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Don Gates's avatar

The Constitution is showing its age, unfortunately. It wasn't a terribly democratic document to begin with as a product of the late 18th century, and a lot a what we have today that is democratic apparently is more the product of norms than due to the actual text of our founding document. Direct election of Senators had to be added to the Constitution, but at least that can't go away now. Obviously the franchise originally excluded virtually everyone in the Republic, quite the irony for the revolution sparked by outrage over taxation without representation.

No one has decided to exploit the lack of democracy codified into the Constitution until the present incarnation of the GOP. The Electoral College is by its nature undemocratic, since we've had a recent spate of presidents getting elected while losing the popular vote, but the GOP is bent on eliminating whatever is democratic even in that institution, because nothing says states must hold elections to determine Electors. I agree with you that Federal oversight of state-run elections is probably the best model, but I don't see any enforcement mechanism through legislation that could pass constitutional muster if challenged.

Another concern I have is, if we do pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which will require some sort of filibuster reform at the very least, it would be, as you say, basically re-establishing the original Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the SCOTUS recently dumped into the wastebasket, I believe when conservatives held a 5-4 majority on the bench. I'm not entirely clear on what the grounds for their decision was, I think basically the rationale was that racism doesn't exist anymore or something, but if they eliminated the 1965 provisions, what would prevent a 6-3 court from doing the same to this John Lewis bill? And then we've eliminated the filibuster to pass a bill that will just end up overturned by SCOTUS. I don't have any bright ideas.

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Samantha's avatar

Your ideas sound a heck of a lot brighter than mine tho! Lol! Yeah, the court would be an issue, but maybe they wouldn’t touch this because they’re worried about seeming overly political with all these very partisan rulings… but I have no idea. It’s a solid point. John Roberts was very responsible for gutting the voting rights act, which is why whenever I think of John Roberts it’s like pulling petals off a daisy. “I hate him, I hate him not, but I hate him, hate him not.” 🌸 😂

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