After Harry Reid decided to fail to reform the filibuster today, despite his pretend outrage last year at the undemocratic U.S. Senate process being “abused, abused, abused” by the Republican minority in the Senate, the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein tweeted what seems a pretty silly question: “Interesting Q on all this is whether Reid’s restraint now will lead to R restraint when they’re in charge and D’s are filibustering”.
No clue why Klein would even imagine that Republicans would show similar restraint when it comes to anything these days. For evidence of that, one needs look no further than what the VA state State Senate did just across the river on Monday, Martin Luther King Day, as President Obama was being sworn in for his second term.
Normally balanced with 20 Democratic and 20 Republican state Senators, Republicans took advantage of one of those state Senators, Democratic civil rights icon Henry Marsh, taking the day off to be at the second Inauguration of the nation’s first black President, to carry out a complete state redistricting coup.
Stephen Colbert covered the coup in his Alpha Dog of the Week segment last night, quoting Martin Luther King thusly: “I have been to the mountain top, and while I was there, they heavily redistricted the promise land.”
The coup described above is separate, though related to, a parallel effort also moving forward in the VA legislature, to rig the next Presidential Election by dividing up electoral votes based on the winner of each Congressional district, rather than the current “winner take all” system. Had the Republican plan for this, currently moving through the state Senate, been in place during the 2012 election, Romney would have won 9 of the commonwealth’s electoral votes to Obama’s 4, despite the President having won the popular vote there by some 150,000 votes (4 percentage points).
For a less amusing, if similarly maddening, explanation of the Virginia Republicans’ shameless redistricting coup on Monday (we hope to have more on their subsequent electoral vote gimmick in the near future) and where it is likely to go from here, see Rachel Maddow’s explanation from Tuesday posted below…
What the hell was the Virginia Senate doing in session on Martin Luther King Day anyways?
A Federal holiday ignored by a cracker state. A great big middle finger to the African American members and staffers.
“All (Virginia) State Government Offices will be closed in observance of Lee-Jackson Day, Friday January 18, 2013 and Martin Luther King, Jr. day, Monday January 21, 2013 and will reopen Tuesday January 22, 2013”
http://www.vec.virginia.gov/news/01182013-Closed-for-lee-jackson-king
Every other state office was closed on Monday, except the Virginia Senate!
Every African American resident of Virginia should be outraged.
The case is strong that the entire event is racist and can be challenged after Governor McDonell signs it during Super Bowl halftime.
Not mentioned in the article, Brad, is the significance of Shelby co. v. Holder, in which the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear a challenge to the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
Virginia is a covered jurisdiction under Section 5. This maneuver, which includes a concentration of minorities into a southern district, could not get pre-clearance under the act because it has a disproportionate effect upon racial minority voting rights.
Given that eight of Republicans in the VA state senate are members of ALEC and given ALEC’s track record, I’ve no doubt that this was a careful, pre-planned maneuver — one that was emboldened by the decision by the decision by the radical, Federalist Society-connected members of the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the challenge to Section 5.