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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has recently been sounding the alarm that Democrats may plan to try to reform the filibuster. McConnell argues that senators need to put principle first and keep the Senate safe.

McConnell recounts that back [i]n 2017 and 2018, a sitting president lobbied [him] to do exactly what Democrats want to do now, yet he said no because [b]ecoming a U.S. senator comes with higher duties than steamrolling any obstacle to short-term power.

McConnell seems to forget that he himself played a part in reforming the filibuster back in 2017 when he eliminated its use on Supreme Court nominees. After stonewalling the consideration of Merrick Garland for appointment to the Supreme Court during the presidency of Barack Obama and then pushing for filibuster reform during the presidency of Donald Trump to clear a path for Neil Gorsuch (and later Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett), conservative justices now wield a 6-3 majority.

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Of course, McConnell claims that his 2017 decision to reform the filibuster was simply taking the Reid precedent to its logical conclusion. This is a reference to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reids decision to reform the filibuster back in 2013 by eliminating its use on all presidential nominees except those to the Supreme Court. Reids decision to reform the filibuster isnt really much of a precedent, however, as the filibuster had previously been reformed several times in the past.

For instance, in 1917, the Senate adopted a rule allowing a two-thirds supermajority to end debate and force a vote. This reform came about at the behest of then-president Woodrow Wilson who was frustrated with the repeated use of the filibuster.

In 1974, the Senate further restricted the use of the filibuster by limiting debate to 20 hours when attempting to pass a budget-related bill using the reconciliation process. Essentially, this means that reconciliation bills cannot be filibustered, as debate cannot continue indefinitely. Notably, this process has been used by both parties to ram through major legislative victories along party lines. While Democrats cheer on President Joe Bidens $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill, Republicans still celebrate Trumps 2017 tax cuts.

In 1975, senators reduced the two-thirds supermajority required to end debate to three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn, which amounts to 60 when there are no Senate vacancies.

McConnell argues that if Democrats shortsightedly decide to reduce the Senate to majority rule, well have lost a key safeguard of American government. Setting aside the fact that McConnell has been a willing participant in moving the Senate closer to majority rule, it seems that he is trying to equate protecting the filibuster with protecting democracy itself. However, the filibuster is not necessary to protect democracy; indeed, it has often been used to undermine it.

According to McConnell, the filibusters 60-vote threshold is a feature, not a bug. However, the filibuster is not in the U.S. Constitution, and it only became part of the Senates rules because of a mistake. In order to correct this mistake, senators have, at several points throughout history, voted to limit their own use of the filibuster. Further reform, such as adopting a talking filibuster (which both Biden and centrist Sen. Joe Manchin seem to endorse) or simply abolishing the filibuster altogether (which progressives have long been advocating), would bring the federal government closer in line with many U.S. states and democratic countries around the world the majority of which dont allow for any filibustering whatsoever.

McConnell is sometimes characterized as an institutionalist whose first priority is to preserve the sanctity of the Senate. In reality, his defense of the filibuster is a one-part faux cautionary tale meant to convince the American public that doom will follow any attempt at change and one-part smokescreen meant to conceal his own machinations.

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No, Mitch McConnell, the Filibuster Isn't Necessary to Protect... - Truthout

Photo: Handout/VIA REUTERS

After Georgia Republicans experienced the shocking setback of losing the states presidential election, the party descended into bitter internal recriminations. President Trump blamed Republican officials for allowing massive voter fraud to steal the state; many state Republicans blamed Trumps rhetoric for losing a winnable race.

But both Republican factions heartily agree on the proper corrective steps: a sweeping bill curtailing voting rights and handing new powers to Republican legislators to prevent the unfortunate events of 202021 from happening again. After the states governor, Brian Kemp, a target of Trumps rage, signed the measure, the former president offered his hearty congratulations. They learned from the travesty of the 2020 Presidential Election, which can never be allowed to happen again, the former President wrote in an official statement. Too bad these changes could not have been done sooner!

If you want to understand why this is happening, a timely new paper by University of Washington political scientist Jacob Grumbach helps explain. Grumbach surveys the performance of every state government across a broad array of measures of democratic health, such as indices of voting access like wait times and same-day and automatic voter-registration policies, felon disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, and civil rights. His paper finds that the states that backslid on democratization over the past 16 years were shared a single characteristic: Republicans gained full control of their state government.

In other words, states that are rolling back democratic protections are not responding to demographic change nor to any change internal to their state. They are following the agenda of the national Republican Party. That agenda is spreading throughout the states, which are imposing voter restrictions almost everywhere their party has the power to do so. Restricting the franchise has become perhaps the partys core policy objective.

Some Republicans frame that agenda in explicitly Trumpist terms: They are acting to stop the next stolen election, having failed to prevent the last one. Those GOP officials who are too embarrassed to openly endorse Trumps election lies instead offer superficially plausible rationales.

First, they insist they are acting to protect states rights to run their own elections. Overlooking the awkward historical resonance of using the exact same justification once put forward to justify Jim Crowera restrictions, they insist states rights are all about preserving local variation. Elections should be run by those closest to the people, elected by the people, most responsive to the people, argues one leading Republican. State legislators are the closest to those we represent, insists another. States have long experience running elections, and different states have taken different approaches suited to their own locales and populations, pleads National Review.

And yet this mania for geographic proximity in election administration evaporates completely when they move from the state to the local level. Indeed, the most damaging provision in Georgias vote-suppression law removes power from local election boards and concentrates it in the hands of the states. If anybody actually does have local knowledge of election administration, it is the nice librarian who has been volunteering to organize the polls for many years.

But that form of localism has been crushed because, of course, the whole point is that the state government is run by Republicans. Democrats control the federal government. They also control many local governments where Democrats live and vote. They dont control many state governments, though, which are beholden to legislatures whose district maps give Republicans an insurmountable advantage. And so the right-wing intelligentsia has discovered a principle: The state is the only level of government neither too big nor too small to administer elections.

Second, they claim they seek merely to restore confidence in election integrity. And it is true that many Republicans voters lack confidence in the fairness of elections. What is the reason for their lack of confidence? Its that Democrats won a fair, clean, high-turnout election. (Indeed, they won it in spite of an electoral college system that forced them to beat Trump by four percentage points in order to gain a narrow majority.) It follows that restoring confidence means eliminating the conditions that gave rise to this concern: Democrats winning a clean election.

What gives the game away is that Republican vote-suppression maneuvers include a purge of Republican officials who worked in states Trump lost. The Michigan Republican Party removed Republican Aaron Van Langeveldefrom the Board of State Canvassers after he infuriated Trump and his fans by certifying the states electoral votes, thwarting Trumps attempt to override the election and secure an unelected second term.

In Georgia, Republicans stripped Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of his authority over state elections. Sterlings chief operating officer, a Republican, told CNN the move was retribution for Raffenspergers refusal to submit to Trumps demand to disregard the election results and hand the states electoral votes to him.

The next time a Republican attempts to subvert an election result, there wont be any inconvenient law-bound officials standing in the way. The power to act on Trumps farrago of lies will rest in the hands of elected officials accountable to the partys constituents. Rather than arresting the Republican partys long slide into authoritarianism, Trumps departure has accelerated it.

Analysis and commentary on the latest political news from New York columnist Jonathan Chait.

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Why the Republican War on Democracy Is Moving to the States - New York Magazine

The hallmark of a healthy democracy is civil debate, protest, civic engagement, and an unwavering right to voice ones beliefs even when there is disagreement especially when there is disagreement. Free speech and assembly are fundamental to a functioning democracy. Their placement in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution implies their importance. It comes as a surprise then to see that the Missouri House is poised to pass a bill that would silence the voices of those rising in defense of Black lives by enacting criminal penalties on the right to protest.

Not only that, but it is particularly targeted at protests that we led in St. Louis this past summer as leaders of the protest group #ExpectUS.

We serve in the General Assembly and the United States House of Representatives. Yet, we have been called terrorists, thugs, and monsters for affirming what should be clear: Black lives matter. Theyve always mattered, but time and time again, generation after generation, Black folks have had to take to acts of protest to affirm our humanity and civil rights. Like our ancestors before us, we are both products of mass protests, taking to the streets demanding that our communities be heard and our lives protected. Our protest has always been an act of love.

We have organized together in a protest group that begins each protest with a giant circle of love, people dancing and clapping. A protest group that cares for one another and brings snacks and water for one another. One that is rooted in the Ferguson Uprising and one that continues to grow. In our ranks are public officials, clergy, local leaders, business owners, students, parents, and people of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds. Our protest is an act of love, but it is also a demand that elected leaders do more to ensure we no longer need to take to the streets. To absolve us of the fear that our loved ones will leave home and will not make it safely back. Both of us ran for office because the policies coming out of Jefferson City and Washington, D.C., not only fell short but failed to center the reality on the ground faced by so many people in our community so many people who look like us and share our pain.

SB 26 is a continuation of policies that fail to protect Black and brown communities. It must not pass the Missouri House of Representatives or be signed into law by Gov. Mike Parson. Rather than take up this bill, lawmakers should play a critical role in supporting and encouraging robust speech and protest. Ultimately, what gets lost in the consideration of this anti-democratic, anti-protest legislation is why we protest in the first place.

We protest because the St. Louis Police Department leads the nation in police killings per capita, disproportionately killing Black people. Year after year after year. Weve seen none of our demands met by our government.

We protest because Black lives are not safe in Missouri. They werent safe in 2014 when an officer in Ferguson murdered Mike Brown, Jr. They werent safe in 2015 in Mississippi County when Tory Sanders got lost, ran out of gas, and was effectively tortured to death in a jail cell hours later. They werent safe in 2018 when Black people were 91 percent more likely to be pulled over by the police across the state a number that has increased over the years. They werent safe in 2020 when police killed Donnie Sanders in Kansas City. They have never been safe under the violence of starvation wages that we disproportionately receive wages that must be increased to at least $15.

Some proponents of this legislation have said that it would keep protesters and the general public safe. But silencing dissent cements the status quo. And for Black people in Missouri, there is nothing more dangerous to our livelihoods than the status quo. If public safety is truly at the heart of this legislation, then the Missouri State Legislature must waste no time addressing the series of initiatives protesters and activists have proposed to remedy the cycles of violence that are so rampant in our state and in our communities.

We invite members of the state legislature to engage with us and our communities in a good faith effort to build a better Missouri. We appeal to the fundamental constitutional values of free speech and free assembly as we implore our leaders and Missourians everywhere to reject SB 26 and, instead, focus on building a more robust and inclusive democracy that meets the needs of Black Missourians who are ready and eager for a chance to build strong communities and enact policies that will truly keep our families safe. The right to assemble is the bedrock of any healthy democracy, and it must be protected at all costs, not rolled back.

Rep. Rasheen Aldridge represents HD 78 in the Missouri House; Congresswoman Cori Bush serves Missouris 1st congressional district.

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Opinion: The right to assemble is the bedrock of our democracy Vote NO on SB 26 - The Missouri Times

Different groups unite

Belew divided the people who forced their way into the Capitol on January 6 into three broad groups:

First, there were what she called the garden variety President Trump faithful the MAGA stop the steal ralliers. A lot of those people, she said, were there simply to demonstrate their support for Donald Trump to exercise their right of assembly and free speech and to peaceably demonstrate.

Second, there were the far-right conspiracy theorists who follow the QAnon movement. These people have been recently radicalized, said Belew, most of them being only one or two years into radical activity. QAnon, as a whole, represents a somewhat new phenomenon in many ways.

The third strand of this crowd, she said, is one that poses a substantial threat to democratic institutions and to the nation as a whole, and that is the organized white power movement, which comprises several different groups. We know that many of these groups preplanned their attack. We also know that they made a deliberate plan to work together. There was communication about setting aside group differences and banding together to deliberately attack the workings of democracy.

Belew stressed that the behavior witnessed on January 6 is not new. Its part of a movement thats been in our public life since the late 1970s. It's a movement that is well organized, includes people in every region of the country, and in all ways but race is quite diverse and opportunistic, willing to incorporate a broad array of people and beliefs, bringing them together through this shared sense of emergency.

Its also a movement that has already carried out mass casualty attacks, most notably the 1995 attack on a federal building in Oklahama City that killed 168 people, including nineteen children. The attack was perpetrated by extremists Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh, a Gulf War veteran, but Belew said its wrong to attribute the atrocity to a few bad apples or lone wolves. The attack was the culmination of decades of organizing. The movement that carried it out, the white power movement, brought together a bunch of different currents of activity. It united Klansmen, neo Nazis, radical tax resistors, and later on skinheads and parts of the militia movement. Worryingly, said Belew, this kind of collaboration within the white power movement could also be seen on January 6.

The next event in the Conversations on Democracy series will be on April 13, when US Senator Susan Collins (R) will talk about The State of Our Democracy and Political System.

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Conversations on Democracy: White Power and the Capitol Riots - Bowdoin News

Some EU member states have bolstered their existing authoritarian tendencies, as leaders strengthened their grip on power under the cover of Covid-19 curbs, according to the EU-focused human rights watchdog organisation, Civil Liberties Union for Europe.

Their report this month singles out Hungary, Poland and Slovenia as the member states most prone to take advantage of Covid-19 responses in order to thwart democracy and weaken the rule of law.

If Hungary's government used the country's Covid-19 regulations to cloak abuses, hinder oversight and access to vaccine documentation for medical professionals, Poland limited freedom of information and assembly to impact protests against the controversial abortion law.

Following the report, the European Commission's top rule-of-law official, Vera Jourova, came out in a parliamentary debate to warn against sliding media freedoms, in addition to other democratic principles.

Most recently, Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orban took an opposition radio station off air. In Poland the government decided a new media tax that threatens the industry's independence.

And Slovenia's prime minister is waging an online and offline battle against critical journalists in his country, accusing them of lying and spreading fake news.

The report, co-sponsored by 14 human rights groups, warns that media freedoms are at risk, and limitations to public information present, even in developed democracies such as France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

The report mentions the limited access of Spanish media during early government safety briefings in March 2020, but also how activists and artists in Spain have been prosecuted for publishing satirical cartoons, burning a flag or making a provocative use of religious symbols during a protest.

Pressure on media companies has also been observed in Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, Slovenia and Croatia.

The accelerated law-making process enabled by Covid-19 restrictions also makes it difficult for citizens to take part in democratic public debate.

Such speeding-up, which lacks transparency and does not allow for consultations with the public or NGOs, has also occurred in well-established democracies such as Ireland, Germany and Sweden, the report says.

Fast-tracking bills through parliament, together with limits on free speech, judicial transparency, limits to media reporting, disproportionate restrictions on the right to protest happened in established democracies too.

Yet it is the youngest of democracies, the ex-communist states in central and eastern Europe that are at peril.

The report highlights that in addition to the governments with authoritarian tendencies in Budapest and Warsaw which are systematically weakening the judiciary and civil society, Bulgaria and Romania, with long standing issues regarding rule of law and independence of the judicial system, have been shaken further.

New rules on court fees in Bulgaria and poor legal aid systems in Romania make it difficult to access justice and get a fair trial.

Even though some EU member states have used the pandemic as a pretext to erode democratic standards, the process is not irreversible.

"There's a thin line between protecting our democracies and protecting public health. Both national and EU institutions need to make sure that all member states respect the law and that our democracies come out stronger not weaker after the Covid-19 pandemic ends", Radu Mihail, member of Romanian Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee, told EUobserver.

Civil Liberties Union for Europe recommends that continuing reforms as well as digitalising judicial proceedings are solutions to improve the situation in countries where judicial systems have long been subjected to pressure.

The report concludes that the EU needs to play a crucial role in protecting the rule of law and democracy in all member states. The EU needs to make sure that clear recommendations are made to each member state and that those breaking the rule of law are sanctioned.

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Covid-19: Democracy and rule of law under pressure in EU - EUobserver