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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • I’m not sure if you’re phrasing this backwards deliberately. But Dems in the House passed the For the People Act while Dems in the Senate (Manchin, most particularly) killed it. A compromise bill was crafted (by Manchin!), but Manchin and Sinema refused to exempt it from the filibuster in a rules vote.

    This was in 2021, of course. Dems had an even better opportunity in 2009, when they were sitting on bigger majorities. But, again, they dawdled and delayed and let guys like Lieberman play footsie with the opposition.

    Efforts to fix the disparity in the Senate by granting DC Statehood (and effectively guaranteeing Dems gain two additional Democrat seats) have also stalled in Congress indefinitely, going all the way back to the 1990s.

    In the meantime, Republicans turn the ratchet rightward by further gerrymandering districts, stacking courts, and expanding the pool of ineligible voters through caging/voter registration purges/etc. They’ve been at this since the early 2000s, and every cycle gives us more lopsided state legislatures. Wisconsin’s GOP can hold a supermajority with as little as 40% of the popular vote, for instance.