Nearly a week after President Joe Biden said if you don’t agree with him on changing the Senate rules on the filibuster and/or on federalizing elections that you were no better than Democrat racists of the past like Bull Connor, George Wallace, and Jefferson Davis, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has added her own unhinged twist on the kind of person you allegedly are if you don’t play nice with Democrats on these issues.
With today being MLK Day, Democrats are of course milking the opportunity the holiday presents to invoke the late civil rights icon’s legacy when it comes to their pet projects, and that includes on the so-called “For the People Act” and the “John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act,” both of which would be massive power grabs for Democrats if passed and signed into law by Biden.
Pelosi, flanked by family members of MLK as well as Congressional Black Caucus Chair Joyce Beatty, gave a press conference earlier where the emphasis was on “voting rights” and how Democrat holdouts like Sens. Joe Manchin (not identified by name) and Kyrsten Silena (not mentioned in detail) need to come to terms with their commitments to the preservation of the filibuster under the banner of democracy.
But during her remarks, Pelosi sounded like Joe Biden last week, stating that “if you really truly want to honor Dr. King, don’t dishonor him by using a Congressional custom as an excuse for protecting our democracy.” She went on to say that those who stand opposed to changing the filibuster “have no right to honor this family, to visit the [MLK] monument.”
Moments later, she went full “Crazy Joe” in animatedly suggesting that Founding Fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had “tears in their eyes for the departure from our democracy that is happening right now.”
Watch:
.@SpeakerPelosi at an MLK Day event: George Washington & Thomas Jefferson have “tears in his eyes” that the filibuster is being used to stop us from nationalizing elections pic.twitter.com/SOWNNfk6aG
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 17, 2022
Firstly, I’m a bit confused? here. Last year we were told that monuments to our “slave-owning Founding Fathers” need to be removed and confined to museums. Now we’re being told they have tears in their eyes over a stalled voting rights bill that Pelosi and other Democrats say in part is to make it easier for minorities to vote? Democrats need to decide on this issue.
Secondly, though I can’t speak to the thoughts of anyone who has departed this earth, I feel pretty certain that MLK would be deeply disappointed in the Democrats of today, including Nancy Pelosi, all of who seek to keep fanning the flames of racial division not because they want to solve anything but because it helps keep them in office and on TV, virtue signaling about how committed they are to civil rights.
Third, if Nancy Pelosi believes the Founding Fathers were all about putting our elections in the hands of the federal government, she’s sadly mistaken. Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington Law School, explained this last summer in an opinion piece:
Framers warned against the Federal Government being involved in election campaigns when the Constitution was written. South Carolina constitutional convention delegate Charles Pinckney noted that “great care was used to provide for the election of the president of the United States independently of Congress; to take the business as far as possible out of their hands.” It was done, he explained, because Congress “had no right to meddle with it at all.” Many Framers feared the power of the central government and wanted to prevent the abuses of Great Britain in the use of executive powers.
This view was reflected in the Electors Clause of Article II, Section 1, which confines the power of Congress to determining “the day on which [electors] give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States.” Where Congress is left with the timing of such elections, states are left the manner in which those elections are held.
The state controlling elections not only helped the decentralization goal, but also showed the Constitution’s strong federalism principles. States were viewed as “laboratories of democracy,” with each pursuing different approaches to governmental functions, including elections. The voters were also closer to them, as they could easily change state laws and policies.
Would be nice if Democrat “leaders” like Pelosi had even the bare minimum grasp of understanding regarding the politcal history she spouts. It’s all about stories, whatnot, and calling your political opposition racists or traitors. So who really cares about the uncomfortable facts?
Related:Nancy Pelosi Responds Intimately to the Question of Whether Biden Goes Too Far with Race Games in Georgia
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