalmia ([link removed]) , Visiting Fellow, Mercatus Center's Program on Pluralism and Civil Exchange at George Mason University

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** Drutman: Why bipartisanship is so elusive
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"[P]artisans are the most hostile to compromise—especially those individuals whose racial, religious, and cultural identities line up most strongly with one party. But the partisan sorting that has aligned these identities so closely with one party over the last several decades is precisely the reason why voters have come down so hard on politicians who compromise. The more that national political conflict is centered on abstract moral issues and the identity of the nation, the more any compromise feels like a surrender. To recreate the conditions that allowed bipartisanship to flourish in the Senate once upon a time seems unlikely anytime soon." —Lee Drutman on ([link removed]) FiveThirtyEight ([link removed])

Lee Drutman is a senior fellow in the Political Reform program at New America and the author of "Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America."

MORE: Senate narrowly rejects GOP amendment to curtail assistance to Afghan refugees —The Washington Post ([link removed])


** Kagan: The insurrection isn't over
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"The events of Jan. 6…proved that Trump and his most die-hard supporters are prepared to defy constitutional and democratic norms, just as revolutionary movements have in the past. While it might be shocking to learn that normal, decent Americans can support a violent assault on the Capitol, it shows that Americans as a people are not as exceptional as their founding principles and institutions. Europeans who joined fascist movements in the 1920s and 1930s were also from the middle classes. No doubt many of them were good parents and neighbors, too. People do things as part of a mass movement that they would not do as individuals, especially if they are convinced that others are out to destroy their way of life." —Robert Kagan in ([link removed]) The Washington Post ([link removed])

Robert Kagan is an author, a Washington Post columnist focusing on foreign affairs, and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is the co-founder of the Project for the New American Century and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, who has advised Republican and Democratic administrations.

MORE: Democratic party office in Texas attacked by man with Molotov cocktail —Newsweek ([link removed])


** Tribe, Buchanan & Dorf: Still waiting for justice
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"As we learn more about the events leading up to the storming of the Capitol, it is increasingly apparent that Trump himself committed the federal crimes of inciting insurrection and seditious conspiracy. It would be wrong for Attorney General Merrick Garland to prosecute Trump or anyone else for the purpose of eliminating a political opponent. Yet it would be equally wrong to fail to indict Trump—if the evidence warrants an indictment—to avoid appearing to be bringing a politically motivated prosecution. Politically motivated non-prosecution is as bad as politically motivated prosecution." —Laurence Tribe, Neil Buchanan & Michael Dorf in ([link removed]) The Boston Globe ([link removed])

Laurence Tribe is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor Emeritus of Constitutional Law at Harvard University. Neil Buchanan holds the James J. Freeland Eminent Scholar Chair in Taxation at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law. Michael Dorf is the Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law at Cornell University.

MORE: Durham issues fresh round of subpoenas in his continuing probe of FBI investigation into Trump, Russia —CNN ([link removed])


** Hill: How Putin owns us
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"The United States' vulnerability to the Kremlin's subversion has been amplified by social media. American-made technology has magnified the impact of once fringe ideas and subversive actors around the world and become a tool in the hands of hostile states and criminal groups. Extremists can network and reach audiences as never before on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, which are designed to attract people's attention and divide them into affinity groups. Putin has weaponized this technology against the United States, taking advantage of the ways that social media undermines social cohesion and erodes Americans' sense of a shared purpose." —Fiona Hill in ([link removed]) Foreign Affairs ([link removed])

Fiona Hill is the Robert Bosch senior fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution and the author of "There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-first Century." She was a key witness in the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump.

MORE: Russia threatens to block YouTube, Kremlin urges 'zero tolerance' —Reuters ([link removed])
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** Collings: Are our freedoms waning?
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"The Bill of Rights is now 230 years old. Although its promises have sometimes been flouted or applied selectively, it has served us, on the whole, exceedingly well. But it faces novel challenges and unprecedented strains. In the face of those challenges, it is past time for us to renew our acquaintance with, and our commitment to, these precious guarantees. May all Americans, once more and forever, steer by the fixed star of our first and foremost freedoms." —Justin Collings in ([link removed]) Deseret News ([link removed])

Justin Collings is a professor at Brigham Young University Law School and a fellow at the Wheatley Institution.

MORE: Neo-Nazi leader convicted in plot to intimidate journalists —NBC News ([link removed])


** Dickerson: Our unfair immigration laws need an update
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"One would be hard-pressed to imagine a scenario in which, following a coup or an earthquake in France, a large crowd of Parisians would show up in Matamoros, Mexico, and face the same treatment as the Haitians—because they would not be required to present themselves at the border in the first place. People from wealthy Western countries don't need visas to come to the U.S. For a few hundred dollars, they can simply hop on planes and enter the U.S. as tourists. Then, at some point on their 'vacation,' they can show up at a government office and request asylum as part of a non-adversarial administrative process. Or they can simply stay in the U.S. illegally without seeking permission, as thousands of Western Europeans and Canadians do each year." —Caitlin Dickerson in ([link removed]) The Atlantic
([link removed])

Caitlin Dickerson is a staff writer at
The Atlantic.

MORE: DHS chief: U.S. will stop deporting immigrants solely because they're undocumented —CNBC ([link removed])


** Seib: Democracy is at risk, but we can do something
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"[D]oubts about election integrity are like a deadly virus moving through the body politic. Politicians should beware: Like any virus, this one can't be contained on one side or the other of a partisan divide. Eventually it will infect and undermine all of democracy. There are a lot of important questions being debated in Washington right now—a potential government shutdown, the debt ceiling, tax increases, military spending, the coronavirus—but this virus is at least as important as any of them. … Sen. Manchin has argued that voting rights, more than perhaps any other item, ought to be established with bipartisan support, and he's right. Both parties, after all, exist only if Americans embrace the system that elects their nominees." —Gerald Seib in ([link removed]) The Wall Street Journal ([link removed])

Gerald Seib is the executive Washington editor of The Wall Street Journal.

MORE: 'There will be a vote today' on infrastructure, Pelosi says —The New York Times ([link removed])
"Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade."
—Constance Baker Motley, the first African-American woman elected to the New York State Senate and the first African-American woman appointed to the federal judiciary

Thank you for The Topline—removes all the fluff! What's Your Take is right on the money. I'm in total agreement with the writers, especially Merilee W. of Utah, who wrote, "We need term limits on Congress. Maybe if they only got one 4- or 6-year term, they might spend it working for 'We the People' instead of working for special interests so they can get re-elected." Two 4-year terms would be more reasonable for evaluation of tenure though. —Vishnu N., Maine

Congress is funded by dark money sponsors, corporations, charities, and churches. All funding must be transparent and tracked. Congress is supposed to work for the American people, not for a specific group or organization that bought their way to power. And since members of Congress get a lifetime pension [after five years of service], why not eliminate the benefits and personal perks that come with that.

The American people need a strong foundation of democratic institutions with checks and balances, independent judicial systems, and a transparent bureaucracy that is independent from political party influences. And those with extreme political beliefs who spew lies, conspiracies, propaganda, and false narratives must be held accountable through civil lawsuits so they will know there are consequences for their defamation, false characterizations, and lies. It's about time that those with false intentions be called out and held responsible for their words and actions. —Gary N., California
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** The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff or the Stand Up Republic Foundation.
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