From: Ryan Grim <badnews@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, February 2, 2021 11:30 AM
To: miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: The most important legislation before Congress
<https://mailgun.substack.com/api/v1/email/open?token=eyJtZXNzYWdlX2lkIjoiPD
IwMjEwMjAyMTYyOTQzLjEucTY5NjF3cjB4N0BtZzIuc3Vic3RhY2suY29tPiIsInVzZXJfaWQiOj
Y1OTAwOSwicmVjaXBpZW50IjoibWlyaWFtdmllbmlAb3B0b25saW5lLm5ldCIsImRvbWFpbiI6Im
1nMi5zdWJzdGFjay5jb20iLCJwb3>
It took six months, but the chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party has
finally apologized for his role in the Alex Morse smear campaign. The
Department of Homeland Security is way more horrendously dysfunctional than
we’d known before, according to a new investigation by
The most important legislation before Congress
<https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVkM9uhCAQxp9mua0BVIQDh730NQzK6JIiUBh369
sXay9NJpPJ5Js_3282CGvMh06xIDnTiEcCHeBdPCBCJnuBPDqrRa8oVcTqzjLZS-LKuGSAzTivMe
9A0j55Nxt0MZx6NjBGnlpQprhV_UI7awwwPgyqV7JdlBALdOo6anbrIMyg4QX5iAGI10_EVG7t48
Y_akzGnk81ZZ8KmvmzmeNW2wli8lALLhml4p4PE-5rdhtxmlPO6JkEV13bsOZLKMHemX4Pt45uK_
-3jGS9uezM9qqfuCqICWPwLkATAE93Y1Vte3B4jBDM5MFexvGi94tiXCFArlTtaFAzwTiXbSvbyu
5yWsm0nPGeS0nqeRvrVNB_7n4AoSeGuQ> Ryan Grim
Feb 2
It took six months, but the chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party
<https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlkU2OhCAQhU_T7NrwY9u6YDGbuYYpoVQyAg6U3e
3tB8aEPCrkUfX4MEC4xHTqPWZiVUY6d9QB33lDIkzsyJhGZ3X3GDgfmNWtFf2jZy6Pc0L04DZN6U
C2H9PmDJCLofrFUwi26qFt1cTtgHMPc2vEszPYza1CYQUgwDUUDuswGNT4wnTGgGzTK9Geb-rrJr
_LohVdKHkM7tSY6MuR5FKUjcsqtYINP3cfU8a7h5zBrCU8Ub5b9NEkKBXscYvLWczM6dqAV-nk0K
pGNL_d0Il34p_nreV-kU0-pkxgfupElrR3yYF_laiuGOJOMWwuYBOQ6vPH4vJHcHSOGGDa0F5k6M
L7z2pcMGCJgnYE0qITUvZK9arAvVAUdEoK-ZB9z8p4G8utoCew9U_-ACiDkzY> has finally
apologized for his role in the Alex Morse smear campaign.
The Department of Homeland Security is way more horrendously dysfunctional
than we’d known before,
<https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJw1kUtuxCAQRE8z7GwB_gxesMgm17AwNDYKBgeamf
j2wbEioUJC1arqh1YIa0ynPGJGcsmM5wEywDt7QIRESoY0OyPHYaJ0Ikb2holBEJdnmwB25bzEVI
AcZfFOK3QxXH72ZIxsUnDLFAwcqNV8YEqJcRo7MZre2tEOyx2qinEQNEh4QTpjAOLlhnjkR_fx4J
_14AYu1D4aDmx13OsTp5zVi_J_2eIOXgXTZNAlOTybI74hNbn2W1cPjS7WquSqlTh5jdNLRj71Xc
va79qMvRP9eT56uq-8zWXJqPTXlUeS3F1yan_Voq4a4oExeBegDYDX8nN17SXU2BmCWjyYmwvecP
9IzSsESBW6mRVKNjLORdeJrqK9QVRwHWd84EKQGm9inQpyUeb6kV9EQJHX> according to a
new investigation by
<https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJw1kUtuxCAQRE8z7GwB_gxesMgm17AwNDYKBgeamf
j2wbEioUJC1arqh1YIa0ynPGJGcsmM5wEywDt7QIRESoY0OyPHYaJ0Ikb2holBEJdnmwB25bzEVI
AcZfFOK3QxXH72ZIxsUnDLFAwcqNV8YEqJcRo7MZre2tEOyx2qinEQNEh4QTpjAOLlhnjkR_fx4J
_14AYu1D4aDmx13OsTp5zVi_J_2eIOXgXTZNAlOTybI74hNbn2W1cPjS7WquSqlTh5jdNLRj71Xc
va79qMvRP9eT56uq-8zWXJqPTXlUeS3F1yan_Voq4a4oExeBegDYDX8nN17SXU2BmCWjyYmwvecP
9IzSsESBW6mRVKNjLORdeJrqK9QVRwHWd84EKQGm9inQpyUeb6kV9EQJHX> Ken Klippenstein
<https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJw1kUtuxCAQRE8z7GwB_gxesMgm17AwNDYKBgeamf
j2wbEioUJC1arqh1YIa0ynPGJGcsmM5wEywDt7QIRESoY0OyPHYaJ0Ikb2holBEJdnmwB25bzEVI
AcZfFOK3QxXH72ZIxsUnDLFAwcqNV8YEqJcRo7MZre2tEOyx2qinEQNEh4QTpjAOLlhnjkR_fx4J
_14AYu1D4aDmx13OsTp5zVi_J_2eIOXgXTZNAlOTybI74hNbn2W1cPjS7WquSqlTh5jdNLRj71Xc
va79qMvRP9eT56uq-8zWXJqPTXlUeS3F1yan_Voq4a4oExeBegDYDX8nN17SXU2BmCWjyYmwvecP
9IzSsESBW6mRVKNjLORdeJrqK9QVRwHWd84EKQGm9inQpyUeb6kV9EQJHX> . The agency was
slapped together after 9/11 so Congress could consolidate the power of
domestic intelligence and law enforcement forces and look like it was doing
something to respond. From a purely institutional perspective, it simply
hasn’t worked, and after reading this you’ll probably agree it should be
dissolved and its socially useful responsibilities -- some customs
enforcements, investigating child sex trafficking, etc. -- returned to more
functional and responsible agencies.
<https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlkUtuxCAQRE8z7MYC_F-wyCbXsDB0bBQMDjQz8e
3TxBIqJFRNFQ-jEbaYLnXGjKzKgtcJKsA7e0CExEqGtDirhn7mfGZWdVZM_cRcXr4SwKGdV5gKsL
Os3hmNLobqF6MQbFer1tZ0Y9fzYe1GgFbakeup49qOICe4Q3WxDoIBBS9IVwzAvNoRz_xoPx7ykx
bu4AL1MXBiY-JBR5JLQRuvImcSs7ugn-Xa9pKeR8neHc9c0guc95puf56RGgI5mVN1mlcZ5Ny1jW
h-hnkQ78R_x0fHj002uawZtfmucSypwyWnjxf1dGSIJ8bgXYAmANa3L-Q6SnB4LRD06sHeWPBm-w
9q2SBAIuZ20ajEIKSc2nZqiezNgbi1UsheThOjeBtpKhBDWz_kD8vVkYo> We also published
over the weekend, based on a ream of internal documents and and police
records, an extraordinary look into the Chinese government’s repression of
its Uyghur population -- what amounts to a sophisticated and slowly
unfolding cultural genocide.
<https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlkc1uwyAQhJ8m3GLxYzv4wKGXvoaFYRujGnBhnd
Rv36WW0IDQrGb4cBbhmctp9lyRNZnx3MEkeNcNEKGwo0KZgzfjMHE-MW96L_SgWajzVwGINmwGyw
FsP5YtOIshp-YXDyHYahZtp8cgBRfS6WEclRWjWJSfvnqhnZuuUHv4AMmBgReUMydgm1kR93pTHz
f5SQtXCIn6ONixcznSleRS0MZlk3by4HKqVMYh-PtaxL3aF9xthELF0t1DzK5Yd5KXBdPmeZNRTr
3qRPczTqN4F_77uPU8PmVXj6Widd8tkBUTQwk2vqhpIEPeMactJOgSYHv9TK54pIDnDMkuG_gLDF
50_1HNT0hQiLqfLRpCIaVWSitie5EgckoKOUitGcX7TFPJLNa3L_kDhtyQ-w> The For The
People Act
Despite getting very little public attention, the twin bills in Congress
labeled HR1 and S1 are arguably the most important pieces of legislation
drawn up in a generation. And Democrats are serious about passing them into
law. The republic might be riding on it.
The bills are actually a collection of dozens of pieces of legislation that
Democrats have been working on for years around a handful of related but
distinct issue areas: voting rights, gerrymandering, and campaign finance.
One piece of HR1 would require political donors to disclose their
identities, trying to put an end to dark money. Another element creates
matching funds for candidates who agree not to accept big money. The bill
doesn’t use taxpayer dollars, but instead makes the matching payments out of
a fund created by fines for financial crimes. For every dollar a candidate
raises in small money, the fund matches six times over. Those matching funds
would also be available to candidates in primary elections, which has led to
a ton of consternation inside the Democratic caucus. Why should we help fund
our primary challengers, many have asked? But those objections have largely
been beaten back, as the stakes of the fight have come into focus.
The immediate stakes are these: Democrats currently hold 223 seats in the
House. They need 218 for a majority. When all the vacancies are filled,
they’re likely to have a cushion of six or seven seats, not much to sit on
comfortably. Once the Census is released, House seats will be reapportioned.
Partly because of the way the American population is flowing, and partly
because the Trump administration deliberately rigged the Census, Democrats
are going to get pounded. HR1 and S1 are likely the only chance the
Democrats have to stave off this disaster. The bill ends gerrymandering, and
also includes voting rights and campaign finance reform.
These nine states, once the new Census figures are released, are set to lose
a congressional district: California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New
York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia. Depending
precisely on how the Census comes out, New York might actually lose two
seats. (If it doesn’t lose a second seat, Alabama will lose one.) Those 10
seats are getting spread around: 3 will go to Texas, 2 to Florida, and one
each to Arizona, Colorado, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon.
Broadly speaking, blue states are losing seats, and red states are gaining
seats.
That shift alone could easily wipe out the party’s majority, especially when
you add in gerrymandering. Republicans control the redistricting process in
nearly all the states that’ll be getting new congressional seats: Texas,
Arizona, North Carolina, Montana and Florida, meaning they can redraw the
lines not just to make sure they pick up the new seats the census is giving
them, but win back a few extra that Democrats picked up in 2018. Out of all
the states gaining a seat, Democrats can gerrymander only in Oregon.
Across the whole country, the imbalance is equally stark: In 20 states,
Republicans will have the full ability to gerrymander. That’s only true of 9
Democratic states, and in most of those there aren’t many gains left to be
made. The rest either have independent commissions or control of the state
is split. Forgetting the Census process, Republicans would only have to
successfully gerrymander one seat for every two states they control to win
back the House. That’s incredibly easy to do given today’s mapping
technology. Take Georgia, where Democrats just won 2 Senate seats.
Republicans hold 8 House seats there and Democrats control 6. But it’s not
hard to look at how a map could pack a lot more Democrats into a few seats
in and around Atlanta, and leave Republicans with 10 and Democrats with 4.
That’s just one state.
If Republicans take the House in 2022, Biden’s legislative agenda is over.
That likely means a stalled economy and more dysfunction in Washington,
which puts Republicans in a strong position to take the White House in 2024,
at which point Democrats could be relegated to near-permanent minority
status despite a national numerical advantage. It’s hard to see how
functioning Democratic institutions survive such a structural imbalance.
That means HR1 and S1 are effectively the party’s last stand before a new
era of minority-rule politics sets in. The bill ends gerrymandering, and
also includes voting rights reforms -- most importantly automatic voter
registration and same day registration -- that would bring millions of
people off the sidelines and into the ballot box, or into the mail. If
Republicans get their way, as they’re doing now in Georgia, they’ll do
everything they can to make mail-in voting impossible -- which they blame
for their 2020 loss of the white house and senate, and are vowing not to let
happen again.
Unlike Democrats, Republicans over the past 50 years have done everything in
their power to create political structures that advantage them: They gutted
campaign finance reform with Citizens United. They destroyed ACORN, a
community organizing group that registered millions of voters a year. They
took gerrymandering to a level of science in order to disenfranchise black
voters. They created a fake scandal around the IRS to protect and expand
their dark money operations. They overturned key portions of the Voting
Rights Act. They introduced voter ID rules, shut down polling locations, and
threw up all manner of obstacles to make it harder for struggling people to
vote. The change to voting that has most benefited Democrats, meanwhile, has
been the turn to mail. The ease with which small donors can now give to
candidates has also been a boon to Democrats, foreshadowing the possibility
of a party completely financed by regular people.
The rich and powerful would not be shut out of politics in a post HR1 world.
They’d still own most of the media, think tanks, and other pieces of the
political economy that structure our politics; They can still fund endless
super PACs and give big checks to members of Congress who agree to take
them. They can continue to hire armies of lobbyists. But it would be a more
democratic world than the one we have now. And it’s actually within reach,
though Republican opposition in the Senate means it can only become law if
the filibuster is reformed to, at minimum, create an exception for voting
rights and other democracy reform. The latter is being pushed by advocates
of the legislation, who argue that you can’t allow a minority to obstruct
legislation aimed at making the system more equitable.
HR1 is the subject of
<https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlkc1uwyAQhJ8m3GLxYzv4wKGXvoaFYRujGnBhnd
Rv36WW0IDQrGb4cBbhmctp9lyRNZnx3MEkeNcNEKGwo0KZgzfjMHE-MW96L_SgWajzVwGINmwGyw
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f5SQtXCIn6ONixcznSleRS0MZlk3by4HKqVMYh-PtaxL3aF9xthELF0t1DzK5Yd5KXBdPmeZNRTr
3qRPczTqN4F_77uPU8PmVXj6Widd8tkBUTQwk2vqhpIEPeMactJOgSYHv9TK54pIDnDMkuG_gLDF
50_1HNT0hQiLqfLRpCIaVWSitie5EgckoKOUitGcX7TFPJLNa3L_kDhtyQ-w> the
Deconstructed podcast we put out today and what you just read is more or
less the monologue that launches it, so if you give it a listen, you can
skip the first seven minutes and 15 seconds.
You’re on the free list for
<https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVkM1uxCAMhJ9mOUb8Lxw49NLXQCS4WdQEUnB2m7
cvaXqpZPlgzWj8zRQQ5lIPt5WG5Fwejw1chldbABEq2RtUn6LTylJqSXQyMqMMSc1_VIA1pMVh3Y
Fs-7ikKWAq-dSzO2Pk4eg0UsW5jioqbWk0coxcacGstFLpcIWGPSbIEzh4Qj1KBrK4B-LWbuLtxt
_7jCGeTw1tHxuG6XOYytrPJDlOOaPn0txKMbDhS1vNXpV-32-SrjP_5yHVrammsD57YOqCsmHJS8
owZMATwnfVuueEh4ccxgXixYdXSb_EfoYMtZcXfUDHNOPcCGFEr-gC6gUIzrjixpAeH0t3ZfcH8Q
PHrX5W> Bad News. For the full experience, become a paying subscriber.
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