Ep. 16 - Legislation to Save Democracy

May it Displease the Court

HR1 - The Most Important Bill in American History

The episode looks at HR1 or S1 as it is titled in the Senate, the most important bill in Biden’s presidency and, perhaps, in modern American history. It is a must-pass for Democrats, for Biden, and for Democracy worldwide. This bold, comprehensive bill fixes a lot of what has been broken in the past 4 decades. It combats dark money, foreign interference, partisan gerrymandering, but most importantly it raises the national minimum standards to protect voting rights. The Right to Vote is the bedrock of democracy. It’s under massive attack and this bill might just be the only thing that can save it.

This episode is subtitled Why Congress Matters, because it is imperative to know what laws Congress is considering and to be part of that process.

This episode is an in depth primer on HR1 or The For the People’s Act as it is known. This bill does a lot. It is the Democrats taking the fight back to the Republicans who have been chipping away at the ability of the people to participate in government and to elect Representatives who listen to them and advance their interests and priorities.

The provisions of HR1 have 4 main categories

1. Voting Rights and election security;
2. Campaign Finance Reform - tackles dark money, foreign election interference
3. Ethics Reform for all three branches of government - important because the Supreme Court is not subject to any ethical standards;
4. A catchall that closes all the loopholes Trump and his kleptocratic cronies used to treat the office of the Presidency and the Executive Branch as their person piggy banks to benefit themselves and their interests at the expense of the country and it outlaws those practices.

Who opposes HR1/S1? Republicans, obviously, but also some Democrats. What should be a Democratic legislative slam dunk, a patriotic message screamed from every Demcratic House Representative and Senator is seeming dead on arrival. Under the guise of protecting a legislative procedural rule, unique to the Senate, namely the filibuster. Joe Manchin the ostensibly Democratic Senator from West Virginia penned an Op-Ed coming out against HR1/S1 and declared his firm commitment to keeping the filibuster. He is joined by one of the most annoying alleged-Democratic Senators, Kirsten Sinema from Arizona. She joined Senator Cornyn from Texas, in Texas right after the Texas Democrats temporarily blocked the Republican’s massive voter suppression bill to declare Sinema’s commitment to the filibuster. Seemingly a clear message that they are both in league with the Republicans to suppress the vote. But they are not the only Democratic Senators standing in the way of HR1/S1.

Finally, we encourage listeners to advocate for the passage of this bill by following the link below to Vote Save America (a helpful tool from the Pod Save America guys) so they can contact your Senators and PUSH them to get on board with saving democracy.

Resources

• https://votesaveamerica.com/forthepeople/
• https://messagebox.substack.com/p/a-plan-b-for-democracy
• https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-may-2021
• https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/annotated-guide-people-act-2021
• https://www.cardin.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/John%20Lewis%20Voting%20Rights%20Advancement%20Act%20one%20pager.pdf
• https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/how-to-restore-and-strengthen-voting-rights-act
• https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/hr4/summary
• https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/05/heritage-foundation-dark-money-voter-suppression-laws/

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