A proposal for voting reform

Last evening I watched the movie Truman and Tennessee, an Intimate Conversation. It is a documentary about author Truman Capote and playwright Tennessee Williams. Both were gay. They were friends, though with some low spots, and they challenged each other towards better writing. Capote is best known for Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood. His books are still being read. Williams’ major plays are The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and The Night of the Iguana. His plays are still being produced. The material presented included interviews by David Frost and Dick Cavett and a few others. In addition, Jim Parsons provided the voice for some of Capote’s writings and Zachary Quinto did the same for Williams’ writings. There were also clips from movies made from Williams’ plays and Capote’s books. Most of the movies of Williams’ plays were made during the era of censorship. The censors frequently wanted the ending revised to be a bit more upbeat. So Williams suggested watching all but the last five minutes. The movie discusses the love life of both men, including some of their lovers. Some of the lighter moments were the two men talking about the nature of friendship and love with Frost and Cavett. I enjoyed the movie. However, I was quickly annoyed with the frequent use of overlaying two images, usually two nature scenes or a nature scene with a photo of one of the men. There are many lovely nature images in the movie, but I didn’t need two together or a photo made less understandable because of the overlay. Last night I finished an epic book. It is The Bruce Trilogy by Nigel Tranter. It is a novelization of history in three books under one cover for a total of over a thousand pages. The story is about the adult life of Robert Bruce, King of the Scots (the people, not the land). It begins in 1296 when King Edward of England humiliates King John Baliol. Edward had stepped in just four years before when the Scots throne became vacant and Edward led the process to sort through the various claimants, including Bruce’s grandfather, and to jigger things to make the Scots King beholden to him. So the Scots throne is vacant again. And Bruce is becoming quite annoyed with Edward’s cruelty. We follow Bruce as he claims the throne for himself, then unite the clans and drive the English out, then work to keep them out and get a peace treaty. Through it all Bruce developed into a quite good military tactician, able to force his enemies to fight on his terms, where his soldiers had the advantage. I’m sure the author created the dialogue. The rest of the story seems accurate – at least from what I can tell from various websites on the history of the area. I ended up learning a lot of Scots history, including the series of Scots kings who inherited the throne so young a regent was needed. That began with Robert’s son David. I bought the book 30 years ago when I lived in Germany and had business trips to England, with personal trips to Scotland. Yeah, it sat on the shelf for 30 years, partly because it wasn’t on the yet to read shelf. Also, because a thousand pages is enough to make one ponder do I really want to start that now? It took me five weeks to read and I enjoyed it. William Wallace is a character in the first of the three parts. According to the book the movie Braveheart and Mel Gibson got one thing wrong – Wallace is described as six foot six, or almost two meters. Gibson isn’t that. Alas, there was also a discrepancy between the book and its cover. The text describes Bruce as having auburn hair. The guy on the cover has black hair. Stephen Wolf of Daily Kos Elections wrote about a welcome development. For the last half year Sen. Joe Manchin has been known for being the key vote in the Senate. If Joe doesn’t like a bill it won’t get far. And Joe had said he didn’t like the voter rights bill, the For the People Act, also known has HR 1 and S 1. The welcome development is that Manchin has put out a proposal of the parts of the bill he does like – mandated early voting, ban partisan gerrymandering, voter registration with driver license renewal, prepaid postage for absentee ballots, require disclosure of dark campaign money, and a few more. Manchin has a few disagreements with S 1, the most controversial is that he is for a national voter ID requirement. That is already one of the widely used methods of voter suppression because poor people, usually minorities, have a harder time getting an ID. But this could be a worthwhile compromise if it blocks gerrymandering, the other widely used method of suppression. The ID requirement could prompt creating a free and widely available national ID card. Kerry Eleveld of Kos took up the story. Manchin’s proposal got the endorsement of Stacy Abrams, the Georgia voting rights activist. That prompted the Senate GOP close ranks against it and for Moscow Mitch to mock Manchin’s work as “Stacy Abrams Substitute” and declare all Senate Republicans would oppose it. So ... Will Manchin’s investment in this effort prompt him to repeal the filibuster, if only for this bill? Considering the bill to investigate the Capitol attack was voted down and the infrastructure bill is struggling, maybe Manchin is getting the message there will never be ten GOP senators on anything of substance. Manchin has said voting reform bills won’t work if they’re not bipartisan, no matter how desperately they’re needed. Alas, he’s right. If his reforms get zero GOP votes the GOP base will assume the provisions are another way of stealing the vote. And Moscow Mitch has already started the work of making sure the base makes that assumption. Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted a bit of an article by Ian Millhiser on Vox that explains Manchin’s proposal. Then Dworkin quoted a Millhiser tweet:

One thing I learned from reading Joe Manchin's new voting rights proposals is that he is really smart and has excellent staff. This is a really granular set of proposals. I rarely encounter lawmakers who bother to learn an issue at this deep of a level.

After all this time of railing against and dismissing Manchin, that’s interesting! Dworkin also quoted a tweet by Nicholas Grossman:

Repeating the truth about January 6 is tedious, even exhausting. But the people lying about, downplaying, defending, and apologizing for it appear inexhaustible. So the choices are (1) keep repeating the truth, shooting down lies and conspiracy theories, or (2) conceding to them.