Opinion | Democrats must do whatever it takes to defend voting. And not just in Texas. - The Washington Post

Republicans’ refusal to recognize the 2020 election’s legitimacy and their determination to impair democratic elections continue unabated. At the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend, the disgraced former president delivered “a rambling” address in which he “returned again and again to election-related lies — some of them detailed and wrong, most of them vague and wrong," CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale reported.

Other Republicans remain in full denial mode, falsely insisting that the Jan. 6 insurrection was peaceful and that there is no need for a bipartisan commission to investigate the attack. Dropping any pretense of support for police, the GOP is making Ashli Babbitt (misled by the “big lie” of a stolen election to join the mob) the martyred hero of the Capitol attack. A woman who took part in a violent effort to overthrow an election makes a fitting addition to the pantheon of cranks, liars and thugs the party venerates.

The losing former president’s lawyers may suffer stiff penalties in Michigan for bringing frivolous and false election challenges, but that has not slowed GOP propagation of the “big lie” nor efforts to suppress voting among likely Democratic voters. Democrats have yet to mount a full-scale effort to block voter-suppression laws and rules that would allow partisan Republican lawmakers to undo election results.

The White House, Justice Department and Senate Democrats might take a page from the playbook of Texas’s Democrats, who have dumped the Queensbury rules in their state’s political boxing match over voting rights. The Post reports that at least 50 “Democratic lawmakers in Texas fled the state on Monday, potentially torpedoing an ongoing special session called by Republicans to take up new voting restrictions.” The report explained, “The exodus denies Republicans the required two-thirds attendance level to conduct business, calling into doubt whether plans to take up voting legislation this week could proceed.”

Finally. No more pious arguments on the merits. No more agonizing over the “misunderstood” Trumpian cult followers. If they do not have the votes to block anti-voting measures, Democrats must be as creative in defending democracy as Republicans are in attacking it. Democrats must go on offense whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself.

Lawyers for the Democratic Party should be filing actions to disbar and penalize Trump lawyers in all states in which their abusive, irresponsible and false claims of election irregularities were filed. That should include all lawyers in the House Republican caucus who signed onto the specious lawsuit seeking to throw out electoral votes of states that President Biden won.

Any member found to have assisted the insurrectionists should be expelled from Congress pursuant to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment (which states, “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress … who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”)

Justice Department lawyers must get cracking with legal challenges to the phony audits and to anti-voting laws in states beyond just Georgia (where the Justice Department has already brought a case). House and Senate Democrats should hold hearings and subpoena state lawmakers and governors who have devised Jim Crow-style laws based on the “big lie.” (If nothing else, getting these people under oath will help the Justice Department in cases challenging the anti-voting measures.)

Democrats running against the former president’s proteges, such as Glenn Youngkin in Virginia, should confront them over his loony assertions about Jan. 6 and attempts to impugn the results if they lose ("watch the ‘vote counters’ in Virginia,” the former president declared on Monday). All Republicans on the ballot should be challenged to reject these lies. Their Democratic opponents must demand Republicans pledge to respect the results of the election if they lose. Every Republican running for the House must pledge not to seek to overturn the results of the electoral college in 2024 as the MAGA crowd attempted to do in 2020.

In short, Democrats need to take off the gloves. Stop bemoaning the right-wing Supreme Court. Start making the most of every available legal device to throw the new Jim Crow movement back on its heels. If Texas Democrats can deny Republicans a quorum to protect voting rights, then surely the rest of the party can buy democracy more time as it figures out a way to entice Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) to maneuver around the filibuster.

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"Opinion" - Google News
July 13, 2021 at 11:00PM
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Opinion | Democrats must do whatever it takes to defend voting. And not just in Texas. - The Washington Post
"Opinion" - Google News
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