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Missouri GOP latest to push early-voting 'reforms'
Republican policymakers in Wisconsin and Ohio recently imposed new restrictions on early voting, and this week, GOP lawmakers in Missouri followed suit, though their efforts come with a bit of a twist.
The Missouri House has endorsed a pair of early voting measures, though some Democrats contend they could create confusion for a proposed initiative petition that seeks to go further in allowing advanced voting. [...]Democratic critics say the House proposal is a "sham" and that politics are at play.
Fortunately, this is a knowable thing -- either the proposal is a sham or it's not -- so let's take a closer look.
The Republican plan in Missouri does not actually ban early voting, so much as it creates an unusual time frame in which early voting would be allowed. Under the proposal, there would be nine days of early voting, but the nine days couldn't come the week before the election and they couldn't include a Sunday, which happens to be a very popular day for early voting in states that allow it.
Saturday voting would be limited to four hours, and voting after 5 p.m. -- after many workers leave their jobs for the day -- would be prohibited.
What's more, all of this isn't just a proposed bill; it's actually a proposed amendment to the Missouri Constitution, which would make future reforms more difficult. What's more, the amendment comes with a built-in loophole: "If lawmakers don't appropriate money for early voting on any given year, it won't happen."
All of this coincides with a new voter-ID plan, leading the Kansas City Star to note in an editorial, "Republicans in the Missouri General Assembly are mounting a two-pronged effort to make voting more difficult for certain citizens, who are most likely to be elderly, low-income, students or minorities. They're not even subtle about it."
And to think some Missouri Dems would be so cynical as to see this as a "sham."
'They're nothing more than domestic terrorists'
It's been nearly a week since the U.S. Bureau of Land Management tried to enforce federal court orders at Cliven Bundy's Nevada ranch, only to back off in order to deescalate a potentially dangerous situation with heavily armed protesters.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D), who of course represents Nevada, said earlier this week, "We can't have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it. So it's not over."
Yesterday, Reid went further.
U.S. Sen. Harry Reid on Thursday called supporters of Bunkerville rancher Cliven Bundy "domestic terrorists" because they defended him against a Bureau of Land Management cattle roundup with guns and put their children in harm's way."Those people who hold themselves out to be patriots are not. They're nothing more than domestic terrorists," Reid said during an appearance at a Las Vegas Review-Journal "Hashtags & Headlines" event at the Paris. "... I repeat: what went on up there was domestic terrorism."
The senator added that he's been in communication with Attorney General Eric Holder, FBI leaders, and Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie, as well as the Nevada Cattlemen's Association, 'which has not backed Bundy's personal battle but has expressed concerns about access to public land."
There is, Reid said, a task force being set up to deal with the situation. "It is an issue that we cannot let go, just walk away from," he added.
One assumes Bundy's militia allies weren't impressed with the senator's comments, but Reid probably isn't foremost on their minds. Rather, many on this far-right fringe are contemplating their next move, embracing what they see as a new precedent established six days ago at the Bundy ranch.
Will the GOP ever 'move on' from Obamacare?
They threw everything they had at it. Desperate to destroy the Affordable Care Act, Republican policymakers tried misinformation campaigns; they tried sabotage; and they tried repeal. The campaign did not, however, derail the law, the success of which is becoming increasingly obvious.
The next question is whether GOP officials actually care.
At his press conference yesterday, President Obama not only touted the new enrollment totals -- 8 million American consumers enrolled through exchange marketplaces during the open-enrollment period -- he also urged Republicans to end their preoccupation with the issue.
"I find it strange that the Republican position on this law is still stuck in the same place that it has always been: they still can't bring themselves to admit that the Affordable Care Act is working."They said nobody would sign up. They were wrong about that. They said it would be unaffordable for the country. They were wrong about that. They were wrong to keep trying to repeal a law that is working when they have no alternative answer for millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions who would be denied coverage again, or every woman who would be charged more for just being a woman again."I know every American isn't going to agree with this law, but I think we can agree that it's well past time to move on as a country and refocus our energy on the issues that the American people are most concerned about, and that continues to be the economy, because these endless, fruitless repeal efforts come at a cost. The 50 or so votes Republicans have taken to repeal this law could have been 50 votes to create jobs."
In all, during a fairly brief press conference, Obama used the phrase "move on" four times in reference to Republicans and the ACA.
And before the press conference was even over, the National Republican Congressional Committee declared, in response to the president's call to move on, "No, we can't."
And on the surface, congressional Republicans certainly seem to mean it. As the health care system grows stronger, GOP lawmakers are descending deeper into denial, conspiracy theories, and fairly transparent con jobs. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Republican leaders are committed to near-constant Obamacare bashing for the rest of the year, regardless of facts that may try to get in the way.
The stubbornness might be impressive if we weren't talking about a group of policymakers desperately trying to take health care benefits away from millions of American families for no particular reason.
But there are cracks in the facade. For all the bravado and chest-thumping, about they will never, ever, ever stop trying to destroy health care reform, Republicans are not a united front.
Found by @thejulianutter working on the A block: Biden talks Cadillacs, 2006 Cong Record http://t.co/TD68OjMaK9 pic.twitter.com/Ki1xwC5xz7
— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) April 18, 2014
8 million
Just five weeks ago, the Associated Press ran an article on the pace of Affordable Care Act enrollments. The White House, the piece said, "needs something close to a miracle to meet its goal of enrolling 6 million people by the end of this month." Congressional Republicans eagerly passed the AP's item around.
As of April 1, we already knew that miracle had arrived: the initial estimate pointed to 7.1 million Americans enrolling through exchange marketplaces. By last week, that total was revised to 7.5 million.
Today, there's a new number: 8 million consumers signed up for private coverage through exchanges.
President Barack Obama announced Thursday that eight million people have selected a private health insurance plan through the Affordable Care Act."This thing is working," he said of the law during an announcement during a statement in the White House briefing room. The president also said that 35 percent of people who enrolled through the federal marketplace are under the age of 35.
As the president want on to explain at a press conference this afternoon, that's 8 million enrolled through exchanges, another 3 million young adults who've gained coverage through family plans, and another 3 million who've taken advantage of Medicaid expansion.
That's 14 million American consumers -- a number that would be more than 19 million if several Republican officials weren't deliberately blocking Medicaid expansion out of political spite.
Before new conspiracy theories sprout, I should note that these upward revisions do not come as a surprise.
'We're not going to do anything to address health care'
It's been nearly three months since House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) declared, "This year, we will rally around an alternative to ObamaCare and pass it on the floor of the House." Last week House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said the plan is being delayed "at least a month." A month from when? He didn't say.
ThinkProgress reports that Rep. Dennis Ross (R-Fla.) is telling his constituents that his party doesn't intend "to do anything" on this issue for the rest of the year.
CONSTITUENT: You've voted to repeal it approximately 50 times. Had zero votes on a replacement. So my question is, why do you think it is so good to deny seniors on Part D to make them pay more, about $4,000 more for medicine, and people with pre-existing conditions get denied insurance, have 26-year-olds have a harder time getting insurance because they can't get on their parents'? Why do you think those are good ideas?ROSS: I don't. And let me tell you, I think one of the most unfortunate things my party did the last three years was not offer an alternative to health care. I've always felt that way. I think it's absurd when I tell people that this isn't what you should do, but I don't have an alternative for you.... I wish we had an alternative. For the next six months, we're going to go into an election knowing that we're not going to do anything to address health care. Because we've gone so far in the last few years saying "no" that we don't have an alternative to say "yes" to.
It's not too common to hear House Republicans referring to their own party's posture on health care as "absurd," which make Ross' comments fairly striking on their own.
There's also the news that Ross is apparently under the impression that his party won't bother with an ACA alternative at all in 2014, despite literally years of Republican promises to the contrary.
But perhaps most interesting of all was the two-word answer in response to the question from Ross' constituent: "I don't."
The ACA on a winning streak
As a substantive matter, the nature of the debate over the Affordable Care Act has changed dramatically in just the past few weeks. On every metric that matters -- enrollment data, rate of uninsured, systemic costs, premiums -- there's been quite a bit of news, and all of it's heartening for those hoping to see the American system succeed.
But as the substance changes, the politics and broader impressions are changing with it. Democrats who were expected to avoid "Obamacare" at all costs as a campaign issue are starting to do the opposite. And Beltway media that talked up ACA peril is now conceding the system is "making a pretty impressive run."
The headlines about the Affordable Care Act have turned positive lately, and they're starting to pile up. The most dire predictions from the law's critics simply haven't panned out, and now Democrats are headed into another big health care fight -- the confirmation of a new Health and Human Services secretary -- with stronger real-world evidence than they've had before.There's important information we still don't have about enrollment, and big risks loom on the horizon. Things could change. But right now, the tide seems to be turning in the White House's favor.Narratives feed on themselves, and there was a time when Obamacare just kept losing.... But over the past few weeks, the news has started to roll in the other direction.... Now it's good news snowballing, and it's critics who increasingly seem to have missed the mark with their warnings of inevitable collapse.
So much for the "death spiral."
It's against this backdrop that House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) issued a brief report this morning, as part of the "House Obamacare Accountability Project." (House Republicans have actually created a formal project with its own name for their initiative to root for ACA failure.) The 1,100-word piece intends to "debunk" the encouraging news of late, but McCarthy's indictment doesn't actually disprove anything. It asks some questions and repeats some old, bogus talking points, but for those who've followed the debate closely, it's surprisingly pretty easy to debunk the House GOP's attempted debunking.
With this in mind, it's probably time to start thinking more about "Obamacare Derangement Syndrome."
