Sunday School 6/6/21

And, we're back at it, plodding our way through the Sunday Shows. 

Let's start with John Dickerson and his chat with Sen. Joe Manchin (D, kinda - WV) on Face the Nation. Dickerson wasted no time, starting out by saying Dems, including President Biden, think Manchin is "standing in the way" of their agenda. Manchin disagreed, noting that everyone knows he's "always tried to work in a bipartisan way" and he said "Let's unite this country. We don't need to be divided any further."

To that end, he doesn't want Dems to go it alone, even if others in his party think Manchin is "basically putting all the negotiating leverage in the hands of" the ten Rs Biden needs to get past the filibuster. Rather, he says, they must "work within the framework," adding

There's been seven brave Republicans that have spoken out. They have voted, whether it be impeachment or the wrongdoings of the president, whether it be for a commission. We have to continue to keep striving to make sure that we can get to that ten. And that's why we're called the deliberate body. We keep working towards that goal. 

In the business world, we had 'analysis paralysis' getting in the way, and in the Manchin world, we have 'prohibitive deliberative' thinking getting in the way. Take voting rights.

Manchin said the For the People Act is way too big and has too much stuff in it that the Rs will never go along with. On the other hand, he said it's appropriate to work on the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which he thinks "truly does protect the voting rights." It's good, but needs to be more bipartisan, and with Rs like Alaska's Sen. Lisa Murkowski on board, deliberating will make it better and something the Rs can vote for, too. 

Dickerson wondered, as do all the rest of us, why on earth the Rs would go along with anything that endangers the successes they've had at the state level implementing restrictive voting bills. 

Well, because, you see, it's like this.

John, they achieved what they've achieved before they won - thinking they had to make changes. Why in the world would they want to make changes that basically subvert- because I can tell you what goes around, comes around. It could be more damaging to them too. The bottom line is the fundamental purpose of- of our democracy is the freedom of our elections. If we can't come to an agreement on that, God help us, John. And someone's got to fight for this. And we've got to say, listen, the divided country that we're in today, the insurrection that we saw on January the 6th, if we don't try to heal that, if we don't make every effort and go beyond the call of duty, then what are we and who are we? We've been known to go around the world and promote democracy and observe other elections. What kind of credibility do you think we have in doing that today? So, I'm going to fight for this and I think the Republicans will fight for this and understand we must come together on a voting rights bill in a bipartisan way. You can't divide our country further by thinking you've given leeway to one or the other. 

Is it me, or is Manchin the Senate's Nero, fiddling around the margins of bipartisanship, while watching the "fundamental purpose of our democracy" go up in flames?

Down the hall in the CNN State of the Union classroom, Jake Tapper talked with Maine Senator Angus King, who's an Independent but maybe more a Dem than Manchin. King is on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and he's also co-chair of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission.

King thinks "we have been a cheap date" over the past decade or two, because we haven't really responded strongly to cyber attacks. Our adversaries need to know that "they will pay a price, there will be a cost" for attacking the US or our infrastructure, but "thus far, they haven't really felt that." And, he cautioned, "We keep getting wakeup calls, and we keep not waking up." The problem? Most of the risk - "85% or 90% of the target space," is in the private sector.

...  If one person at one desktop in the operations center of a pipeline system bites on a phishing e-mail or opens an attachment they shouldn't, then we're sunk. So, it's -- this is a -- it's a cliché to say all of government, but this is all of everybody has got to be in on this.

There may be a need for legislation to move things along. He says "we need essentially an entirely new relationship" between the feds and the private sector, even as he admits that talking about "the 'relationship between private sector and federal government' is an is kind of an oxymoron." Somehow, we must build trust.

Speaking of trust, King understands Biden's desire to have a "decent" relationship with Putin and Russia. That said, he's pretty sure they'll talk about cyber when they get together in ten days. And, we need them to crack down on bad guys within their borders, just as we would if "we had an international bank robbery outfit in Richmond, Virginia, that was robbing banks in Europe..." we'd be all over that, and he's right.

This interview, too, steered toward voting rights. King's been working on the For the People Act; it's in the Rules Committee, where he's a member. Tapper mentioned Sen. Manchin's lack of support, as well concerns of other Dems, both in the Senate and at the state level, that the bill goes too far. King agrees; he's made Schumer and Sen. Amy Klobuchar aware that there "are clearly some things" he thinks need to be negotiated.

 -- but the guts of it, Jake, is voting rights. It has a lot of other pieces. It has -- for example, it has public financing of elections. It has a lot of other pieces in it. But the important part for me is protecting voting rights. And I think that's becoming more urgent by the day, based upon what's going on around in the states.

King realizes, even if other people aren't talking about it as much, that changes that would allow a state legislature to "essentially overturn the results of an election" are extremely important. 

Remember, Raffensperger stood up in Georgia and said, no, we have certified these elections, the governor certified them. We're worried that -- or I'm worried that they're going to turn that over and say, OK, a Republican legislature can say, we think there was fraud in Fulton County, and, therefore, we're going to certify a different set of electors. That's really dangerous. 

Finally, Tapper asked him whether he believes the Republicans "negotiate in good faith or are just obstructionists. What are they doing today? Are they negotiating in good faith? Do you support eliminating the filibuster?" I love his answer:  "Well, it's kind of schizophrenic."

He pointed to some things that are being done in a bipartisan manner, such as a bill designed to "help us compete with China." He said those negotiations have been completely bipartisan, and while it stalled before the Memorial Day break, he's hopeful they can get it finalized.

But I was thinking about that bill... If the bill had had Joe Biden's name on it, we wouldn't even be talking about it, I don't think. I mean, it's -- that's sort of where we have gotten this.

The bill he's working on started with a conversation between Schumer and Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), and is working "through regular order" with committees and amendments and whatnot.

But then, on other areas, it's been -- as you say, it's been pretty well stalled. I think the infrastructure bill is a good test, because, listen, there's not a lot of policy there. This is just numbers. It's helping the country. And we ought to be able to find a resolution on that. If we can't, that spells trouble. 

And is King ready to scrap the filibuster? 

Not in general. I'm very reluctant about it. But if it comes down to voting rights and the rights of Americans to go to the -- go to the polls and select their leaders vs. the filibuster, I will choose democracy.

That's where we're going to leave it. I'll have Condi Rice and maybe a couple more senators in tomorrow's Extra Credit. 

See you around campus.