On today’s BradCast: Enough playing defense. It’s time for Democrats to go on the offense, in states all across the country, to expand the franchise, in numerous ways, rather than simply defending against increasing Republican efforts to restrict voting rights. And where they won’t, it’s time for progressives to hold them accountable for it. [Audio link to show follows below.]
Today I’m joined by Daniel Nichanian, election expert and post-doctoral fellow in political science at the University of Chicago to discuss his “Voting Rights Manifesto: A State-by-State Plan to Defend Democracy“, as recently published in Vox.com’s “Big Ideas” series.
Nichanian explains where and how Democrats can and must take action, right now, even during the Trump years, to expand voting rights and access to the polls. Yes, it can (and must) be done in states across the country where Democrats still have control of legislatures and governorships. In many cases, as he describes, Dems don’t even need to control both.
No need to wait for and hope that Congressional Republicans to restore the Voting Rights Act, which they probably will never actually do. There are many ways for Democrats to expand voter registration (such as automatic universal registration and other reforms), expand the pool of those eligible to vote (restoring millions of felons’ voting rights, for example), ways to make it easier to vote (early voting and easier access to absentee voting), and many other tools to take a proactive stand in the new year.
“The Democratic Party has not been at the forefront of the voting rights issue in the past two years,” Nichanian observes. “The issue has really come to a head since the wave of Republican takeovers of state houses in 2010 and 2014, when the Republican Party really prioritized, in state after state, putting in place a very ambitious and consistent agenda of its own to curtail voting rights. The extent to which the Republican Party has prioritized this issue, it keeps taking Democrats by surprise.” But, he explains, “when the Democratic Party has power, in many places, they really don’t get their act together to think about what has to be done on this issue, and actually get it done.”
We discuss how Democrats can do so. We also try and hold them accountable for not having done so to date in so many places where they should have by now — even in places like New York and California. I’m hoping the conversation, and Nichanian’s piece at Vox, might give us all something positive to work for in the new year, even at the same time as progressives build the resistance against the destructive, anti-democratic agenda of Donald Trump and the GOP.
Also on today’s show: Fox “News” wingnuts continue their climate change hoax; Democrats in North Carolina end up playing Charlie Brown to the state Republicans’ Lucy — again. And, finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our year-end Green News Report as Obama, on his way out the door, bans off-shore oil drilling in large parts of the Atlantic and the Arctic, and not a moment too soon. The Arctic has turned freakishly warm over the past two months of what is likely to be the warmest year ever recorded on the planet (for the third year in a row). She also has some good news as the year wraps up, however: A new poll finds that Trump’s voters actually support regulations on the burning of carbon that causes global warming and, something that even Trump can’t change, solar power is now the world’s cheapest form of energy. Take that, Big Oil, Big Coal and 2016!…
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[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_VotingRightsNow_DanielNichanian_122216.mp3]
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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Really great podcast. (I expect they all are, but this is the first one I’ve had the time to listen to (most of) in a very long time!)
Talking about “unacceptable situations,” to me it is entirely unacceptable that election day is not a national holiday. And there are very few states for which election day is a holiday. Surely this should be high on Progressives’ to-do list!
When I think of Progressive, I think of “stinky toxic Shit.” No wonder whistle blowers dumped their crime scene.
The Demoncrap party 2016
pic.twitter.com/apwkFI2BH1
Fuck these arms-trafficking (Sen lee CA.) , drug trafficking subversive traitors. Their unconstitutional laws will be nullified. Your party is the WORST of the WORST. You lost any authority to talk shit about elections or law.
VOX is not a trustable source. They are FOREIGN AGENT SOROS OSF FUNDED.
Stoopid Progressives love to list a bunch of sources but they all are CAP or OSF funded. We all know em now you just playing rename games. But most people reading are too stoopEd or lazy to go look into it or they sold their soul into it anyway and just don’t give a fuck.
Being a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy the death cults and subversion who support them will be routed out. Just like the Climate Change Fraud will be routed out.
Thee other non-subversive delusional butt-hurt ones better get a grip soon. Patience is wearing. But you don’t have to take MY word.