MONDAY, OCTOBER 25 , 2021. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A21
P
resident Biden signaled last
week that Isaac Newton’s third
law of motion — for every action,
there is an equal and opposite
reaction — may finally apply to Ameri-
can politics.
Do not underestimate the signifi-
cance of Biden’s statement at a C NN
town hall Thursday that he has reached
the end of his rope on a Senate filibuster
that has been used to increasingly
destructive effect in the years since
Barack Obama came to office.
“We’re going to have to move to the
point where we fundamentally alter the
filibuster ,” said Biden, a longtime skep-
tic of changes in the filibuster.
Biden asserted his willingness to
push for bypassing the filibuster to
allow Senate Democrats to enact a
voting rights bill — and went on to say
he might favor lifting it on behalf of
other measures as well.
Until now, the asymmetry of our
nation ’s political contest seemed to defy
Newton’s proposition.
Republicans in the Senate have re-
lentlessly used their power to scuttle
Democratic proposals or to make pas-
sage excruciatingly difficult — witness
the painful and protracted negotiations
over Biden’s Build Back Better program.
GOP aggressiveness has not been met
by a comparably ferocious Democratic
response. Except for a small tweak in
filibuster rules in 2013 initiated by
then-Senate Majority Leader Harry
M. Reid (D-Nev.) to ease confirmation
for executive-branch appointees and
lower-court judges, Democrats largely
stood by as GOP obstruction ran
r ampant.
Meanwhile, Sen. Mitch McConnell
(R-Ky.) had no compunction during
Donald Trump’s presidency when he led
the majority to set aside the filibuster
for the cause he cares about most: the
confirmation of right-wing Supreme
Court justices.
What finally moved Biden — and also
longtime skeptics of changing the rules,
among them Sens. Angus King
( I-Maine) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) — is
how recent Republican actions have
fundamentally altered the terms of the
debate. The need for filibuster reform
was brought home by the solid phalanx
of Republican opposition last week even
to debating a voting rights bill. That
followed a recent GOP threat to use the
filibuster to block efforts to lift the debt
ceiling, normally a routine action.
Opponents of filibuster reform, nota-
bly Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), have
spoken of wanting to protect the Sen-
ate’s best habits of open debate, a degree
of bipartisanship and honest give-and-
take.
But abuse of the filibuster has itself
become the central threat to a function-
al Senate and the civil behavior extolled
by those most devote d to its traditions.
This means we have reached what
might be called a Burkean Moment.
Edmund Burke, the founding philoso-
pher of modern conservatism, insisted
that preserving what we value most can
require, even demand, reform. Those
who revere the Senate should pay heed.
The way Senate Majority Leader
Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has han-
dled the voting rights issue helped drive
us to what White House press secretary
Jen Psaki on Friday called this “inflec-
tion point.” Manchin has said repeated-
ly that any bill about elections would be
better if it could pass with bipartisan
support. So Schumer encouraged him to
put forward proposals of his own and
then shop them around to Republicans
in search of 10 votes to break a filibuster.
The Freedom to Vote Act is a compro-
mise measure written to Manchin’s
specifications. It pared back many of the
provisions that Republicans had object-
ed to in the For the People Act passed by
the House in March.
Despite Manchin’s best efforts at
persuasion, not a single Republican was
willing to support it.
In the meantime, more than a dozen
Republican-led states, on party-line
votes, have enacted a slew of voter
suppression and election subversion
measures that the Manchin-backed
compromise bill is designed to remedy.
Democrats, including Manchin, con-
front a moment of truth: They can fight
for democracy or they can keep the
Senate ’s filibuster rule as it is. Republi-
cans have made very clear that they
cannot do both.
When the Freedom to Vote Act was
blocked last week, Schumer was careful
to describe the stakes in terms that
Manchin and other skeptics of Senate
rules revisions would pay attention to.
“The Senate needs to be restored to its
rightful status as the world’s greatest
deliber ative body,” Schumer said.
“Members of this body now face a choice
— they can follow in the footsteps of our
patriotic predecessors in this chamber.
Or they can sit by as the fabric of our
democracy unravels before our very
eyes.”
It was Theodore Roosevelt — the
Republican Roosevelt — who described
resistance to reform as representing
“not true conservatism, but an incite-
ment to the wildest radicalism.” That is
where we are with voting rights and the
filibuster. Joe Biden has drawn the
obvious conclusion. Senate Democrats
need to join him.E.J. DIONNE JR.A conservative
case for
filibuster
reform BY GABBY GIFFORDS
F
or years, one of my favorite
things about serving in Con-
gress was getting the opportu-
nity to interact with my con-
stituents. I loved chatting with them
about our beloved state of Arizona and
the policies I w as fighting for. Even
when we disagreed, we did so respect-
fully. We found common ground with-
out vilifying each other.
This, I t hought, was what represen-
tative democracy should look like.
That’s why one of my first priorities
after being elected for a third term was
to host a “Congress on Your Corner”
event outside a grocery store in the
Tucson area. A long line of people
waited there to meet me that day in
January 2011. Six of them would never
return home; 13 of us had our lives
forever changed by a bullet from a gun.
When I heard that Conser vative
member of Parliament David Amess
was stabbed to death in Britain this
month while meeting with constitu-
ents, I was horrified and heartbroken.
Amess was doing exactly what I was
doing on that day near Tucson —
listenin g, connecting. But he paid for
his public service with his life.
After I was shot 10 years ago, that
act of hateful violence was decried as a
low point in civil discourse. Unfortu-
natel y, polarization and extremism
have only gotten worse over the past
decade. Harassment and threats
again st government officials are no
longer the exception but more the
norm.
As I w rite this, five men are awaiting
trial for plo tting to kidnap Michigan
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) last fall.
These men, reportedly upset by ac-
tions Whitmer had taken to curb the
coronavirus, are accused of going so
far as to scout the governor ’s second
home.
In her victim impact statement, the
governor wrote, “Threats continue. I
have looked out my windows and seen
large groups of heavily armed people
within 30 yards of my home. I have
seen myself hung in effigy. Days ago at
a demonstration, there was a s ign that
called for ‘burning the witch.’ For me,
things will never be the same.”
This is not what representative
democracy should look li ke.
There should not be a “before” and
“after” for elected officials, li ke there is
for Whitmer and like there is for me.
Putting your name on the ballot
should not mean a c omment you make
or a vote you take may lead someone to
threaten your life — or, even worse, act
on th at threat.
Elected of ficials are not the only
public employees who face threats of
violence. According to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention,
23 percent of 26,000 public health
workers surveyed in July said they felt
bullied, threatened or harassed be-
cause of their work during the pan-
demic. My friend David Chipman, who
was nominated to be the director of
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Fire-
arms and Explosives, faced threats of
violence that made him fear for the
safety of his fa mily.
As the stabbing of Amess makes all
too clear, the problem of politicized
violence is endemic around the world.
But in the United States, this problem
is exacerbated by our tragically lax gun
laws.
Gun violence has surged across our
country in the past two years, with an
estim ated 45,000 gun deaths in 2020
— an increase of 15 percent over 2019.
Gun sales have similarly skyrocketed.
If more guns made people safer, as the
gun lobby claims, we would have much
less gun violence than other developed
nations, such as the United Ki ngdom.
Instead, we have much more.
If more of the insurrectionists who
stormed the U.S. Capitol had been
armed on Jan. 6, I fear the outcome
could have been much worse than it
was. The District’s relatively strong
gun laws likely played a role in
limiting the firearms brought into the
Capitol — for which I’m exceedingly
grateful, because one of those inside
the building was my husband,
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.). I f eared for
his life then, as he had feared for mine
10 years earlier. Both of us went into
public service because we were eager
to do just that: to serve. We never
imagined that by answering this call-
ing, we would be risking our lives.
If we want to encourage the next
generation of leaders to pursue public
service in its many forms, we must
take violent threats and harassment
seriously. We must take steps to curb
the sort of armed intimidation visible
at state capitals and peaceful racial
justice protests throughout 2020.
My organization, Giffords, often
talks about how gun violence is both a
public health crisis and a public safety
threat. Armed intimidation and
threats of violence are also a rot eating
away at the heart of our democracy. We
must protect our democracy, and those
who represent us within it, by refusing
to allow guns and violence to be a part
of the democr atic process.The writer, a Democrat, represented
Arizona’s 8th Congressional District from
2007 to 2012.Attacks on
politicians are
eating away
at democracy
glen allen, va.
T
hey sanitized the event space.
They scrubbed the speeches.
The campaign of Virginia Re-
publican gubernatorial candi-
date Glenn Youngkin eliminated virtu-
ally any indication that Donald Trump
had ever existed. Instead, Youngkin
invoked George W. Bush’s line about
the “soft bigotry of low expectations”
and stole a joke of John McCain’s.
But while Youngkin banished
Trump, he could not wash away the
stench of Trumpism.
At his rally here Saturday night in
Richmond’s suburbs, Youngkin de-
buted his closing argument. It was a
Trumpian blend of conspiracy theo-
ries, race-baiting and fabrications.
Conspiracy theory:
“Terry McAuliffe wants government
to stand be tween parents and their
children,” Youngkin said of his Demo-
cratic opponent. “And when parents
across this great commonwealth said,
‘No, Terry, you’re wrong,’ he called his
friend Joe Biden and asked the FBI to
come silence us.”
PolitiFact already identified this
baseless claim (that McAuliffe got U.S.
Attorney General Merrick Garland to
order the Justice Department to help
combat growing threats against
school-board members and educators)
as a “pants on fire” lie. But Youngkin
keeps repeating it.
Race-baiting:
“What we won’t do is teach our
children to view everything through
the lens of race,” Youngkin vowed,
adding that “on Day 1, I will ban
critical race theory.” It was perhaps the
biggest applause line of the night.
Preceding Youngkin onstage, the
Republican attorney general candi-
date, Jason Miyares, argued that “you
cannot survive as a nation if you’re
raising an entire generation of chil-
dren to hate their country, and that is
exactly what critical race theory is.”
Critical race theory isn’t taught in
Virginia schools. It’s a p hantom men-ace, whipped up by Fox News to fill
White people with racial terror.
Youngkin urged his supporters to fear
a “20-year high murder rate,” even
though overall violent crime de-
creased in 2020 in Virginia, among the
safest states in the country.
Fabrication:
Youngkin complained that “Vir-
ginia ranks 50th in the nation in
standards for kids to progress in math,
reading,” but Virginia kids’ actual
proficiency exceeds the national
a verage.
He suggested that Virginia “chil-
dren cannot pass an 8th-grade math
equivalency test” because of pandemic
school closures — “so we will proclaim
that Virginia’s schools will never be
closed again to five-day-a-week, in-
person education.” In reality, Virginia’s
38 percent proficiency in 8th grade
math topped the national 33 percent.
And the test results to which Youngkin
referred were from before the
p andemic-related closures.
Youngkin claimed that McAuliffe
“said there’s no place for parents in
their kids’ education” (a line that
prompted boos and shouts of “commu-
nist”). But McAuliffe didn’t say there’s
“no place” for parents. He spoke out
against vigilantism in which “parents
come into schools and actually take
books out and make their own deci-
sions. I don’t think parents should be
telling schools what they should
teac h” and “running down teachers.”
Why does Youngkin traffic in
Trumpism? Because it’s the only way
he can win.
The rally in Glen Allen, outside a
gourmet market and across from a
Best Buy, wasn’t a M AGA gathering.
Many attendees were professionals.
Several wore North Face. More than
one brought dogs in pumpkin cos-
tumes. The pre-rally music included
Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” —
twice. There were no Confederate
flags.
But even here in the upscale sub-urbs, Republican rallygoers I button-
holed overwhelmingly accepted the
“big lie” about the 2020 election and
expected fraud in the gubernatorial
election, too. “There’s going to be
cheating,” one grandmother told me
confidently, holding a signpost for
support because of recent back
s urger y.
A guy in an “FJB” cap — as in
“F--- Joe Biden” — told me he’s “al-
ready” seeing cheating, and he com-
plained about Dominion voting ma-
chines (a favorite Trump target) and
“corrupt” poll monitors.
Another man, in an “I kneel to
return fire” T-shirt, feared the vote
would be fraudulent, “just like the
presidential election.” A woman in a
“SOCIALism DISTANCING” long-
sleeve also lacked faith in the integrity
of the process. “That’s sad,” she said.
It is sad. This is a swing congres-
sional district, represented by fire-
brand House Majority Leader Eric
Cantor before he was ousted in 2014 in
a Republican primary by a more ex-
treme version of himself, who later lost
to a Democrat, Abigail Spanberger. If
Republicans subscribe to the “big lie”
here, then it prevails everywhere.
So Youngkin catered to those held
captive by Trump’s lies.
He demonized the liberal Jewish
billionaire George Soros.
His running mate showed up at a
rally featuring Trump and former
Trump aide Steve Bannon, where the
crowd pledged allegiance to a flag said
to have been carried on the day of the
Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
He did an interview with Sebastian
Gorka, an anti-Muslim former Trump
adviser with reported ties to an anti -
semitic Hungarian group.
And he has encouraged the “big lie.”
Sure, he dresses it in a red-fleece
vest and non-threatening platitudes:
“soar and never settle,” “lift up all
Virginians,” “a new day.” But under-
neath it’s Trumpism through and
through.DANA MILBANKTrumpism in a red-fleece vest
STEVE HELBER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin speaks at a r ally in Glen Allen, Va., on Saturday.education.
Democrats traditionally hold advantag-
es on education, but parental anger at
learning loss caused by school closures has
shifted the landscape. Many moms and
dads blame recalcitrant teachers unions,
to whom the Democratic Party is behold-
en, for slow reopenings. Mask mandates in
the classroom poll well but have added to
tensions.
And Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the chair-
man of the NRSC, intends to surf the wave
of backlash. Senate challengers plan to
emphasize support for “school choice” and
“parental involvement” in commercials
and on the stump next year, he said.
“We can make sure that it’s a b ig focus,”
Scott said in an interview. “People are
seeing this work, and they’re going to
follow it, whether Youngkin wins or not,
which I’m optimistic that he can.”
One reason Republican strategists are
so high on the education messages is that
they also play well with Latinos. The NRSC
plan to win back the Senate involves
retaining support from rural and non-col-
lege-educated Whites who moved toward
the GOP under Trump, continuing to
make inroads among Hispanics, and re-
versing the suburban slide among
c ollege-educated Whites. The three-
pronged approach means Republicans do
not need to recapture all the suburban
voters who backed Mitt Romney in 2012
but shifted to Biden in 2020 in order to
regain control of the Senate, which is
currently divided 50-50. “It’s ours to lose,”
Scott told me.
The NRSC poll was conducted across
192 ba ttleground counties from Sept. 27 to
Sept. 30 by Wes Anderson — not the
filmmaker but a partner at OnMessage,
the GOP consultancy that has worked forT
he National Republican Senatori-
al Committee has been testing
dozens of potential messages that
might claw back suburban voters
who drifted toward Democrats during
Donald Trump’s presidency, and lines of
attack related to education show as much
potential for the midterms as inflation,
immigration and crime.
I obtained a 45-slide PowerPoint recent-
ly presented to Republican senators that
summarizes findings from a previously
unreported internal poll of 1,200 likely
voters in 2022 suburban battlegrounds.
Notable results included:
l Seventy-eight percent agreed that
“man y public-school systems in America
are failing and children are falling behind
the rest of the world.”
l Sixty-five percent agreed that “allow-
ing biological males to compete against
women in high school and college sports is
hugely unfair and will erase many of the
gains women have made in athletics over
the last 50 years.”
l Fifty-eight percent agreed that “criti-
cal race theory should not be taught in
schools” because “children should not be
told they are inherently racist simply
because of the color of their skin.”
Republican Glenn Youngkin has been
road-testing all three arguments in the
Virginia governor’s race. Although Joe
Biden carried the commonwealth by 10
points last year — and is scheduled to
campaign Tuesday with Democratic nomi-
nee Terry McAuliffe — the latest poll, from
Monmouth University, shows a tie. That
survey found that schooling has surpassed
covid to become the second-most-impor-
tant issue, behind the economy. And after
previously trailing, Youngkin has edged
McAuliffe as being more trusted to handleScott since 2010, when he first ran for
Florida governor. Anderson excluded sub-
urbs in 13 deep-blue states represented by
two Democratic senators, as well as coun-
ties that technically count as suburban but
broke for Trump by more than two points.
Among this sample, President Biden’s
approval rating is 45 percent. Both parties
are viewed more negatively than positive-
ly: Republicans have a net unfavorable
rating of four points, compared with
11 points for Democrats. Asked to choose
between two statements, 50 percent said
the fall of Afghanistan was because of
Biden’s incompetence, and 41 percent said
there was no way for the withdrawal to go
smoothly given the plan Biden inherited
from Trump.
Trump remains the elephant in the
room. Democratic oper atives predict that
the ex-president will continue to be toxic,
especially as he keeps the door open to a
2024 run, and they hope that gun control,
health care, climate change and voting
rights will keep most suburban voters in
the Democratic fold. Privately, many Re-
publican leaders still blame Trump’s base-
less claims of election fraud for depressing
turnout and costing them both U.S. Senate
seats in Georgia’s January runoffs.
Scott, who voted to reject Pennsylva-
nia’s electors on Jan. 6, recalled that
Democrats spent millions on ads linking
him to Trump when he challenged Sen.
Bill Nelson (D) in 2018, but that he narrow-
ly won anyway. “You have to go convince
people that it’s an election about you,” he
said. “That’s what I had to do. And then
you’ve got to give people a reason to vote
for you.”
Easier said than done. Next week’s elec-
tion in Virginia will show whether educa-
tion might help Republicans do just that.JAMES HOHMANNRepublicans are testing messages to reverse
their suburban slide. Education is a winner.