Are we going about how to ensure fair elections the right way?

Secure Da Bag

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According to this article, instead of putting all our eggs in the filibuster basket. More work should be done on the state level. In this case, to undo the effects of gerrymandering.

This is a NewsWeek article, so take with a grain of salt.

Chin Up: The Democrats Just Had a Big Voting Rights Win | Opinion (msn.com)

But how to leverage that? It's hard to overcome the Catch-22 of election reform. After all, how can you pass anti-gerrymandering law in a gerrymandered legislature? How do you win races to end the rules that are designed to keep you from winning races? So the group worked around the legislature by drafting a constitutional amendment. In six months, a volunteer army gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures and forced a measure onto the ballot.

They didn't just win; they crushed. The new constitutional language, which voters ultimately approved in 2018 in a 75-25 landslide, was straightforward, clear, and fair. It required both parties to have a say in new maps, and that "the general assembly shall not pass a plan that unduly favors or disfavors a political party or its incumbents."

But that's not the end of the story. It's one thing to write a law, another for courts to enforce it. Ohio is a state that elects its Supreme Court Justices. So the coalition honed in on those races to make sure the new law would have a fighting chance. In 2018 and 2020, Democratic-endorsed candidates for the Ohio Supreme Court won three out of four statewide elections, moving the court from 7-0 Republican-favored judges to 4-3, even as Ohio went for Donald Trump by 8 points in 2020. And it was that new court makeup that last week upheld the ballot measure, preventing an obscenely rigged and undemocratic result.

"We got those wins by doing what the Right does all the time, focusing on where the power was, and aggressively explaining the stakes to voters," says Ohio-based Democratic consultant Cliff Schecter, who advised independent efforts to boost those campaigns. "Sometimes the job is electing a President, but much more often it's more local and less glamorous. And you know what? Every bit as important."

And why should Democrats think that they can take this blueprint to other states? Because they already have. "The hidden story of the 2018 midterm elections was just how many pro-democracy election reform measures passed on the state level," says political scientist William Ewell.

In addition to the Ohio language, ballot measures addressing issues like gerrymandering, voting rights, and campaign funding romped in 2018. They won 14 out of 16 attempts, even in deep red states like Utah and Missouri. Ten of the measures passed in states Donald Trump won in 2016, including Missouri (Trump + 17), Utah (Trump + 18), and even North Dakota (Trump + 35). In the four states (in addition to Ohio) that passed redistricting ballot measures, those referenda ran an average of 17 points ahead of the leading Democratic candidates, drawing substantial moderate and Republican support.

Of course, we need federal action to protect constitutional rights. But federal laws are not everything. They are not even sufficient. "If all we do is protect at the federal level and continue to do politics the way we're doing it, we will lose," observes Pepper.
 

Why

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Nah we should go door to door tbh
It will create jobs and boost the economy :ahh:
 

mc_brew

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the black cat is my crown...
Speaks to the need for states to change voting laws.


corey booker did not destroy anything... tim scott is still alive and well helping to promote fascism.... that said, booker did give a very good speech.... my biggest criticism of that speech is that he did not want to call his colleagues racist.. i want to call them racist, because that is exactly what they are... stop protecting the feelings of racist cacs, they damn sure don't protect our feelings.. fukk 'em....
 
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