In Praise of Gridlock

While the Senate is a disaster, Democrats are projected to control the House. Governors are a mixed bag. Florida is awful, but in perhaps the most significant result, voting rights have been restored to ex-felons there.

Update (November 7):  It's important to recognize the good stuff. But Jonathan Cohn explains the uphill battle.

It’s no secret why Democrats nevertheless emerged with fewer Senate seats. The Constitution gives disproportionate power to small states in the upper chamber, which in the current political alignment means conservative-leaning states have extra representation. This is an ongoing problem that will undermine Democrats in the next election just as surely as it did this one.

A similar problem plagues the House, where the incoming Democratic majority is probably smaller than it might have been because of partisan gerrymandering. And the newly elected Democrats who won in Republican-leaning districts like Michigan’s 8th are sure to face difficult challenges winning re-election in two years. As gerrymandering expert Dave Daley told HuffPost recently, "If it requires a generational wave to give Democrats [the House], that’s a sign of just how powerful gerrymandering is, not a sign that it can be conquered."

Update (November 9):  It turns out the Senate may not be quite the disaster it seemed to be initially. Florida is heading to a recount and the Democrat in Arizona has taken the lead.

Update (November 11):  At 47 percent, the midterm election turnout was the highest since 1966.

And Andrew O'Hehir sorts through the punditry to find the most useful conclusions.

One of those is that American politics are highly dysfunctional and our society remains bitterly divided, and these problems will not be easy to solve. Another is that this week’s remarkable events mean something. If we give them water, oxygen and time to unfold, we may find out what.

Update (November 12):  Noah Berlatsky sees a long road ahead.

[Drumpfism] in 2018 received a check. But racism, sexism, conspiracy-mongering, lying and hatred ― in short, fascism ― remain for Republicans a viable electoral path. Defeating [Drumpfism] means outvoting fascism, and simultaneously changing the system so that outvoting fascism actually has an effect. To do both will require fighting for many years beyond 2018.

Meanwhile, the election of Kyrsten Sinema to the U.S. Senate is a very good sign.

Update (November 13):  It's very dangerous when candidates and national leaders charge "fraud" before all the votes are counted. Steven Huefner explains:

[I]t is beyond unseemly – indeed, it is downright destructive of public trust in our elections, and fundamentally inconsistent with the health of our representative democracy – for candidates to assert or imply that the reason that Election Night results have been changing in the past few days is because election officials have engaged in some sort of irregular or unlawful conduct to manipulate the results. For anyone who cares about democratic institutions, the responsible position is to let the counting proceed according to state law, and then if necessary to take advantage of recount, audit, and contest processes to ascertain whether any defects occurred in these processes.

The good news is that Judge Amy Totenberg ordered Georgia to delay certification so that provisional ballots can be reviewed properly. Republicans seem to assume that as long as they get close enough in an election, then they simply win no matter what process is in place--as shown by efforts to block Maine's ranked choice voting.

Update (November 14):  There are reports that Dear Leader is increasingly erratic since the election. Heather Digby Parton knows why.

He lost, and his followers will never see him the same way again.

Once a con man is exposed, he blows town and moves on to the next mark. But [Fuckface von Clownstick] is the president of the United States. He's trapped and he has nowhere else to go.

Update (November 18):  Paul Rosenberg argues the new Democratic House will get nowhere by "playing nice".

[W]hat Democrats can and should do instead [is push for] broadly popular proposals and [take] principled stands, to define in detail their own inclusive vision of what America can and will be.

Update (November 28):  The final races have been decided. The Senate stands at 53 to 47 for the Republicans, a gain of two. The House is at 235 to 200 for the Democrats, a gain of forty.

Update (January 7, 2019):  Ex-felons in Florida can begin registering to vote tomorrow.

Update (January 26, 2019):  Implementing expanded voter registration is still running into some problems in Florida.

Update (March 19, 2019):  Florida is still tinkering with the restoration of voting rights with a proposal to require the repayment of fines and fees which could impact over half a million potential voters.

Update (March 20, 2019):  Former Governor candidate Andrew Gillum is pushing a goal of 1 million new registered voters in Florida.

Update (March 22, 2019):  A study by the Associated Press finds that gerrymandering helped Republicans hold on to as many as 16 House seats in the 2018 election.

Update (April 25, 2019):  The Florida House did approve a bill requiring the repayment of fees before ex-felons are allowed to vote.

Update (June 28, 2019):  Governor Ron DeSantis signed the poll tax into law. Stephen Wolf explains the impact.

By demanding that citizens pay all court fines and fees, Republicans could effectively roll back most of the 2018 amendment. It’s unclear just how many people would have had their rights restored by the new amendment, but one analysis estimates Republicans’ actions could keep roughly four-fifths of them from voting—keeping up to 1.1 million more people permanently disenfranchised—all because they’re too poor to pay court costs. Black defendants in particular are considerably less likely to be able to pay off all their court costs than white defendants, according to one study.

Update (May 24, 2020):  U.S. District Court Judge Robert Hinkle ruled the Florida law unconstitutional.

The State of Florida has adopted a system under which nearly a million otherwise-eligible citizens will be allowed to vote only if they pay an amount of money. Most citizens lack the financial resources to make the required payment … This pay-to-vote system would be universally decried as unconstitutional but for one thing: each citizen at issue was convicted, at some point in the past, of a felony offense.