In The News
Earlier this month, Joe Biden signed an executive order to ensure that Americans’ right to vote is “protected and defended”—a move that came as Republicans across the country intensify their attacks on the voting rights of Black Americans and other marginalized groups, who already face systemic barriers.... But Biden could find himself helping Republicans do just that if he doesn’t change his position on the Senate filibuster. Led by progressives, a growing chorus of Democrats have been calling to abolish or at least modify the filibuster to make it harder for Mitch McConnell and the GOP minority to obstruct their agenda. Those demands have taken on a greater sense of urgency amid Republican disenfranchisement efforts. With state lawmakers across the country using Donald Trump’s bogus election fraud claims to push wildly restrictive voting laws, and the Supreme Court, to which he appointed three justices, potentially on the cusp of dealing another blow to the Voting Rights Act, Democrats and activists have rallied behind HR1, a sweeping bill to secure elections, expand voting access, and restore the pro-democracy law named for the late John Lewis. It passed the House March 3. “At a time when Americans across the political spectrum are demanding real change and accountability from their elected officials, it’s more important than ever to deliver on the promise of HR1 and restore faith in our democracy,” Representative John Sarbanes, who introduced the bill, said upon its passage. “We have no time to waste....” With Democrats increasingly lining up behind filibuster elimination or reform, it’s possible that Biden will come around, at least to prevent civil rights legislation like HR1 from being thwarted by the tool, as top Biden ally Jim Clyburn recently suggested. It won’t be easy for Biden, a creature of the Senate with a reverence for its traditions and dealmaking. But at the end of the day, he may have to decide what he cares about more—the preservation of the longstanding but flawed rule that his opponents will exploit to derail him, or the constitutional rights of the same Americans who voted last fall to protect it.
A House-passed package overhauling voting, improving election security and reforming campaign finance laws is now in the Senate, where deep partisan divisions spell an uncertain fate for the landmark bill. H.R. 1, also known as the For the People Act of 2021, is sponsored by Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Towson, and co-sponsored by every House Democrat. The measure passed the House March 3 on a 220-210 party-line vote. Sarbanes wrote in a letter on his website that H.R. 1 was “a once-in-a-generation reform effort to protect and expand the right to vote, clean up corruption in Washington and restore trust, transparency and integrity in government.” “Marylanders and Americans of all political stripes are demanding real change and accountability from their elected officials,” the congressman said. “People are deeply frustrated by the state of our political system – where voter suppression, extreme partisan gerrymandering and big, dark, special-interest money drown out the voices of ordinary Americans.” Sarbanes’s bill focuses on three major areas: setting federal standards to make it easier to register to vote and to cast a ballot, expanding public financing of congressional campaigns and requiring greater transparency on donors, and increasing accountability for public officials.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that the U.S. Senate’s filibuster rules threaten not only President Biden’s ambitious domestic agenda but also democracy itself. With the upper chamber split 50-50, the requirement means that most legislation effectively needs 60 votes to pass. And that means Republicans can block the Democrats from raising the minimum wage, rebuilding our infrastructure and reforming immigration. More important, the GOP can keep Congress from stopping Republicans’ aggressive efforts in state legislatures across the country to make it harder to vote. The barely disguised purpose of these legislative efforts is to disenfranchise African Americans and other Democratic constituencies. It risks enthroning minority rule and a Trumpist agenda in Congress, beginning with the 2022 midterms and for years to come. Given such stakes, it’s gratifying that there’s a growing movement within the Senate to weaken the filibuster and eliminate it in some cases — such as to protect voting rights and perhaps make the District a state.... The four senators from our region, all Democrats, support the reform efforts, albeit to varying degrees and with an emphasis on moving cautiously. Their views offer a snapshot of the range of Senate Democrats’ positions on this pivotal issue.... That’s a welcome sign for Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.), lead sponsor of the “For the People Act,” or H.R. 1, a sweeping measure aimed in large part at blocking GOP efforts to suppress voting. Among other things, it establishes no-excuse absentee voting and guarantees 15 days of early voting nationwide. The House passed it March 3, but it will surely die in the Senate without filibuster reform. “It’s going to require [Senate] Democrats to reevaluate the rules and look at how they can be adjusted in order to allow critical legislation such as H.R. 1 to pass with a simple majority,” Sarbanes said. If that’s what it takes to protect representative democracy at a time when it’s under attack, then so be it.
After Congress passed the Paycheck Protection Program last year, pumping billions of dollars into small businesses struggling under the weight of the pandemic, reports surfaced that sizable chunks of that money went right back into the pockets of Congress. A slew of members, many of them already wealthy, received millions in federal aid for their personal businesses ventures under the auspices of job-saving. That reanimated debate about a longstanding, conflict of interest entrenched within the legislative branch: Members of Congress can hold positions in for-profit corporations while officially serving their constituents in Washington. Senate ethics rules address this conflict —but the House does not.... Currently, a significant pressure campaign — both within and outside Congress — is demanding greater accountability and transparency in the legislature. One major step forward is contained within H.R. 1, or the For the People Act, an omnibus political reform bill which, among other things, would overhaul campaign finance and ethical rules for both the Senate and the House. “H.R. 1 will set a new tone in Washington and usher in an era of greater political transparency and accountability,” sponsor Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., told Salon. “It will help ensure that members of Congress put the public interest first — not their personal financial interests or wealthy and well-connected special interests. Chief among these new ethical standards will be a ban that precludes members of Congress from serving on for-profit boards....” While the bill is decidedly imperfect, it has strong support from law and public policy organizations, which have hailed it as a solid first step. “Historically, Congress has exempted itself from a fair number of ethics and accountability and transparency laws that it's applied to the executive branch,” said Martha Kinsella, counsel in the Brennan Center's Democracy Program. “For instance, Congress is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. There has been some movement over the years to change that double standard, and the ethics provisions in H.R. 1 are a big step forward.”
Maryland congressional leaders announced a working group that will consider establishing a National Recreation Area for the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The recreation area would be managed by the National Park Service, which proponents say would bring in additional resources for conservation and recreation to the bay area. It could be anchored by a new visitor center, for instance, said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who will lead the working group alongside Rep. John Sarbanes, both Maryland Democrats. “Just as you go to other national parks, you have the visitor center,” Van Hollen said. “It’s sort of a central place where people can come to learn more about the bay — both the ecology of the bay and the history of the bay.” The working group will “collaborate over the coming months to consider legislation that would designate the National Recreation Area and release it for public comment,” according to a news release from Van Hollen’s office. The group also includes Maryland and Virginia lawmakers and officials, plus representatives from environmental groups, sportfishing and commercial fishing groups and educational organizations.... The idea has been tossed around for years. In 2004, for instance, the National Park Service conducted a study evaluating possible paths forward for the Gateways program, and the possibility of establishing a Chesapeake Bay national park. Last year, in a letter to Van Hollen and Sen. Ben Cardin, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan voiced his support for the recreation area. “A Chesapeake Bay National Recreation Area would provide an incredible opportunity to showcase Maryland’s significant cultural, environmental, historical and natural resources, and provide an international platform for the State of Maryland and the broader Chesapeake Bay watershed,” Hogan wrote in his letter.
A $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill that Congress passed Wednesday contains an “unprecedented” level of funding for Baltimore and other Maryland cities and counties that have been clamoring for help after seeing revenues plunge because of the coronavirus pandemic, state lawmakers said.... The American Rescue Plan, which the House approved 220-211 Wednesday, was Democratic President Joe Biden’s first major initiative since taking office Jan. 20. Biden had vowed to “set aside the politics and finally face this pandemic as one nation.” He planned to sign the bill Friday.... The bill expands child tax and Earned Income Tax Credits, sends many Americans direct payments, extends a $300 weekly unemployment supplemental benefit and provides new support for restaurants and other small business. Rep. John Sarbanes, a Baltimore County Democrat, said the measure “will help put money in people’s pockets, keep roofs over heads, place food on kitchen tables, bring millions of children out of poverty, extend unemployment benefits to laid-off workers, support small businesses, increase access to affordable health insurance, expand child care and allow our schools to safely reopen....” Baltimore will get about $670 million in direct support, while the state will independently receive about $4 billion, according to Cardin and Van Hollen. Separately, Maryland counties will share $1.1 billion in aid, and state municipalities will split a similar sum.... The package will allow families a larger child tax credit, a change expected to lift 52,000 Maryland children out of poverty, according to estimates by the Maryland senators and their staffs.
This past weekend marked the 56th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, when voting rights marchers were brutally assaulted by law enforcement officers while crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Broadcast on national television, images of state troopers attacking peaceful demonstrators, including John Lewis, a civil rights icon who went on to become a long-serving Democratic congressman from Georgia, shifted public opinion and galvanized Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA). This year's commemoration — the first since Lewis's death last year from cancer — took place as many state legislatures are ramping up an assault on voting rights.... As Republican state lawmakers scramble to limit voting, congressional Democrats and voting rights advocates are going on the offensive to protect and expand access to the ballot box. Last week the U.S. House passed the For the People Act (H.R. 1), which Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice, called "the most significant democracy reform legislation in at least half a century" and "the next great civil rights bill." It passed the chamber despite unanimous Republican opposition. Sponsored by Democratic Rep. John Sarbanes of Maryland, H.R. 1 includes provisions to strengthen the VRA, expand voting by mail, overhaul the campaign finance system by requiring full disclosure of donors and contributions, increase election security by modernizing state election systems, end gerrymandering, and make the democratic process more inclusive. "We're not pursuing this reform against the backdrop of the status quo," Sarbanes told ABC News. "We're pursuing it against the prospect that the Republicans will take things in the wrong direction, and in a significant way." Senate Democrats plan to move the bill forward, but their Republican colleagues have committed to fight with every tool available — including the filibuster, which was also used by Southern segregationists trying to block multiple civil rights laws in the 1950s and 1960s. Consequently, Democrats are now discussing filibuster reforms, with even conservative Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia saying he's open to some changes.
This state has been using phony fears of voter fraud for years to mask official efforts to limit voting, especially among people of color. Other states seem eager to catch up. Some efforts are more brazen than others. In Georgia, for example, Trump devotees are seeking to outlaw Sunday voting, knowing that voting on Sunday after church is an African American tradition.... Democrats in Texas and other states have filed bills to offset some of these voter restrictions — but chances they will pass, especially here in Texas, are slim. The better remedy may well be to count on the feds. The U.S. House passed H.R. 1, also known as the “For the People Act,” sponsored by U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md. Among other provisions, H.R. 1 would restore many of the protections included in the 1965 Voting Rights Act, protections gutted by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013.... Those sweeping changes deserve robust debate in the Senate — and senators must be ready to look for compromise. The alternative is to let the Trump-inspired hordes in statehouses across the country, including our own in Austin, make war on the bedrock right that makes America the nation it is: the right to show up, stare down intimidation, and choose our own leaders. That’s exactly what more than 160 million Americans did four months ago. The losers can’t be allowed to change the rules now that they have seen what happens when American voters are inspired to show up and cast ballots.
CNN's Don Lemon speaks to Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD) about HR 1, a sweeping government, ethics and election bill that, among other things, would counter state-level Republican efforts to restrict voting access, which was just passed in the Democratic-led House.
There has always something essentially quixotic in Rep. John Sarbanes’ “For The People Act,” its title as idealistic as anything found on its nearly 800 pages of content. In sum, what H.R.1 attempts to do is fix much of what is broken in this nation’s election system, chiefly by making voting more accessible, ending partisan redistricting, raising ethical standards, and exposing and reducing the influence of big money in politics. Americans should be celebrating its passage in the U.S. House of Representatives late Wednesday and giving thanks to the 58-year-old Maryland Democrat, the eldest son of the late Sen. Paul Sarbanes, who has made this worthy cause a personal crusade. Don Quixote may have tilted at windmills, but John Sarbanes went after something real and far more daunting: a political system that runs on money and disenfranchises far too many Americans. Yet, this remarkable achievement has, unfortunately, if predictably, fallen into partisan tooth gnashing and gross over-simplification. Republicans have reduced these sweeping reforms to one unifying idea — that it’s a reckless power grab by Democrats.... There is an undeniable public good in removing barriers to voting and establishing national voting rights standards. No-excuse mail voting, early voting, automatic voter registration, returning rights to felons who have served their time, these have broad societal benefits. And, as the last election demonstrated (and was confirmed by dozens of legal challenges), they do not give rise to rampant voter fraud.... Granted, democracy is difficult. Politics are tough. But if Republicans are going to continue to look at the last election as some kind of scandal because so many more Americans were able to participate or, worse, make outrageous and false claims about fraudulent voting schemes (the kind that some people take seriously enough to stage an assault on our most sacred temple to democracy), they are going to encounter a lot worse problems than how their own congressional districts are drawn. Mr. Sarbanes may not defeat any ferocious giants on this day, but perhaps he will inspire others to take up the worthy cause of voting rights. They are certainly plenty of state houses where these essential democratic ideas are under attack from those who would benefit from turning back the clock and returning (or retaining) power among the privileged.