Biden hands Kamala Harris another political mess with voting reform
Category: News & Politics
Via: just-jim-nc-ttth • 3 years ago • 27 commentsBy: Sarah Westwood (MSN)
In line with yesterday's article of Ms. Harris's incompetence gleaned from that of her "boss".
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
When President Joe Biden asked Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday to assume responsibility for shepherding voting reform legislation through Congress, he was handing her a political puzzle that she may never be able to solve.
It's not the first time a politically challenging situation for the Biden administration has ended up in Harris's lap. Biden asked Harris in March to alleviate the crisis on the southern border amid intense pressure on the White House to take action.
But the push for voting reform legislation could present Harris with a more complicated set of issues to untangle. Spearheading the voting reform effort could also drag her into an even thornier fight: whether to end the filibuster.
WHY REPUBLICANS ARE FIGHTING S1, THE ELECTION OVERHAUL BILL
"We've often seen it in the past in circumstances where the vice president actually has more experience, either in general or on a particular topic area," Dave Hopkins, a political science professor at Boston College, said of presidents who hand off substantive issues to their vice presidents.
"What's so interesting in this case is we're seeing the delegation of these roles to Harris when it's Biden that is obviously as experienced as anybody in government, and that is a twist on the formula that we've seen in the past, with vice presidents being given these particular duties by the president," Hopkins said. "This is an interesting case where a less experienced vice president is being handed, in the early months of an administration, some pretty significant responsibilities."
Democrats have characterized S. 1, the voting rights bill that Biden on Tuesday tasked Harris with overseeing, as must-pass legislation. Some liberals have advocated for removing the filibuster in order to advance the bill, which they say is necessary to protect elections from a wave of state-level voting reforms making their way through Republican state legislatures.
But the bill faces significant hurdles. Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, has said he does not support S. 1 in its current form, and both he and fellow Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have expressed opposition to changing Senate rules that require 60 votes to pass most legislation.
Democrats are still navigating internal disagreements about whether to forge ahead with a bill Manchin has described as "too darn broad" or to strip out the controversial elements and focus on provisions related to voting rights.
S. 1 contains measures that would dramatically change how political speech is regulated, overhaul the redistricting process across the country, and restructure the Federal Election Commission — all things critics have cited as reasons to oppose otherwise popular legislation.
Liberals have pointed to polls that show voting reforms as broadly popular when advocating for the bill.
Into that debate steps Harris, who will have to balance pressure from progressive activists to kill the filibuster in order to pass the current version of the bill with calls from Manchin and others to start over with voting reforms that can attract bipartisan support.
Her new role comes after she's already faced weeks of criticism over her handling of the border crisis. Biden's announcement in March that she would be addressing the surge in migration sparked a series of headlines that portrayed Harris as the new point person for all things related to the border — a label her aides worked quickly to shed.
White House aides have since sought to shift the characterization of Harris's responsibility when it comes to the border crisis, from fixing the conditions migrants have faced in detention on the border to using diplomacy to address the reasons migrants are heading north in the first place.
"Here's the problem: I think that whoever was given the task on the border was given an insoluble problem," said Charles Lipson, political science professor emeritus at the University of Chicago. "Not just because the border is typically a very difficult problem, but because the solutions that were actually working worked under Trump, and they were abolished specifically by the Biden administration because Trump had implemented them and because progressives, who helped elect Biden, didn't like those policies.
"And so to find solutions, you'd be likely to go back to some of the policies that Trump implemented — but that's impossible in the Biden White House," he added.
Presidents in the past have used their vice presidents to insulate themselves from politically perilous situations, often to little effect.
Former President Donald Trump, for example, tapped former Vice President Mike Pence to oversee the coronavirus task force at the outset of the pandemic, a move that was widely perceived at the time as an effort to deflect some of the blame if the administration's coronavirus response went poorly.
If that was indeed Trump's intention, it did not work.
"The president is held responsible for outcomes, including outcomes that are really beyond his control," Lipson said.
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More that he can't handle and she can't either. LMAO
VP Harris will do just fine! Also, President Biden's popularity is through the roof!!!!!!!!!! Doesn't that really piss you off?
#45 never had an approval rating above 35%!
Gonna have to prove that one lest I delete it for the bullshit that it is. Let me help you.
Good morning Jim,
Tessylo is just teasing, sorta like some of your upvotes for comments directed at me ... relax, buy a pillow.
Really?
How come I can't tease like that?
Cuz you're you?
Evidently, there were many like me. I wonder where they went?
Possibly to Canada's National Post? It's where all the conservative teasers hang out and relentlessly bash Trudeau with "blackface" jibes.
Shall we return this seed to Jim's capable hands? Good!
I don't trust polls.
They must be victims, like you, of oppression. Or is repression?
Then how in the HAYALL can you state never above 35%? Wouldn't that number come from a poll of some kind?
That just doesn't make sense...........well in a face saving way it may but ....................
I should have specified - and say what you would say to any of us liberals/progressives/Democrats regarding polls - "I don't trust that poll".
Because trumpturd was only popular amongst his braindead/inbred supporters and that's about 35% in the US.
So first Biden put Harris in charge of the border and they quickly backed away and stated that she was only working the underlying causes of illegal immigration (because everybody knows that trying to manage the actual border problems is a political tar baby).
And now he puts Harris in charge of moving voter reform thru Congress.
So my question, is Biden trying to sabotage any future political chances for Harris?
The voter reform being pushed thru Congress is IMO another big stumbling block due to it's partisan nature. I have a hard time seeing it get thru unless the Democrats are able to eliminate the filibuster in the Senate. And even if it does get passed, IMO H.R.1 / S1 are an overstep by the Democrats which will come back to haunt them. Some of the provisions I can agree with but some are just too much IMO.
Try they will. The Republic is in the hands of two moderate democrats that seldom, if ever, vote with Republicans. A predicament caused by low Republican turnout in the GA Senate elections and a questionable call from the new Senate Parliamentarian.
Who caused that low turnout?
There were a variety of factors.
First there were "lawyers" who told Republicans to boycott the vote.
Second there were Senate Republicans taking a stand against a relief bill because the checks…"were too big."
And finally, there is the one you want to hear - that Donald Trump kept claiming there was fraud in the 2020 election.
I'm going to go out for my daily walk. We can talk when I return.
Enjoy!
Ya, indeed!
Actually, the second was a case of Pelosi outplaying both Trump and McConnell. She fought against relief money when it got close to the election (part of the resistance to anything benefitting Trump), then when the Republicans floated a plan to give out $600 checks, Trump stepped in and said "too little - it should be $2,000."
Pelosi pounced on it and said we are in favor of the $2,000 idea 100%. She then constructed a bill providing Trump's $2,000, and loaded it up with a mountain of leftist pork that no Republican would ever agree to. She dumped it on the Senate just before the election. The Republicans resisted and thus lost the 2 Senate seats, which gave the democrats the ability to pass it anyway.
That was Pelosi's biggest victory.
No, r.t..b... is correct, as usual.
No what?
That's an interesting yarn ... there may be a whisper of truth in it, but is it enough to overcome the partisan 'pork' of your language?
I don't believe any Democrat thinks they was ever a hope in hell this would get pushed through Congress. It's another piece of political theater the Dems can use for election fund raising and energizing their base. It certainly gets the partisans on both sides all riled up.
Agreed. Trying to determine if a proposed law is more party policy or aimed at the next election cycle can take up many days of discussion. Sure would be nice if we had politicians who worked for the American people, but we are stuck with the groups that work for their political party because there's too much money involved.
Congressional political reform can only come after the electorate stops lying to ourselves and others for our own political gain. There is far, far too much partisanship at the moment that has pushed better lawmakers into retirement, or not to seek a political career at all. In the current climate nothing goes said without intense scrutiny where some talking head, or opinion writer, can't figure out how to spin it. Further the masses seem to prefer their information to come from opinion writers these days, which I find sad.