It’s Tuesday, the traditional day for elections and for our pause-and-consider newsletter on politics and policy. 

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It’s Tuesday, the traditional day for elections and for our pause-and-consider newsletter on politics and policy. We think of it as a mini-magazine in your Inbox.

BUT *HOW* COULD DEMOCRATS DEAL WITH THE FILIBUSTER?
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews ([link removed])
Correspondent

Senate Rule XXII ([link removed]) . ‘‘Is it the sense of the Senate that the debate shall be brought to a close?’’ And if that question shall be decided in the affirmative by three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn … then said measure, motion, or other matter … shall be the unfinished business” of the Senate.

Neither profound poetry nor simple prose, the Senate’s filibuster rule is what it was intended to be: unequivocal. The rule requires three-fifths of the Senate, currently 60 senators, to close debate. In other words, 60 votes to end a filibuster by the minority party and clear the way for most bills.

This week, Republicans are expected to use that rule to block two major efforts from Democrats on voting rights: the Freedom to Vote and John Lewis Voting Accountability Acts. (What are those? We broke down the bills in this segment ([link removed]) last night.)

As a result, Democrats are having their most serious conversation yet about taking on the filibuster on legislation. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has pledged to hold a vote on a possible rules change by next Monday, Jan. 17.

But here is the dilemma: Democrats need all 50 of their members to change the rules. And at least two – Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz. – have made it clear they will not change the 60-vote threshold.

However, there are other ideas on the table. Briefly, here are three of them:

1. The talking filibuster

The idea: Require that senators actually stand and speak in order to keep a filibuster alive. See also: James Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ([link removed]) .” Part of the appeal here is this is not so much a change in Senate rule, as it is a change in how the Senate enforces its rules. Senators are discussing utilizing another current rule as well – Rule 19 ([link removed]) – which limits each senator to no more than two speeches on any one question.

How precisely this would work is still part of the discussion, but a central thrust here is the concept of testing how long the opposition would be willing to stand to block a bill. Even if 50 opposing senators all stand and speak against something, the use of Rule 19 means that there would be some limit, at some point, to all the speaking. And, therefore, to the filibuster.

This could set up a days, weeks, or monthslong standoff on the Senate floor. But advocates of the idea say it tests how much either side truly cares about a bill. Do opponents have the stamina to block it for weeks? Do supporters have the stamina to wait them out? And would either side be convinced to change or modify their own ideas in the meantime?

That’s an aspect of this that may appeal to Manchin, who speaks almost daily about the need for the Senate to find ways to better negotiate with itself.

2. Allow fewer filibusters

Currently, filibusters can be used at least twice on most bills: once when the Senate tries to “proceed” to the bill with a “motion to proceed” and then a second time when the bill is getting ready for a final vote. One idea under discussion now, per sources involved, is to end the use of the filibuster for motion to proceed but keep it for final votes only. This would speed up the work of the Senate for the majority party. But it would also allow an actual debate on key issues.

But for Democrats, it does not solve their key problem: They still would not have the means to get through voting rights or most other legislation without help from Republicans.

3. Flip the filibuster
In the past year, some Democrats have argued that the filibuster should be flipped: Instead of requiring 60 votes to end a filibuster, some Democrats would like to require 40 votes to continue a filibuster. While mathematically similar to the current rule, this idea has fascinating political implications – it shifts the expectation to the opponents of an idea rather than to the supporters. Those who like this say that shift would put the onus on opponents of something to block it, rather than on supporters to overcome the block. Those who back it say that will change how people vote, and make it harder for senators to filibuster.

All of these ideas have been in discussion for months, and could come to a head as soon as this week.

WE WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU! What would you like to know about politics this year? Do you have questions about the upcoming midterms? What's happening on Capitol Hill? Voting (or barriers to voting)? Specific legislation? Tell the Here’s the Deal team here. ([link removed])

THERE’S A ‘PRESENT DANGER TO DEMOCRACY’

Co-founder of Black Voters Matter LaTosha Brown participates in a June 2021 TV interview on the bus of the “Freedom Ride for Voting Rights” tour in Richmond, Virginia. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

By Saher Khan, @SaherMKhan ([link removed])
Reporter-Producer, Politics

Editor's note: This year, we will bring you more dispatches from people across the country working on issues in their own communities. First up: A brief chat with a prominent voting rights advocate in Georgia.

Organizers on the frontlines of preserving voter rights in Georgia have urged President Joe Biden not to come to the state without signs of progress on a voting rights bill.

They put out a statement ([link removed]) last week saying that “an empty gesture without concrete action was unacceptable.”

One key organizer from the state, LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, spoke to the PBS NewsHour earlier today about why the organization co-signed the statement, and why she decided to forgo the president’s events today.

The conversation below has been edited for length and clarity.

You and a coalition of other voting rights activists told President Joe Biden not to come to Georgia, and decided to not attend his planned events. Why is that?

We're no longer able or capable of just being okay with some words that don't have the power and the muscle behind them. He gave a speech in Philadelphia and [for] seven months, nothing went by. It was a great speech, [but] nothing moved. And so, while every single day, even in the state of Georgia, we are literally working on the ground right now. I’ve got people in Lincoln County who are working to prevent them from closing every single polling site ([link removed]) in Lincoln County but one. It's a small county, but it's also a county that doesn't have public transportation. It has a significant Black population. In this particular legislative session [in Georgia], they are already introducing bills – one bill that will eliminate dropbox voting altogether.

And so, there is a current and present danger to democracy. We feel like this nation has gone to war for lesser threats than this. We're being punished because we participated in an election. And this is not the moment, this is not the time, this is not a season just for us to use the words of Dr. King, and there's no substance behind it.

Biden is emphasizing a filibuster carve-out in his speech today to try to get voting rights legislation through the Senate. Does that make you feel any better about his efforts or what he's doing?

I think that there's a couple of critical mistakes that the president made. I think it's clear that this was not a priority for him in his first 100 days. And we saw the attacks immediately. It's not that I don't think he cares about it, it's just wasn't a priority. And I think that set a certain tone, and I think people like Manchin and Sinema did not feel the kind of pressure, which I felt like they should have felt enormous pressure at this point.

Biden ran on this whole notion of being able to get government to work because he has served in the Senate for four decades. So my position is “whatever it takes,” because I'm quite sure this isn't the only difficult issue that you've seen before. Whatever it takes to get it done, to get the job done. Ultimately, I believe that had this been a priority for him just like the infrastructure has been a priority, I believe that we would be at a different conversation right now.

And we're not going to let the Republicans off the hook on this. We're holding [Biden] accountable because we voted for him, and we believed that he would actually stand with us and use the fullness of his office to support voting rights, but he hasn't done that. The truth of the matter is that Republicans are slowly unraveling democracy as we know it in this nation. I don't even know if you call them a Republican Party. There are people who are in power and political positions that seek to create a racist, divisive, anti-democratic agenda. Point-blank period. You can spend trillions of dollars protecting democracy abroad – we're saying that right now the fire is in your own house.

There are people on Twitter and elsewhere, saying that you're targeting the wrong person. What more can Biden do, given the realities of the Senate math? What do you say to that?

At the end of the day, we have to disabuse ourselves of this notion that the president does not carry a tremendous amount of power. And at the end of the day, we're saying that we believe that had there been a corrective course, where this had been a priority for the president, we believe that the Senate would have responded differently. The second thing is that we do believe that the president has a responsibility. This isn't just about another law. He took an oath to protect democracy. We expect him to use every single tool, that is to exalt every single tool. [The president] has been very, very lukewarm around – and not even open around – eliminating the filibuster. No, the president, he does not share all the responsibilities. That's correct. But he absolutely has his own share of responsibility. We expect them to lead. It is too much that the voters that actually gave more power to you, now have less power, because we're punished for supporting you. And is that acceptable? Is that
where we are? No.

I voted for him because he said that he would deliver, he would have an agenda for the people. I'm holding him at his word.

Georgia mounted these historic campaigns to get all these people registered and flipped the state. Do you think you can out organize these new laws in time for this next election?

No, we can’t. We've been very vocal around that. We're organizers, but we cannot out organize it. It is death by a thousand cuts. It is coming on so many levels from so many angles that literally we are at an imperative state in this nation, that we're going to have to literally stop as a nation and really look at what's happened to this democracy. It really is that dire. This is not just a matter of another policy fight, this isn't about a conversation about, “Oh, let's just get another bill passed.” We're talking about the fundamental democratic infrastructure in this country being dismantled by a participatory party.

#POLITICSTRIVIA
By Tess Conciatori, @tkconch ([link removed])
White House Producer

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Atlanta today to make a more forceful case for voting rights legislation in Congress. The president’s itinerary had no shortage of symbolism, with stops that honor two of the nation’s most prominent civil rights leaders: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the late congressman John Lewis. The Peach State is also the home of three different presidents at different points in their lives, from childhood to old age.

Our question: Can you name those three presidents?

Send your answers to [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) or tweet using #PoliticsTrivia. The first correct answers will earn a shout-out next week.

Last week, we asked: Growing up in a Democratic household, Nancy Pelosi once rejected this gift from a Republican poll worker. What was it?

The answer: A toy elephant.

Congratulations to our winners: Darci Jayne and Barry Weinstein!

Thank you all for reading and watching. We’ll drop into your inbox next week.


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