Toxic politics, inflation batter Washington -- Nov. 11, 2021 column

By MARSHA MERCER

That was quick. Republican euphoria over Virginia’s election results and what they may portend for 2022 began to evaporate in less than a week.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu dashed the hopes of fellow Republicans Tuesday by saying he would not run for the Senate. Instead, he will seek a fourth two-year term as governor, which he is expected to win handily.

“My responsibility is not to the gridlock and politics of Washington. It’s to the citizens of New Hampshire. And I’d rather push myself 120 miles an hour delivering wins for New Hampshire than to slow down and end up on Capitol Hill debating partisan politics without results,” Sununu told reporters.

Republicans had counted on Sununu to run against incumbent Sen. Maggie Hassan, one of the weakest Senate Democrats seeking re-election in the midterm elections. Former Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire has also indicated she won’t run, leaving the New Hampshire GOP with lower tier candidates, so far.

Every Senate seat is crucial as both parties seek to break the 50-50 tie in their direction. Vice President Kamala Harris casts tie-breaking votes. Sununu’s decision was a blow to Republicans, who were blindsided by the announcement. Party leaders found out the same way everyone else did – on the news.

You can’t blame Sununu for saying, thanks but no thanks, even if he did it artlessly. Politics in Washington could hardly be nastier. Republican House members who vote “wrong” in the eyes of extremists – that is, in a bipartisan manner – now endure death threats.

One wonders why anyone who wants to be constructive – rather than a demagogue -- would take on the capital’s toxic atmosphere, although we must be thankful for those who do.

At the same time, Democrats are still smarting from the Virginia election debacle -- and they can’t catch a break. They want to celebrate the roughly $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill the House passed Nov. 5 and President Joe Biden is scheduled to sign Monday.

But Biden saw his victory lap derailed Wednesday by scary inflation numbers. The Consumer Price Index rose 6.2% last month from a year ago and is at its highest level in more than three decades.

Taming inflation is now a top priority for the White House, though there’s little a president can really do. Gerald Ford’s Whip Inflation Now button and Jimmy Carter’s cardigan sweater led to their one-term presidencies.

“Everything from a gallon of gas to a loaf of bread costs more, and it’s worrisome even though wages are going up,” Biden said Wednesday in Baltimore. “We still face challenges, and we have to tackle them.”

The spike in inflation threatens his $1.85 trillion social safety net and climate change reconciliation bill in the Senate, where Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin and others worry it will feed inflationary pressures. White House and independent economists dispute that assessment.

“By all accounts, the threat posed by record inflation to the American people is not `transitory’ and is instead getting worse. From the grocery store to the gas pump, Americans know the inflation tax is real and DC can no longer ignore the economic pain Americans feel every day,” Manchin, of West Virginia, tweeted.

But Manchin, who holds a knife over Biden’s reconciliation package, has been all over Twitter touting the goodies the infrastructure bill will bring his state – “nearly $6 BILLION in infrastructure funding over the next decade.”

Note the time element: The money will come over 10 years. Democrats worry voters won’t see enough new jobs and economic growth by Election Day 2022.

Yet the bill was a bipartisan victory in a Congress where few occur. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was one of 19 Republicans who voted in favor in August. He recently called it a “godsend” for his home state of Kentucky.

Incredibly, House Republican leaders threaten to punish the 13 Republican members there who dared to vote for that same bill by stripping them of their committee assignments.

The threat prompted Biden to renew his call for more civility and cooperation in politics.

“I know I get in trouble when I talk about” bipartisanship, he said Tuesday. “As people say, why the devil would I like any Republicans? Well, it’s important. If we don’t generate consensus in America, we’re in trouble.”

©2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Should Breyer retire? When the personal is political -- Oct. 14, 2021 column

 By MARSHA MERCER

For months, progressives have hounded Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to retire.

An online petition urges him to “put the country first” and retire now. A billboard truck has driven around the Supreme Court building, and two protesters interrupted a Smithsonian Associates’ program with Breyer Oct. 4 and unfurled a banner with the same message.

At 83, Breyer is the oldest and senior liberal justice, having served since 1994. The two other liberals, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, are in their 60s. A younger liberal justice with a lifetime appointment could help shape the country’s direction for decades.

President Joe Biden’s window to nominate and the Senate to confirm a replacement could slam shut after the 2022 elections. If Democrats lose their razor-thin majority in the Senate, as seems likely, Mitch McConnell would become Senate majority leader again and have the power to bedevil Biden on nominations as he did President Barack Obama.

But justices often resist hanging up their robes and may regret doing so. Sandra Day O’Connor retired at 75 to care for her beloved husband with Alzheimer’s disease in 2006, but his condition deteriorated and soon he could not recognize her.

Retiring was “the biggest mistake, the dumbest thing I ever did,” O’Connor told Evan Thomas, her biographer.

Breyer deserves the respect -- and space -- to decide when he retires.

He knows his legacy is at stake. In an interview with The New York Times, he favorably recounted something the late Justice Antonin Scalia said: “He said, `I don’t want somebody appointed who will just reverse everything I’ve done for the last 25 years.’”

No one ever knows what’s ahead, and Scalia died suddenly of natural causes at 79, on a hunting trip in Texas in February 2016.

About one hour after Scalia’s death was confirmed, McConnell, then majority leader, announced the Senate should not confirm a replacement in a presidential election year.

Obama nominated Merrick Garland, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a respected moderate many Republicans had supported. McConnell refused to allow a vote and later said blocking the nomination was his proudest moment. Biden named Garland attorney general.

When liberals nipped at Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s heels to retire at age 81, so Obama could nominate her successor, she dodged the issue by asking rhetorically in an interview with Reuters, “So tell me who the president could have nominated this spring that you would rather see on the court than me?”

Her death at 87 ended her tenure just two months before the 2020 presidential election. Biden’s predecessor and McConnell rushed confirmation of conservative Amy Coney Barrett, 48, through the Republican-controlled Senate.

Today’s conservative court -- six justices appointed by Republican presidents and three by Democrats – is teeing up cases that could undo years of settled law on abortion rights and other hot topics. Breyer, a Clinton appointee, wants to participate in these cases. He has work to do.

Justices often insist that the court’s judicial decisions are not political. Breyer makes that argument in his new book, “The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics.”

And yet the justices are well aware of the political ramifications of their personal decision to stay or go.

Then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist was once asked if it is “inappropriate for a justice to take into account the party or politics of the sitting president when deciding whether to step down from the court.”

The question came from Walter Dellinger, Duke University law professor, who wrote about it later in a 2017 article for Slate.

 “No, it’s not inappropriate,” Rehnquist replied. “Deciding when to step down from the court is not a judicial act.”

Asked recently about Rehnquist’s comment, Breyer said, “That’s true.”

Meanwhile, the political clock ticks louder. It’s still possible for Breyer to retire after this term and for Biden and Senate Democrats to install a liberal successor, likely a black woman, before the midterm elections.

But Breyer’s indecision has made the task more difficult, and he has ensured the highest court will be a key political issue in next year’s Senate races.

©2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Steal: Unvaccinated rob America of `summer of joy' -- July 29, 2021 column

By MARSHA MERCER

In the grocery store for two items, I apologized for forgetting my mask, even though most customers weren’t wearing them.

“That’s OK. You don’t have to wear one,” the masked checker said with a shrug.

I told her I’d just heard news the government is again recommending masks in some public places.

“Oh, I don’t pay attention to the news anymore,” she said.

Some Americans are understandably sick of hearing about the pandemic, but ignoring reality is dangerous to one’s health, as well as to one’s friends and family.

For those of us who are paying attention, the latest guidance from the Centers for Disease Control was a setback. So much for the “summer of joy.”

President Joe Biden optimistically predicted in June this would be “a summer of freedom. A summer of joy,” mainly because of free and readily available vaccinations against COVID-19.

Despite an array of inducements, only about 49% of the entire population and 57.6% of those 12 and older were fully vaccinated, as of July 27. Meanwhile the highly contagious delta variant is surging, especially among the unvaccinated.

Let’s call the unvaccinated what they are: the Grinches who stole the summer of joy.

Chief Grinch may be Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, who tweeted about the new CDC guidance: “Hell no. This is politics, not science.” That’s absurd.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, the minority leader, claimed the masking guidance was “conjured up by liberal government officials who want to continue to live in perpetual pandemic state.”

“He’s such a moron,” reporters heard House Speaker Nancy Pelosi say as she was getting into a car.

So, now, conscientious Americans are helping protect the reckless. Fully vaccinated people need to mask up again indoors in areas with high COVID-19 transmission rates, per the CDC. These include many counties in Virginia. 

While 80% of those infected with the delta variant are unvaccinated, vaccinated people rarely become infected as well, and their viral load is similar to the unvaccinated, meaning both the unvaccinated and the vaccinated can spread the variant.

“The delta variant is showing every day its willingness to outsmart us and be an opportunist,” CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday in a briefing. “This new science is worrisome and unfortunately warrants an update to our recommendations.”

It’s tempting to say the unvaccinated made their choice and deserve what they get. But children under 12 are not yet being vaccinated, and no one wants them to get sick. The CDC also recommends that all students, teachers, staff and visitors to K-12 schools wear masks this fall, regardless of vaccination status.

Fully vaccinated people in areas with low transmission may choose to mask to protect household members who are unvaccinated, immunocompromised or at increased risk of disease.

And there’s another, more important, reason to mask up. The largest concern among public health officials is potential mutations from the delta variant that could evade vaccines, which currently protect the vaccinated from severe illness and death.

Masks are a good step, but the real solution to the pandemic and the key to returning to normalcy is vaccinations.

Sadly, the very people who would benefit most from masks and vaccinations are least likely to follow the guidance. Largely Republican, white male conservatives believe masks and vaccinations are an assault on their freedom and would rather trust false conspiracy theories and misinformation on the Internet than the government.

We’d all be better off if more politicians were like Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader of the Senate, who has promoted COVID-19 vaccinations all along and will spend tens of thousands of dollars in campaign funds on radio ads in his home state, encouraging people to get vaccinated.

Biden is taking the right step in requiring federal employees to be vaccinated or face rigorous testing and social distancing. States and cities are doing the same.  Some employers, notably Delta and United airlines and The Washington Post, are requiring proof of vaccination.

Mandate is a fighting word to many, but we are headed that way, unless more people do the right thing and roll up their sleeves. The Grinches can’t be allowed to steal our future, too.

(C) 2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved. 

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© 2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Lessons from Georgia's hot mess -- April 8, 2021 column

By MARSHA MERCER

It’s fair to say Georgia’s rush to approve a restrictive new election law didn’t go the way Republican proponents hoped.

Predicated on the lie that the 2020 election in Georgia was riddled with fraud, the 98-page Election Integrity Act includes 16 key provisions a New York Times analysis found “will limit ballot access, potentially confuse voters and give more power to Republican lawmakers.”

Reactions were swift and harsh. President Joe Biden attacked the law as “Jim Crow in the 21^st” century, and four lawsuits are challenging the law as discriminatory against people of color.

Major League Baseball pulled the All-Star Game from Atlanta, delivering an early verdict on lawmakers’ intentions and potentially costing the state $100 million in lost revenue.

Moving the game to Denver will hurt most the people in Atlanta who are already suffering in the pandemic economy -- small business owners and the workers who rely on low-paying jobs in the tourist industry.

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s stubborn response that other states’ voting laws are as bad as, or worse than, Georgia’s is childish and embarrassing.

Ditto Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s ham-handed threat this week to corporations to shut up about policy issues.

“Stay out of politics,” he warned on Tuesday, only to reverse himself on Wednesday.

But if Georgia GOP lawmakers thought their hot mess of a law would befuddle and silence enough urban voters to make a difference in close elections, they weren’t taking into account Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.

Bottoms showed strategic leadership Tuesday with an administrative order directing the city’s equity office to develop a plan to mitigate the new law’s effects.

“This administrative order is designed to do what those in the majority in the state legislature did not – expand our right to vote,” she said.

A mayor can’t undo what the legislature and governor have done, but she can take actions they should have: help voters prepare for future elections.

Her order includes measures to train city staff on voter registration and on early, absentee and in-person voting so they can communicate the changes to residents. It also directs the city to educate residents on how to obtain the forms of ID now required for absentee voting and to include QR codes and links regarding voter registration and absentee voting in water bills and other mailings.

Surely, we can all agree that when a state changes election rules, it has a responsibility to inform voters about those changes, so that eligible voters can indeed cast ballots.

Sadly, no. There’s no indication Georgia plans to educate voters or help them more easily comply with the law’s provisions. Meanwhile, the GOP disinformation campaign with unproven allegations about election fraud continues.

Six in 10 Republican voters believe the 2020 election was “stolen” from Donald Trump, and the same proportion say he should run again in 2024, a new Reuters/IPSOS poll reports. 

The former president continues to harp on “massive fraud” in the election, sowing distrust in the voting system. After multiple ballot recounts, investigations and court cases found no widespread voter fraud anywhere in 2020, this deliberate and willful ignoring of facts is appalling.

But lawmakers in more than 40 states, feeling pressure to do something, have introduced more than 361 bills to limit ballot access. About 55 bills are moving forward, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit policy institute that tracks voting rights.

Texas and Arizona are poised to pass restrictive laws, although what effect the laws may have is uncertain.

Georgia’s new law could have been worse. It will suppress the vote by making it harder for people to vote absentee and offering fewer ballot drop boxes, but Sunday voting was preserved.

And the GOP effort could backfire if new laws motivate voters to go to the polls in even greater numbers for gubernatorial and congressional midterm elections in 2022.

A coalition of more than 200 companies, including such giants as Dow, Twitter, Paypal and Uber, recently spoke out in favor of voting rights. Their voices are welcome, but it’s time to act.

The companies should join with state and local groups to spread the word about what the new laws entail, so eligible voters can indeed

 prepare for casting their ballots. Our elections need all of us, and we all need fair elections.

©2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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How Biden gets infrastructure plan on track -- April 1, 2021 column

By MARSHA MERCER

When President Joe Biden unveiled Wednesday his roughly $2 trillion infrastructure plan, both the political right and the left came out swinging.

“It’s like a Trojan horse,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said, complaining of “more borrowing and massive tax increases on all the productive parts of our economy.”

“This is not nearly enough,” tweeted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, adding Biden’s plan “needs to be way bigger.” She and other progressives floated the need for an infrastructure plan five times larger than Biden’s.

Biden finally found the sweet spot of bipartisanship – and it is against his sweeping American Jobs Plan.

That’s not all bad. Infrastructure should and perhaps still can be a bipartisan issue.

Nearly everyone agrees the nation’s roads, bridges, railways, airports and waterways need updating and expanding, but how to pay for improvements is the perennial sticking point.

Biden says his bigger, bolder plan pays for itself with – here’s the stick -- higher corporate taxes over 15 years.

The carrot is an array of proposals offering something for nearly every American.

“It’s not a plan that tinkers around the edges. It’s a once in a generation investment in America” that, Biden said, will create millions of jobs and put the United States on a secure environmental and competitive footing for the future.

The plan would remake the economy, revamp transportation and fight climate change and racial inequity. It would redo sewer systems, install a nationwide network of electrical charging stations, give tax incentives for purchases of electric cars, expand broadband access and at-home healthcare, and empower more workers with collective bargaining rights.

And that’s just part of what’s in part one.

Part two – the American Families Plan – is expected shortly. It likely will include paid family leave and other popular benefits.

But nothing happens unless Congress approves. Biden is betting he can capture the imagination of people beyond the Beltway and turn his vision into legislation in even the fiercely partisan Capitol.

“We just have to imagine again,” he said.

“Imagine what we can do, what’s within our reach if we modernize those highways. Your family could travel coast to coast without a single tank of gas, on board a high-speed train. We can connect high-speed, affordable, reliable internet wherever you live.

“Imagine knowing that you are handing your children and grandchildren a country that will lead the world in producing clean energy technology . . . That’s what we’ll do.”

It’s an appealing, hopeful vision at a time when Americans need something to believe in and look forward to. But Biden needs to do more than paint pretty pictures.

He needs convince people government can work again and enough members of both parties to come together for the greater good.

A tall order. Biden proposes to raise the top corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. That’s still less than the 35% it was before the last administration and Republicans in Congress lowered the corporate rate to 21% in 2017. He also would raise other corporate taxes to keep companies from moving overseas.

To pay for the coming American Families Plan, he said he would raise taxes only on individuals making more than $400,000 a year, not the middle class.

Big business favors traditional infrastructure improvements but solidly opposes corporate tax increases. Some congressional Democrats insist they won’t support a package unless it eliminates the $10,000 cap imposed during the last administration on individual tax deductions for state and local taxes.

Biden says he will consider and should other ways of paying. The pricetag for his two infrastructure plans is likely to total an eye-popping $4 trillion.

The Capitol is already suffering from “spending fatigue” after the $1.9 trillion stimulus plan, paid for wholly through borrowing, that Democrats passed and Biden signed in February.

In Biden’s favor are widespread public support for his policies, polls show, and his optimistic vision.

“We have to move now, because I’m convinced that if we act now, in 50 years, people are going to look back and say this was the moment that America won the future,” he said.

Biden’s legacy hinges on his negotiating skills. He needs to compromise on aspects of the plan and persuade congressional Republicans and Democrats it’s worthwhile to go along.

If he succeeds, this president will lead the country in a cleaner, greener direction. If he fails, his ambitious plan becomes a marker for 2022 and 2024, and it’s more politics as usual.

©2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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What cows' legs have to do with economic stimulus -- Feb. 4, 2021 column

By MARSHA MERCER

President Joe Biden wants Republican support for his economic stimulus package, but the clock’s ticking.

“We need to act. We need to act fast,” Biden said Wednesday in a private conference call with House Democrats, according to news reports.

To win Republican votes, the president is willing to negotiate on some parts of his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan package, but he doesn’t want to talk endlessly.

He wants Congress to send him a bill to sign by March 14, when extended unemployment benefits expire for millions of Americans.

Biden met Monday with 10 Republican senators whose $618 billion counterproposal is one third the size of Biden’s plan. Among GOP provisions -- $1,000 checks to individuals, instead of Biden’s $1,400 checks, and no $15 minimum wage.

Biden wants to “go big,” as do House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and even West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican.

“We need to quit counting the egg-sucking legs on the cows and count the cows and just move,” Justice said in TV interviews Wednesday. In other words, pass something and not worry about the cost.

Biden’s choice: Make good on his promise of bipartisanship by watering down his plan to appease Republicans or deliver on the promise of meaningful help to millions hurt by the pandemic.

Biden believes in compromise, but compromise requires both sides act in good faith. As usual, each side is accusing the other of playing a crass political game.

But the wide gap between the packages raises the question whether Republicans seriously want bipartisanship – or just talking points for the next campaign.

We’ve been here before. When President Barack Obama took office in 2009 with Biden as his vice president, the country was sliding into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Obama wanted Republican support for his economic stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

“There was a pervasive nostalgia in Washington, both before I was elected and during my presidency, for a bygone era of bipartisan cooperation on Capitol Hill,” Obama writes in his memoir, “A Promised Land.”

To court Republicans, he shrank the stimulus package – and, many economists believe, made it much less effective, slowing the recovery.

Obama hoped he might “catch GOP leaders by surprise and ease their suspicions, helping to build working relationships that could carry over to other issues. And if, as was more likely, the gambit didn’t work and Republicans rejected my overtures, then at least voters would know who was to blame for Washington’s dysfunction,” he writes.

None of that happened. His $787 billion recovery act passed – without a single Republican vote. Republicans then obstructed his subsequent initiatives at every turn. Congressional Democrats later pushed through the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare -- again with zero Republican votes.

But, voters didn’t blame Republicans for dysfunctional government. To the contrary, in the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans, fueled by the Tea Partiers, captured dozens of seats and control of the House and gained seats in the Senate.

Biden and congressional Democrats know what they’re up against. So, they again are pressing forward with a plan to pass the economic stimulus with only Democratic support by using a budgetary tool known as reconciliation.

If no Republicans join, Democrats could pass the bill with 51 votes in the Senate, bypassing the usual 60 vote requirement. The Senate is split 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote.

Republicans are crying foul, of course, but they used reconciliation to pass the 2017 tax cuts without any Democratic support.

In his memoir, Obama recounts a story Biden shared about his run-in as a senator with Mitch McConnell. After the Republican leader blocked a bill Biden was sponsoring, Biden tried to explain its merits. McConnell held up his hand like a traffic cop and said: “You must be under the mistaken impression that I care.”

Biden is not naïve. He knows who and what he’s up against. He believes he can round up a few Republican votes and call the package bipartisan. But Republicans may just keep counting the legs on the cows.

© 2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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What's your FQ? Take our filibuster quiz -- Jan. 28, 2021 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The filibuster is safe, for now.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell allowed the Senate to get on with its work after two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, said they would not vote to bust the filibuster.

But saying the filibuster is safe is like saying the ground beef you left on the counter with your dog in the kitchen is safe while you go to the living room to greet guests. Which is to say, not very.

Senate traditionalists have long argued that the filibuster protects the political minority’s rights and forces a bipartisan approach by requiring a supermajority to break one.

Since the filibuster impedes the party in power from enacting its agenda, Republicans now want to use it to stifle Democratic plans. Meanwhile, some Democrats want to ditch the filibuster to smooth the way for President Joe Biden, although doing so would also smooth the way for the next Republican president.

One thing is certain: With the Senate comprised of 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, the filibuster fight is just heating up.

How much do you know about the filibuster? Take our 10-question quiz.

1)     What’s the origin of the word filibuster?

A.   Italian word for an insect with a long tongue

B.    Dutch word for a pirate, with French and Spanish connections

C.    Old English word for breaking a wild horse

D.   French word for an article of women’s clothing

 

2)    When did the filibuster come to be used to prevent a vote on a bill?

A.   1820s

B.    1850s

C.    1880s

D.   1920s

 

3)    Which of these is not correct?

A.   The filibuster is a tool used to kill or change legislation in the Senate, originally by talking it to death but now by threatening to filibuster

B.    Representatives used to be able to filibuster, but the House changed its rules

C.    Senators used to be able to talk as long as they wanted on any issue

D.   The right to filibuster is in the Constitution

 

4)    Many Americans know the Senate filibuster from the classic 1939 Frank Capra film, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” What did Mr. Smith – a.k.a. Jimmy Stewart -- want to build?

A.   A local savings and loan

B.    A hotel

C.    A boys’ camp

D.   A border wall

5)  What does it mean to invoke cloture?

             A. Senators vote to end debate

             B. Senators vote to go on vacation

             C. Senators go to the cloakroom and confer

             D. Senators meet lobbyists behind closed doors to raise money

 6) What’s Rule 22?

             A. A measuring tool invented by Thomas Jefferson

             B. A rule allowing unlimited free speech in the Senate

             C. A rule adopted in 1917 that permits the Senate to end debate with a two-thirds majority vote

             D. A rule prohibiting senators from talking more than 22 consecutive hours

 7) Southern Democratic senators used the filibuster in the 20^th century to do what?

             A. Block civil rights legislation

             B. Block anti-lynching legislation

             C. Block rock-and-roll lyrics they thought obscene

             D. Block both civil rights and anti-lynching legislation

  8) Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina holds the Senate record for longest individual speech. How long did Thurmond filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1957?

           A. 22 hours and 3 minutes

           B. 23 hours and 59 minutes

           C. 24 hours and 18 minutes

           D. 25 hours and 2 minutes

  9) In 1975, the Senate changed the number of votes required for cloture. How many votes are required now to end debate?

         A. Three-fifths – or 60 of the current 100 senators

         B.  Half plus one -- 51 senators

         C. Half plus five – 55 senators

         D. Three-fourths – 75 senators

 10) A group of Southern Democrats staged the longest filibuster in American history against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. How long did that filibuster last?

    A.  40 days

    B.  50 days

    C.  60 days

    D. 75 days

             

 

ANSWERS:

1)    B

2)    B

3)    D

4)    C

5)    A

6)    C

7)    D

8)    C

9)    A

10)  C

Sources: U.S. Senate Historical Office on senate.gov, archives.gov, merriam-webster.com, Congressional Research Service reports.

Marsha Mercer writes from Washington. Contact her at marsha.mercer@yahoo.com

© 2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Democrats will be in charge, but . . . -- Jan. 7, 2021 column

By MARSHA MERCER

On the surface, Democrats’ projected control of the Senate, as well as the House and the White House, seem like manna for President-elect Joe Biden and Democrats hungry for change.

Republican Mitch McConnell, who as Senate majority leader routinely dashed Democrats’ dreams, is headed for minority status, while Democrat Chuck Schumer, who has spent 22 years in the Senate imagining this moment, is on his way to becoming majority leader.

“Senate Democrats know America is hurting – help is on the way,” Schumer said in a statement.

Nancy Pelosi, newly re-elected as House speaker, set as a top agenda item for her majority an update of the Voting Rights Act with a bill named for the late congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis. McConnell and the Republican Senate never let the bill see the light of day.  

But don’t bet your $2,000 stimulus check on the 117th Congress taking wide-ranging action to solve many of the nation’s problems.  

Yes, the third round of stimulus checks – for $2,000 each -- is a good bet, if Democrats Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, who have been projected victors in the Georgia runoff elections, win in the final vote tallies.

It will be the first time in six years Democrats hold a majority in the Senate, with Kamala Harris as vice president casting tie-breaking votes. Democrats will run the committees and decide which legislation and nominations reach the floor.

Democrats and some Republicans may agree on the need for other COVID-19 relief, to beef up the fight against the pandemic and speed vaccine distribution.

 

 

Even with the Democratic trifecta, though, we’re unlikely to see a return to the Great Society years of Lyndon Johnson, with sweeping legislative accomplishments that reshape America.

Instead, the 50-50 split in the Senate likely will deliver more conflict and gridlock for the next two years, as any disgruntled senator or group of House members can bring floor action to a screeching halt.

Biden still insists he wants to work with Republicans and Democrats at every level of government “to get big things done for our nation.” As a former senator, he believes he can work with the GOP to achieve the big things, but such razor-thin majorities as Democrats hold in both houses rarely accomplish much.

Maybe Congress can follow the example of the last time there was a 50-50 tie in the Senate. That was after another contentious election – in 2000, which was decided by the Supreme Court.

Democratic and Republican leaders negotiated a power-sharing agreement that lasted a few months, until one senator -- James Jeffords of Vermont -- switched from being a Republican to an independent and caucused with the Democrats.

In the House this time around, progressives have big ideas but lack the numbers to pass them alone. They will need help from centrist Democrats, the few who remain. Archconservative Republicans in the Freedom Caucus will dig in their heels, unwilling to compromise, if history is a guide.

Biden is already getting some pushback from his own party. Progressives lobbied him to name a woman or a person of color as attorney general and are disappointed in his choice of Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, who is white and is seen as an apolitical moderate.

And don’t forget: Both parties have their eyes on the 2022 congressional elections. The party in power typically loses seats in the midterms, and House Democrats have just 222 seats at the moment, four more than a majority, so they are vulnerable.

Crucial Senate races include one in Georgia, where Warnock, filling an unexpired term, will seek his first full term as well as in the battleground states of North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.  

Our nation needs to unite, but as we saw with the riots at the Capitol this week, aided and abetted by the president, we sadly have a long way to go.

The next two years will be critical for Biden to prove he and the Democrats are not only in charge but also in control.

©2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Trump ignores elephant in the room -- Oct. 15, 2020 column

 

By MARSHA MERCER

When President Donald Trump held a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa, Wednesday night, a giant billboard at the airport helpfully pointed the way to the “TRUMP COVID SUPERSPREADER EVENT.”

Rural America 2020, an agricultural advocacy group that opposes Trump, paid for the billboard.

“We’re doing our part to warn Iowans that @realdonaldtrump is in town tomorrow. This billboard is directly outside the Des Moines Airport where he will hold his hangar rally,” the group tweeted Tuesday.

Darkly humorous and deadly serious, the billboard reminds us that Trump is hosting campaign rallies around the country that put his supporters, their friends and families at risk even as coronavirus cases are surging.

Iowa has seen such a jump in coronavirus that White House health officials warned the state Oct. 4 to limit gatherings to 25 people or fewer. Trump and his campaign ignored the advice and packed thousands shoulder to shoulder in the hangar.

Rally attendees receive temperature checks, but most do not wear masks or keep social distance. Trump still refuses to model good behavior by masking up. He revels in the large, enthusiastic crowds, urging the news media to turn their cameras on his fans.

So much about this is perplexing: The president continues to flout his own health experts’ recommendations. Fans still flock to his rallies. Republican politicians stand by and smile.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, did say he has not been to the White House since August because he disagrees with White House coronavirus protocols, but other GOP politicians have stayed silent or backed Trump’s irresponsible behavior.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, continues to warn against large gatherings, saying they are “asking for trouble.”

While declining to criticize campaign rallies specifically, Fauci said Wednesday on CBS, “large congregate settings with a lot of people” are an avoidable risk.

For months, we’ve heard that cooler weather will bring a surge of COVID-19 cases, as people head indoors where transmission is easier. We’re already seeing a surge in the upper Midwest and northern plains, where some hospitals are overwhelmed.

In the District of Columbia and 37 states, including Virginia, the number of new cases rose 5 percent or more this week over the previous week, according to Johns Hopkins University coronavirus trackers.

Fauci urged all Americans to “double down” on mask wearing, social distancing, avoiding crowds, being outdoors when possible and washing hands.

If we fail in these simple precautions, we’re likely to see more cases, hospitalizations, deaths and more suffering by “long-haulers,” people who fight the effects of COVID indefinitely.

The president insists he himself is now immune -- “I feel so powerful,” he said Monday at a rally in Florida -- after spending three nights in the hospital at Walter Reed National Military Center and receiving a drug that’s unavailable to most Americans. An antibody cocktail from Regeneron is in clinical trials.

At least 1,011 new coronavirus deaths and about 60,000 new cases were reported in the United States on Oct. 14, according to a New York Times database. New cases had dropped to between 30,000 and 35,000 a day in early September but averaged more than 53,124 cases a day over the past week, an increase of 23 percent from the average two weeks earlier, The Times said.

In 2016, Trump bragged he could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue in New York and shoot someone and not lose voters. Now, as he plays fast and loose with a deadly virus, polls show he’s losing support among seniors who are the most vulnerable to severe illness.

We’re in the campaign’s final stretch. If Trump should defy the polls and win re-election, he likely will orchestrate more mass events as COVID worsens.

“This winter – this November, December, January, February – could be the worst time in our epidemic,” Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said Tuesday on CNN. “Get ready to hunker down.”

Trump’s far different message: “Don’t be afraid of COVID. Don’t let it dominate your life.”

But don’t be reckless. Be smart, follow health guidelines and avoid super-spreader events of any kind.  

© 2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

 

 

As D.C. dithers, students prepare for unthinkable -- Sept. 12, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Fresh from their summer break, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday sent to the House floor three gun control bills.

The Democratic-controlled House likely will pass the bills within weeks -- but they’re probably dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled Senate. Republicans, as usual, say the bills are flawed and violate 2^nd Amendment rights.

Meanwhile, fresh from their summer break, 56.6 million American students in grades K-12 have gone back to active shooter drills.

One of the first lessons for many students this school year wasn’t about reading or writing, study habits or sportsmanship. It was about survival.

In Virginia and across the country, lockdown drills are now an essential part of the student experience.

The Virginia Code requires every public school to hold a lockdown drill at least twice during the first 20 days of each school session and two other lockdown drills during the remainder of the session.

“Unannounced drills may be more effective than announced drills since they add a component of realism,” according to state guidelines.

Drills can feel frighteningly real, as students and teachers at Short Pump Middle School in Glen Allen, Va., learned last year.

An unannounced active shooter drill -- with multiple fire alarms, loud noises and people jiggling classroom door handles from the outside – left students crying and texting farewells to parents and family. Some teachers also broke down, according to news reports.

Outraged parents complained, and Henrico County schools decided to announce all drills going forward.

Schools are in a no-win situation. Active shooter incidents in schools are extremely rare – but deadly.

Mass shootings are less than 1% of school gun violence incidents in the United States, but they account for 28% of overall deaths in schools and 14% of injuries, according to an analysis by the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, research arm of the gun control group founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

So schools must prepare students and teachers for the unthinkable -- while trying not to traumatize students.

The standard response to a school emergency is: “Lock Down. Evacuate. Shelter in Place” – and wait for law enforcement.

After the Sandy Hook school massacre in 2012, the U.S. Education Department said school training also may include “Run. Hide. Fight,” the response often taught in workplaces.

In the extreme case of a nearby active shooter, younger students may try to distract the shooter by throwing books and scissors. As a last resort, older students may try physical intervention.

Two students died as heroes last spring, fighting a shooter in their classrooms.

In April, Riley Howell, 21, tackled a gunman at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and refused to let go, despite being shot repeatedly. Another student was killed, and four were injured. Authorities credited Howell with saving many lives.

In May, Kendrick Castillo, 18, was only a few days short of high school graduation in a suburb of Denver when a classmate pulled a gun. Castillo charged the shooter and three other students joined him, giving classmates time to escape. Eight students were wounded.

His grieving father, John Castillo, said of his only child: “I wish he’d gone and hid, but that’s not his character.”

It’s a sad commentary on American life that we rely on courageous young people to sacrifice their lives for others when our elected officials lack the backbone to tighten gun laws.

But pressure on Congress is mounting. On Thursday, 145 CEOs urged the Senate to expand background checks to all firearm sales and pass a strong “red flag” law – also called extreme risk protection orders – allowing judges to remove guns temporarily from people deemed a danger to themselves or others.

It’s time for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans to stop playing “Mother, May I” with President Donald Trump. McConnell refuses to bring a bill to a vote unless Trump agrees to sign it into law so as to protect Republicans running for re-election from a tough vote.

“Doing nothing about America’s gun violence crisis is simply unacceptable,” said the letter signed by CEOs of Twitter, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Uber, Lyft and others.

The CEOs are right, and they join a growing chorus calling on Congress to act. Congress and Trump must act before more children face the unthinkable.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.