Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li: really cannot emphasize enough how plainly all this proves that the first priority of the next Democratic administration needs to be democracy reform --filibuster --electoral college --court reform --dc and pr statehood --new voting rights act --gerrymandering

really cannot emphasize enough how plainly all this proves that the first priority of the next Democratic administration needs to be democracy reform --filibuster --electoral college --court reform --dc and pr statehood --new voting rights act --gerrymandering

so much of the power and the terror of the Republican party comes from the sclerotic, antidemocratic features of the American system trump has always lost the popular vote! if that meant he *actually* lost we'd be living in a different world!

abortion and equality act becoming law also opens up a lot more avenues to punish red states that are non compliant. any kind of eo 10730 solution which i see proposed a lot is going to need the law and courts on your side.

Gore won the popular vote and Florida even after the deranged SCOTUS stopped the count

What we all said four years ago

So infuriating

And if this is it for American democracy, we'll have gotten so tantalizing close to saving it. The congressional majorities were there, and then the Kyrsten Sinemas of the world got hung up on bullshit. If nothing else, it will make for the definitive great American tragedy.

Referendums for statehood in both. I firmly believe DC would pass handily, PR is a more open question, but BINDING referendums would settle the issue. I don't have a say because I don't live in DC, but living *next* to DC I would be like "GUYS PLEASE BE A STATE" ;)

We had a referendum in 2016 and it passed overwhelmingly in favor of statehood.

Puerto Rico is a colony and as such deserves a self determination process that gives them the choice of independence before joining the indivisible union. DC had always been an integral part of the US and there is no clear alternative so an act of Congress is sufficient.

DC should stand for Douglass Commonwealth but it should just be Douglass Commonwealth not “State of Douglass Commonwealth,” Washington should be the name of the municipality so it’s still “Washington, DC.”

I agree that a referendum is unnecessary for DC but feel it would support the legitimacy of the new state

I guess you could ask if they prefer retrocession but if they vote yes Maryland can always say no anyway

I had actually forgotten about 2016 but we can use that one. The real problem is getting Congress to do anything to reduce their own power

Wasn’t that supposed to be the deal last time????

You think there's going to be another?

Yeah, I can't help but think we missed our chance. Trump made it obvious that we needed to make all those "norms" he broke into actual rules, and if he gets in again (whether by another electoral college technical win or by Other Means), there will never be another fair election.

Let’s hope we’re wrong and he dies

My thought

-- codifying Roe

I’d also appreciate the ERA, but that’s prob too big an ask

iirc era actually passed and just hasn't been put into law for weird procedural reasons

I thought they were still looking for another state or two to sign on, but that maybe incorrect. Would just like some parity. 🙃

That was my understanding also.

I might be getting it mixed up with just that there are two other willing states that hadn't signed on

I could look it up, but it’s late and I’m stoned and sleepy. 😂

I don't see that happening under Biden. Not seeing any sign that he's changed his mind on those being out of bounds.

This was my list on the other site. Figuring the electoral college would be hard to dismantle, I think we should make voting 1) a paid national holiday 2) ranked choice 3) compulsory That would buy Dems enough time to push major policy like the ACA and IRA - things that benefit millions.

Same as the last time, weirdly enough.

Lest you forget, these things were all definitely needed and on the table in 2020... and yet here we are. One could reasonably conclude that the dems aren't interested in these ideas...

SCOTUS literally stole the 2000 election for Bush. And it only had that opportunity because of the electoral college. Yet there has never been any real effort to address either of those issues.

exactly

Didn't Biden try this but Manchin and Sinema stopped it? Luckily those two will be gone, but probably so will the very slim Dem Senate majority.....

if california felt like breaking itself into 5 states i think the rest of us would really appreciate it

The problem is at least one would be a red state.

The Dakota’s could shrink to one state as originally planned.

that depends! but even so, i'd take a +6 in the senate

#worthit

Literally what we elected OBAMA to do. And then the feckless twit we have now. Kinda seems like Dems would rather the country goes fascist than veer slightly left.

They’ve had a lot of practice snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. And how much credibility do they have going after weird undemocratic rules after skipping an entire primary season?

Agreed. Biden won't do it.

In what, 2032?

Controlling both houses of the legislature will be more important than the administration in accomplishing this. But none of this is far fetched, it could have been done in 2021 and I don't believe Biden would have vetoed any of it.

Puerto Ricans do not uniformly want statehood, the party that drives statehood is a group of authoritarian scammers who have run the island into the ground while perpetuating racist stereotypes of the value of Puerto Rico and its people.

They run it into the ground with the help of American cabotage laws and the Jones Act, and then when it's unlivable and the federal government leaves us to die, they argue that only American tax dollars can save us from a situation largely created by Americans.

Didn’t they have majorities in all branches of government a couple of years ago and did absolutely none do these? Why would they do them now?

Yes, but only 49/51 senators were willing to vote for reforms. Everything good you want to do is contingent on a hypothetical future senate with 50 votes for your issue.

I understand that. But it represents that there just isn’t the political will to do these things within the Democratic Party so I’m wondering why things would be any different now? This isn’t doomerism. I’m I’m legitimately asking what has changed?

The makeup of the senate will change. We don’t know exactly how, yet. But describing the positions of two out of fifty one senators as representative of an entire party is just inaccurate.

What about the president?

He’s already expressed support for some of the things on Dr. H-L’s list, even back in 2021. It was those two intransigent senators who blocked them. On the others, you hope he changes his position. We’re in a different position than we were in his first two years and we have the experience 1/2

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