2022 elections. The steady march for sanity continues.

AUSTIN, Texas — A Houston man who received widespread attention after standing six hours in line to cast a ballot in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary was in jail Friday on charges that it was illegal for him to vote at all because he was on parole.

Hervis Rogers became an overnight face of Texas’ battle over voting access when he emerged from a polling center at a historically Black college around 1:30 a.m. He was among Houston voters on Super Tuesday who waited more than an hour — and some for several hours — in mostly minority, Democratic neighborhoods. Lines in mostly white, Republican neighborhoods were shorter.

“The way it was set up, it was like it was set up for me to walk away,” Rogers told reporters in comments carried by multiple news outlets, including The Associated Press.

He was arrested this week on two counts of illegal voting, a second-degree felony that carries a possible sentence of two to 20 years in prison. His bail was set at $100,000.

Rogers, 62, voted last March while still on parole from a felony burglary conviction, making him ineligible to cast a ballot under Texas law. Andre Segura, an attorney for the ACLU of Texas who is representing Rogers, said his client did not know he was ineligible to vote. He drew comparisons to Crystal Mason, a Fort Worth woman who was sentenced to five years in prison for casting a provisional ballot while on probation in 2016, who also said she was unaware she could not.

“Mr. Rogers made headlines after waiting hours for what he thought was his civic duty, and was very proud of that,” Segura said. “We shouldn’t be prosecuting people for innocent mistakes.”

The rare arrest on illegal voting allegations comes as Texas Republicans begin a second attempt at passing many of the same restrictive voting measures blocked by Democrats during a dramatic late-night walkout in May. Texas is the biggest state where Republicans have vowed to make voting changes since Donald Trump’s false claims that fraud cost him the 2020 election.

Courts records show Rogers is being prosecuted by the office of Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has zealously pursued election fraud cases and last year took a failed attempt to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory to the U.S. Supreme Court. His spokesman did not immediately respond to a message about Roger’s indictment.

In March 2020, Rogers said he was among the last people allowed in line before polls closed at 7 p.m. at Texas Southern University. Photos of voters waiting in long lines on the Houston campus appeared on news websites and ricocheted around social media. Rogers said he considered leaving but told reporters that “every vote counts.”

Elections officials in Houston blamed the long lines on the local Republican Party’s refusal to hold a joint primary with the Democrats. GOP leaders accused the county of trying to shift the blame, saying county officials who allocated both parties an equal number of voting machines disregarded warnings about turnout for the hotly contested Democratic presidential primary.

As soon as Saturday, Texas Republicans could begin advancing their revived election bills at the state Capitol. One provision would require courts to explain to defendants how a felony convictions impacts their right to vote, a change Democratic state Rep. John Bucy has pushed in the aftermath of Mason’s sentence.

“Intent is vital,” Bucy said. “We’ve got to really keep pushing back on these bills, because a lot of what they’re trying to do could criminalize mistakes.”

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Thursday’s White House “no-holds-barred meeting” between President Biden and eight civil rights leaders about stalled voting rights legislation and the filibuster got me thinking about the greatest civil rights lobbyist to walk the halls of Washington: Clarence M. Mitchell Jr., who was director of the Washington bureau of the NAACP and a storied figure in the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. Here’s why.

In a run-up to this week’s meeting, the Rev. Al Sharpton said on MSNBC, “I do not think this president wants history to say that in his presidency, there was the continued weakening of voting rights for people that put him and Vice President Harris in office.” Well, the folks on the current civil rights slate have a legacy issue of their own. They don’t — or shouldn’t — want the hard-working people on the front lines who are paying the freight for their nationally prominent positions to say among themselves that on the watch of today’s civil rights chieftains, voting rights went down the tubes.

Mitchell liked to tell the story about the lesson President Lyndon B. Johnson taught him when Mitchell was pressing for critically needed civil rights laws.

Johnson, who had been the Senate’s most powerful leader, used to say, “Clarence, you can get anything you want, if you’ve got the votes. How many votes have you got?”

That line irked Mitchell every time he heard it. But the more he thought about Johnson’s point, Mitchell said, "the more I realized that this was the best advice that anybody could give.”

That lesson shouldn’t be lost on modern-day civil rights standard-bearers. Catchy sound bites in front of the cameras can advance the cause only so far.

What was true in 1965 is true now: The only way the champions of civil rights will get what they want, and what the country needs, is to have enough votes to defeat the resistance blocking the way.

Friends, the desire to stand before a bank of microphones and say, “… and then I told Biden” might be great.
But rather than devote time to leaning on Biden, better to get on with the hard work where it counts: back home, down in the trenches, mobilizing voters to get on Congress’s case. Dial up pressure on the Senate and House to act, and do it like there’s no tomorrow. Because if the forces of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) and the legions of state GOP legislators are successful with their voter suppression schemes, then tomorrow will be worse than all of the bad old days before passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Pressing Biden and Harris is not enough.

Besides, they no longer have a vote in Congress. Unless the vice president has to break a tie, she is just a spectator occupying the presiding officer’s chair. Certainly, it is a seat with a great view of chamber proceedings. But with zilch impact on the roll-call vote.

That’s not to say the Biden administration has not given civil rights supporters some valuable tools to use where it counts.

On Thursday, when the civil rights leadership was gathering to take Biden to the woodshed, Harris trekked to Howard University, our shared alma mater, to announce an expansion of the Democratic National Committee’s “I Will Vote” initiative. And she didn’t go empty-handed. Harris said the Democratic leadership will invest $25 million in what it described as “voter education, voter protection, targeted voter registration, and technology to make voting more accessible" and to fight back against Republicans’ outrageous efforts to keep Democratic-inclined voters away from the polls.

“This campaign,” Harris said, “is grounded in the firm belief that everyone’s vote matters. … The people must be able, without hindrance, without obstacle, to decide our country’s future."

The Biden-Harris-inspired contribution comes on top of the national party’s earlier $20 million investment to communicate with potential voters before the midterm elections at the regional, state and local levels, said Jaime Harrison, Democratic National Committee chair. Harrison knows more than a little something about elections and defeat, having experienced both in his spectacularly expensive attempt to unseat South Carolina’s then three-term Republican Sen. Lindsey O. Graham in 2020.

Money, of course, is nothing without actions that influence behavior. And behavior responds to stimulus. Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, got it exactly right when she said after the White House meeting, “We must have the president use his voice, use his influence, use his power — and use what he clearly understands about this moment … a moment of peril in terms of our democracy.”

Biden can provide that stimulus, can help stir the country to do the right thing.

But don’t forget Clarence Mitchell. There is another question to be asked at this defining moment in civil rights history, “Rev. Al and company, how many votes have you got?”

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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Democrats in the Texas Legislature on Monday bolted for Washington, D.C., and said they were ready to remain there for weeks in a second revolt against a GOP overhaul of election laws, forcing a dramatic new showdown over voting rights in America.

Private planes carrying a large group of Democrats took off from an airport in Austin, skipping town just days before the Texas House of Representatives was expected to take up sweeping new voting restrictions in a special legislative session ordered by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

It was not immediately clear how many of the 67 Democrats in the Texas House planned to go, but party leaders said it was enough to bring the Legislature to a halt.

“This is a now-or-never for our democracy. We are holding the line in Texas,” said Democratic state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer. “We’ve left our jobs, we’ve left our families, we’ve left our homes. Because there is nothing more important than voting rights in America.”

By leaving, Democrats again deny the GOP majority a quorum to pass bills, barely a month after a walkout thwarted the first push for sweeping new voting restrictions in Texas, including outlawing 24-hour polling places, banning ballot drop boxes and empowering partisan poll watchers.

The decision to hole up in Washington is aimed at ratcheting up pressure in the nation’s capital on President Joe Biden and Congress to act on voting at the federal level. Biden is set to deliver a major address on the issue Tuesday in Philadelphia, after facing growing criticism for taking what some on the left call too passive a role in the fight.

It marks the first time since 2003 that Texas Democrats, shut out of power in the state Capitol for decades, have crossed state lines to break quorum.

Moments after Democrats jetted off, Abbott issued a statement blasting them for leaving, while Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan promised to use “every available resource” to secure a quorum. He did not elaborate, but some House Republicans signaled they would take action when the chamber reconvenes Tuesday.

When Democrats fled the state two decades ago — in a failed attempt to stop new GOP-drawn voting maps — state troopers were deployed to bring them back.

“Texas Democrats’ decision to break a quorum of the Texas Legislature and abandon the Texas State Capitol inflicts harm on the very Texans who elected them to serve,” Abbott’s statement said. “As they fly across the country on cushy private planes, they leave undone issues that can help their districts and our state.”

He went on to list property tax relief, along with funding for law enforcement, foster care children and retired teachers — making no mention of new election laws.

The drastic move lays bare how Democrats are making America’s biggest red state their last stand against the GOP’s rush to enact new voting restrictions in response to former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. More than a dozen states this year have already passed tougher election laws — but only in Texas have Democrats put up this kind of fight.

Over the weekend, Texas Republicans began advancing measures that also bring back provisions to ban drive-thru voting, add new voter ID requirements to absentee ballots and prohibit local elections officials from proactively sending mail-in ballot applications to voters. Abbott also gave lawmakers a lengthy to-do list this summer heavy on hot-button conservative issues, including restrictions over how race is taught in schools and banning transgender athletes from playing in girls’ sports.

The agenda is widely opposed by Democrats. A first key vote on the new voting measures had been expected this week, hastening their scramble to leave town.

The move carries risks and no guarantee of victory in the long run.

Abbott, who is up for reelection in 2022 and has demanded new election laws in Texas, could keep calling 30-day special sessions until a bill is passed. He also punished Democrats after their May walkout by vetoing paychecks for roughly 2,000 Capitol employees, which will begin taking effect in September unless the Legislature is in session to restore the funding.

Staying away for an extended time could also carry repercussions in next year’s midterm elections, although many Texas Democrats are already expecting a difficult cycle in 2022, particularly with Republicans set to begin drawing new voting maps this fall that could cement their majorities.

For weeks, Democrats have signaled they were ready to draw a line. Adding to their anger: A Houston man who gained attention last year after waiting more than six hours to cast a ballot was arrested on illegal voting charges one day before the special session began Thursday. Attorneys for Hervis Rogers say the 62-year-old did not know that his being on parole for a felony burglary conviction meant he wasn’t allowed to vote.

State Sen. Bryan Hughes, the author of both GOP attempts to pass election changes in Texas, has defended the new version, which leaves out contentious attempts to ban Sunday morning early voting and make it easier for judges to overturn an election.

“Your ballot is sacrosanct,” Hughes said Saturday. “Everything else in the election process should be bathed in sunshine.”

Last week, Vice President Kamala Harris announced $25 million in new spending by the Democratic National Committee on actions to protect voting access ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

Biden and his team are stressing ongoing legal efforts to safeguard voting rights. They’ve also promised a major legislative push after Senate Republicans blocked a sweeping election overhaul last month. The president has told reporters he plans on “speaking extensively” on voting rights and that he would be “going on the road on this issue.”

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https://ballotpedia.org/Michigan_Proposal_2,_Independent_Redistricting_Commission_Initiative_(201

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hanimmal said:

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-politics-ap-top-news-government-and-politics-elections-7d9f2da74fb647b40214fa88ccdbcebbView attachment 4942214


Hopefully the legislators in Michigan are paying attention to this and are ready to walk out if the Republicans here try to force a bill through with their signature scam that our governor can't veto their bill trying to stop the bi-partisan commission to end gerrymandering in our state that we overwhelmingly voted for in 2018.

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printer said:

Didn't the SCOTUS say it is a God given right to Gerrymander?

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Michigan Democrats have promised that any bills that attempt to place new restrictions on voting won't get past Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

"Those bills will not get signed into law," Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, a Democrat, told NBC News of the proposals. He called the efforts part of an "anti-voter, anti-democratic participation movement that is sweeping Republican-led legislatures across the nation."


But the state's GOP lawmakers, who enjoy majorities in both chambers but not enough to override a veto, have a unique option that could allow them to enact sweeping changes to elections in a critical presidential battleground without the governor's support: a little-used quirk in the state's ballot initiative process.

“It’s like this special loophole where they get to cram through a whole raft of bills,” said Nancy Wang, executive director of Voters Not Politicians, the group that led the effort to use a ballot initiative to create an independent redistricting commission in the state a few years ago.

Under the Michigan Constitution, citizens can put an initiative on the ballot if they gather a certain number of signatures — at least 8 percent of the total number of votes cast in the last gubernatorial race. This year, that would be about 340,000 voters' signatures.

But before an initiative reaches the ballot, the state Legislature has the ability to pass the proposed law with simple majority vote in each chamber, and such a measure cannot be vetoed. This process is rarely used: Just nine other initiatives have become law this way in the last 58 years, according to the state.

President Joe Biden won Michigan in November, flipping it back blue after former President Donald Trump's upset victory there in 2016.

Since Biden's win, state Republicans have repeatedly cast doubt on the integrity of the election while entertaining Trump's lie that the presidency was stolen from him. Trump's close ally Rudy Giuliani, the lawyer, was given unusual power in a legislative committee hearing last year to call "witnesses" and make allegations of fraud that the former president's legal team was unable to prove in court.





Americans support the concept of voter ID laws, polling suggests. Michigan already has a photo ID requirement, though voters can currently sign an affidavit to vote if they don't have ID. The proposal to tighten ID requirements is just one element of the broad package of bills.

An outside group, the Rescue Michigan Coalition, formed this year vowing to back a ballot initiative to change the state’s election laws. The group did not respond to a request for comment, but its online proposals suggest it wants to go farther than lawmakers in some ways, like fully banning drop boxes.

The independent redistricting commission supported by Wang's group, as well as another ballot initiative to institute expansive measures like automatic voter registration and no-excuse mail voting, made it through the regular process and onto the ballot in 2018. Both passed with strong support from voters, something state Democrats say indicates a public preference on the GOP-proposed restrictions.

“Michigan's in a little bit of a different place than other states, because we weighed in on this. Our voters had had a say in this just over two years ago, and 67 percent came out and said, ‘We want more access to the ballot box and less barriers,’” said state Sen. Jeremy Moss, a Democrat.

Wang said she believes those 2018 initiatives are part of why Republicans are considering these restrictions. The state's legislative maps — which experts say are gerrymandered to benefit Republicans — will be redrawn this year by an independent redistricting commission following last year's census.

“They know that their gerrymandered districts are going to go away, and that they’re going to lose seats," she said.

This wouldn't be the first push by conservatives to sidestep the governor via ballot initiative. Last year, a group called Unlock Michigan set out to limit Whitmer’s emergency powers in protest of the pandemic shutdown she ordered. The effort was largely bankrolled by a nonprofit with close ties to Senate Republicans in the state, The Detroit News reported. Weiser also personally donated $100,000 to the Unlock Michigan PAC in 2020, campaign finance documents show.

The law the petition aimed to limit was declared unconstitutional by a court, but the state is still processing the signatures.

The group’s methods of gathering a half-million signatures in just 80 days have also been called into question. In September, the state launched an investigation into the Unlock Michigan group. Gilchrist, the lieutenant governor, said officials were "certainly going to watch that" if Republicans try to use the ballot initiative process to enact voting changes.

Wang said advocates are now considering a rival ballot initiative or referendum to try and stop efforts to restrict ballot access.

"Faced with this threat, all options are on the table," she said, adding that she hoped corporations and voters could pressure Republicans not to pass these measures in the first place. "If we need to go to the ballot again to protect voters, then we will do so."

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DIY-HP-LED said:

‘Rigged Against Democracy’: Hayes On The Backward Filibuster System

Chris Hayes: Democrats need 60 votes to try to protect the voting rights people fought for decades to achieve. But Republicans needed just 50 to appoint Supreme Court justices who will tear down those voting rights.

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hanimmal said:

1995 Carl Sagan's words are pretty mind blowing (the tv guy reads them).

But a different question is what I am curious about. Did Carl Sagan pointing out that Star Wars was very very white give us Lando Calrissian?

How screwed up would that have been if he was originally going to be white.

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hanimmal said:

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printer said:

As long as you have media selling a lie to people that they can disregard others who live in the country then joining hands will be a tough sell.

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printer said:

Where the communists are regarded higher than fellow citizens.

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hanimmal said:

I didn't understand this part.

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printer said:

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hanimmal said:

View attachment 4944260

Turned out that not having a adequate federal response to our mentally disordered folks really was not a great idea that the Republicans have been sticking with since the 80's.

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printer said:

Abbott: Drive-thru voting would allow passengers to have a 'coercive effect' on voters
"With regard to the drive-thru voting, listen this violates the fundamentals of what — the way that voting integrity has always been achieved and that is the sanctity of the ballot box," the governor said.

"If you do drive-thru voting, are you going to have people in the car with you?" he asked. "It could be somebody from your employer or somebody else they may have some coercive effect on the way that you would cast your ballot, which is contrary to you going into the ballot box, alone and no one there watching over your shoulder."

Abbott also said bumper stickers that express political beliefs would violate state laws that bar electioneering at polling places because voters might see them when they're in the drive-thru.

Abbott: Drive-thru voting would allow passengers to have a ‘coercive effect’

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Sunday said that drive-thru voting would allow passengers riding in vehicles to have a “coercive effect” on voters while defending proposed …

thehill.com

Good thing he is looking out for people.

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