digby: Give us 2 more Senators please
https://digbysblog.net/2022/06/06/give-us-2-more-senators-please/
Give us 2 more Senators please
Published by digby on June 6, 2022
Its all we need
Josh Marshall has an op-ed in the NY Times about how to mobilize voters to protect a womans right to choose. I think hes right:
After the Democrats came up with just 49 votes to bring a Roe-protecting bill before the Senate on May 11, they promised to keep fighting and, in the words of Senator Amy Klobuchar, take that fight right to the ballot box in November. But you cant make an election into a referendum on an issue if you cant point to anything winning the election would accomplish. To make the 2022 elections a referendum on Roe, Democrats have to put protecting Roe and abortion rights on the table.
Heres one way to do that: get clear public commitments from every Senate Democrat (and candidate for Senate) not only to vote for the Roe bill in January 2023 but also to change the filibuster rules to ensure that a majority vote would actually pass the bill and send it to the White House for the presidents signature.
At present, there are likely 48 Senate Democrats who can make that pledge. Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are dead set against any changes to the filibuster a fact you likely know because most of President Bidens agenda has been bottled up behind their refusal for the past year. Some claim that Senators Manchin and Sinema are just taking the public heat for a number of other Senate Democrats who are also unwilling to change the filibuster rules. Thats highly unlikely. But if any do have misgivings, thats why the public commitments are so important. Getting a list of holdouts down to a publicly named handful is the first step to persuading them to fall in line.
If my math is right and there are 48 Senate Democrats ready to make that pledge, they need two additional Democratic senators in the next Congress. And that is the partys message that makes the 2022 midterms a referendum on Roe: Give us the House and two more senators, and we will make Roe law in January 2023.
Its common sense.
A womans right to choose is a popular position. For many people its fundamental. Democrats should make a pledge to actually do something specific to ensure that women maintain that right when they have the power to do it.