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      ‘It would be glorious’: hopes high for Biden to nominate first Black woman to supreme court

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      Joe Biden’s promise to nominate an African American woman to the supreme court for the first time holds broad symbolic significance for Darlene McDonald, an activist and police reform commissioner in Salt Lake City, Utah.But McDonald has specific reasons for wanting a Black woman on the court, too.When Chief Justice John Roberts asserted in 2013 that federal oversight of voting in certain southern states was no longer needed because “things have changed dramatically” since the civil rights era, McDonald said, he revealed a blindness to something African American women have no choice but to see.“I believe that if Chief Justice Roberts had really understood racism, he would never have voted to gut the Voting Rights Act,” McDonald said, adding that hundreds of voter suppression bills introduced by Republicans in recent months suggest things have not “changed dramatically” since 1965.“Myself, as an African American woman, having that representation on the supreme court will be huge,” McDonald said, “especially in the sense of having someone that really understands racism.”The gradual diversification of US leadership, away from the overwhelming preponderance of white men, towards a mix that increasingly reflects the populace, was accelerated by the election last November of Kamala Harris, a woman of color, as vice-president.Black women have been overlooked in terms of their values and what they have to bring to society as well as to the benchNow enthusiasm is building around a similarly historic leap that activists, academics and professionals expect is just around the corner: the arrival on the court of a justice who would personify one of the most historically marginalized groups.“Black women have been overlooked for decades and decades in terms of their values and what they have to bring to society as well as to the bench,” said Leslie Davis, chief executive of the National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms. “We should be able to look at our highest court in the land and see the reflection of some of the folks who have made America great. And that absolutely includes Black women.”Out of 115 justices in its history, the supreme court has counted two African American justices, one Latina and just five women. The court has no vacant seats but calls are growing for Stephen Breyer, a liberal who turns 83 this year, to retire. Last month, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden’s campaign commitment to nominating a Black woman “absolutely” holds.“This is a big moment in the making,” said Ben Jealous, president of People For the American Way, which recently launched the Her Fight Our Fight campaign to support and promote women of color in government and public service roles.“The presumption is that whomever Biden nominates, the first Black woman to the supreme court would be filling both the shoes of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Thurgood Marshall,” said Jealous.The late Ginsburg, a pioneering lawyer for women’s rights, was succeeded last fall by the conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett. Marshall was succeeded in 1991 by the George HW Bush appointee Clarence Thomas, who “is anathema to everything that the civil rights community stands for”, Jealous said.“It would be both glorious and a relief to have a Black woman on the supreme court who actually represents the values of the civil rights community, and the most transformative lawyers in our nation’s history.”Tomiko Brown-Nagin, a civil rights historian, dean of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute and professor of constitutional law, said having qualified federal judges who “reflect the broad makeup of the American public” would strengthen democracy and faith in the courts.“It’s an important historical moment that signifies equal opportunity,” Brown-Nagin said. “That anyone who is qualified has the chance to be considered for nomination, notwithstanding race, notwithstanding gender. That is where we are. In some ways, we shouldn’t be congratulating ourselves, right?”Brown-Nagin pointed out that a campaign was advanced in the 1960s to nominate Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to sit as a federal judge, but some Democratic allies of President Lyndon Johnson opposed such a nomination because they saw it as too politically risky.“This moment could have happened 50 years ago,” Brown-Nagin said.Daniel L Goldberg, legal director of the progressive Alliance For Justice, said to call the moment “overdue” did not capture it.“It is stunning that in the entire history of the republic, that no African American woman has sat on the highest court in the country,” Goldberg said. “For way too long in our nation’s history, the only people who were considered suitable and qualified for the court happened to be white males.”The first Black woman supreme court justice is likely to be nominated at a time when a renewed push for racial justice brings renewed focus on the court, which has played a key role in enforcing desegregation and reinforcing anti-discrimination laws.I would like to see someone like Sherrilyn Ifill or Lia Epperson – a woman who comes out of Thurgood Marshall’s old law firmThe killing of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, by a white police officer outside Minneapolis last weekend during the murder trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin has sharpened cries for a national answer to serial injustice at the local level – precisely the kind of conflict that typically lands before the supreme court.“As we sit here today, and watch the trial of Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd, that precipitated a summer of protests for the lives of Black people to matter – it feels that it is time for there to be a Black woman on the supreme court, because of the moment that we are in right now,” said McDonald, the Utah activist.Davis said it was “imperative” the country make strides toward racial justice after the invasion of the Capitol in January by white supremacists intent on overturning the 2020 presidential election, goaded on by a former president.“That shows that there are folks who are intentional about not seeing diversity, equity and inclusion thrive,” Davis said. “Now is the time for us as a country to recognize that until we value the voices of everyone, including Black women, we are silencing a very important part of the fabric of America.”‘A significant pool’The percentage of Black women who are federal judges – a common stepping-stone to a high court nomination – is extraordinarily small.According to the federal judicial center, the US circuit courts count only five African American women among sitting judges out of 179. There are 42 African American women judges at the district court level, out of 677.Those numbers are partly owing to Republican obstruction of Black women nominated by Barack Obama, including former seventh circuit nominee Myra Selby. She was denied a hearing in the Senate for the entirety of 2016 – a year later Republicans filled the seat with Donald Trump’s nominee: Amy Coney Barrett.“There is a significant pool of lawyers, law professors, public officials who would be viable nominees for the federal courts,” said Brown-Nagin. “The problem is not the pool.”Last month, Brown-Nagin co-signed a letter to the Senate judiciary committee supporting the nomination of district court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the court of appeals for the DC district, sometimes informally referred to as the second-highest court in the land.“Her resumé virtually screams that she is an ideal nominee for an appellate court or even the supreme court, and that is because she has the combination of educational and professional experience on the federal courts that feasibly fits the mold of typical supreme court nominees,” Brown-Nagin said.“I would say it goes beyond what we’ve seen, frankly, in recent nominees to the court.”Jealous, a former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), said he would like to see a nominee “who cut their teeth defending the people, not corporations”.“I would like to see someone like Sherrilyn Ifill or Lia Epperson – a woman who comes out of Thurgood Marshall’s old law firm, the NAACP legal defense fund, with a courageous commitment to defending the rights of all Americans,” he said.McDonald said having a Black woman on the supreme court would mean American history had “come full circle”.“I feel in my heart that it’s time,” she said. “Everything takes its time. And everything happens at its time. I was raised in a church, so I’m just going to say it like that.” More

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      Republicans demand action against Maxine Waters after Minneapolis remarks

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      The Republican leader in the House of Representatives and an extremist congresswoman who champions “Anglo-Saxon political traditions” have demanded action against the Democratic representative Maxine Waters, after she expressed support for protesters against police brutality.On Saturday, Waters spoke in Brooklyn Center, the Minneapolis suburb where Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, was shot and killed by police last week.The California congresswoman spoke before final arguments on Monday in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis officer who knelt on the neck of George Floyd for more than nine minutes last May, resulting in the Black man’s death and global protests.“I’m going to fight with all of the people who stand for justice,” said Waters, who is Black. “We’ve got to get justice in this country and we cannot allow these killings to continue.”Tensions are high in Minneapolis.Waters said: “We’ve got to stay on the street and we’ve got to get more active, we’ve got to get more confrontational. We’ve got to make sure that they know that we mean business.”Of Chauvin, Waters said: “I hope we’re going to get a verdict that will say guilty, guilty, guilty. And if we don’t, we cannot go away.”On Sunday night the Republican minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, said: “Maxine Waters is inciting violence in Minneapolis – just as she has incited it in the past. If Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi doesn’t act against this dangerous rhetoric, I will bring action this week.”Waters, 82, a confrontational figure sometimes known as “Kerosene Maxine”, made headlines last week by telling the Ohio congressman Jim Jordan to “respect the chair and shut your mouth” during a hearing with Anthony Fauci, the chief White House medical adviser.She regularly clashed with Donald Trump, angering some Democratic leaders. In 2018, Waters said people should harass Trump aides in public. Pelosi called the comments “unacceptable”. The Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, went for “not American”.Observers said McCarthy’s most likely course of action is to seek formal censure – a move unlikely to succeed unless enough Democrats support it.From the far right of McCarthy’s party, the Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene compared Waters’ words with those of Trump, when he told supporters to march on Congress and overturn his election defeat, resulting in the deadly Capitol riot of 6 January.“Speaker Pelosi,” she tweeted. “You impeached President Trump after you said he incited violence by saying ‘march peacefully’ to the Capitol. So I can expect a yes vote from you on my resolution to expel Maxine Waters for inciting violence, riots, and abusing power threatening a jury, right?”Trump did tell supporters to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard”. He also said: “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country any more.”In February, Greene lost committee assignments over conspiracy-laden remarks. At the weekend, she dropped plans to start an “America First Caucus” based on “Anglo-Saxon political traditions”.Some Democrats want to expel Greene from Congress. That too is unlikely to succeed. More

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      Are US corporations really taking a stand for voting rights?

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      Despite a wave of public statements by corporations opposing legislation that would make it harder for people to vote, election reform advocates doubt American capitalism is really coming to the rescue of American democracy.Activists are welcoming corporate involvement in the fight against bills introduced by Republicans in state legislatures across the US to erect barriers to voting that disproportionately affect people of color and other groups that often vote Democratic.Hundreds of companies and business leaders lent their names this week to a two-page ad declaring “we must ensure the right to vote for all of us”, published in the country’s biggest papers.But past corporate interventions in social justice campaigns, including statements of solidarity with Black Lives Matter protesters last summer, did not go far beyond words, activists say.The pursuit of lower taxes and lax regulations, meanwhile, has led corporations to continuously finance the Republican party’s most corrosive projects, from voter suppression to the takeover of the judiciary to the big election lie that led to the sacking of the Capitol in January, they say.“Of course we welcome corporate support against outrageous voter suppression efforts by GOP state legislatures that make it harder for voters, particularly from communities of color and other historically marginalized communities, to vote,” said Ben Jealous, president of People For the American Way.It does feel, on this one, that some of these companies are getting out ahead of a potential boycott from consumers“That reaction is no doubt driven by their fears of losing business from their customers in the midst of heated public anger over such aggressive and targeted voter suppression, and we hope they will put their money where their mouth is and take real action to stop such proposals.”Thenewspaper ad was organized by two African American business leaders – Kenneth Frazier, chief executive of Merck, and Kenneth Chenault, former head of American Express – who have said such bills are racially discriminatory, even as Republicans insist election security is their deepest concern.The corporate decision to speak out created a rare moment of discombobulation for the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, who warned chief executives to “stay out of politics” before clarifying a day later, with no hint of self-consciousness: “I’m not talking about political contributions.”But the surface friction between McConnell and his erstwhile patrons belies the mildness of most corporate criticism of anti-voter laws and obscures companies’ ambivalence when it comes to taking a stand on voting rights, activists said.Large Georgia-based companies including AT&T, Delta Airlines and Coca-Cola did not voice concerns last month about legislation to restrict voting in the state until they came under public pressure. Their eventual statements were measured.“We are working together with other businesses through groups like the Business Roundtable to support efforts to enhance every person’s ability to vote,” said AT&T’s chief executive, John Stankey. “In this way, the right knowledge and expertise can be applied to make a difference on this fundamental and critical issue.”The same three companies declined to sign the ad published in the New York Times and Washington Post last week, referring media to their statements about Georgia, though similar high-profile clashes are playing out in Michigan, Arizona, Texas and elsewhere.Walmart declined to sign the ad, with its chief executive, Doug McMillon, who chairs the Business Roundtable, telling employees: “We are not in the business of partisan politics.”Walmart’s reticence was spotlighted by LaTosha Brown and Cliff Albright, co-founders of Black Voters Matter, in a statement that praised the newspaper ad as a “righteous decision to stand up to racism, disenfranchisement, and voter suppression” and criticized those who did not sign.“They – and all of these other companies – continue to issue misleading statements that create a false equivalency between securing elections and attacking voting rights,” Black Voters Matter said. “These corporations are pandering to a big lie that is being used to justify voter suppression. That’s partisan.”Michael Serazio, a professor of communications at Boston College, said corporations appeared to be taking a “proactive” approach on voting rights to protect their bottom lines.“It does feel, on this one, that some of these companies are getting out ahead of a potential boycott from consumers, before the boycott around the laws was going to kick off,” Serazio said.Corporations increasingly feel pressure from consumers and in some cases employees on social and political issues, Serazio said.“Without question, the broader trend over the last decade has been corporations responding to a perceived or real sense that consumers want them to take a stand on political issues that they wouldn’t have done before.”But corporations simultaneously shovel money into the coffers of the very politicians who engineer the policies the companies claim to detest.A report this month by Public Citizen, a government watchdog, found corporations had given more than $50m in campaign donations in recent years to legislators who advanced anti-voter laws and promoted Donald Trump’s big election lie.Josh Silver, director of Represent.us, a non-partisan elections reform group, said corporations have “an extraordinarily important role” to play in the struggle over voting rights and there was “cause for hope”.“But it’s also practical for them,” Silver said. “They have to choose whether to side with an increasingly authoritarian [Republican party], or the majority of their workers and their consumers.“This is not just altruism.” More

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      Officer who shot Daunte Wright charged with manslaughter | First Thing

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      Good morning.The police officer who shot a 20-year-old black man dead during a traffic stop was charged with manslaughter yesterday, officials said, after days of unrest. Police said that Kimberly Potter, 48, meant to fire her stun gun at Daunte Wright during a traffic stop in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center, but accidentally shot her handgun. Potter, who is white, has since resigned, as has her police chief.
      What sentence could she face? She has been charged with second-degree manslaughter, and a conviction carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. She was reportedly released from jail after posting bail.
      Who was Daunte Wright? Wright has been described as a doting father to his one-year-old son, with the “most beautiful smile”. Learn more about the individual behind the headlines.
      The killing triggered days of protests, with demonstrators in Brooklyn Centre alleging there had been a history of racial profiling by the local police. It comes amid existing tensions in Minneapolis during the murder trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, over the death of George Floyd.
      A leading pathologist said Floyd was killed by his heart condition and drug use as he testified at Chauvin’s trial yesterday. Dr David Fowler, testifying for the defence, also suggested fumes from vehicle exhausts may have played a part in his death.
      Opinion: the trial won’t change US policing, writes Simon Balto, an assistant professor of African American history at the University of Iowa. He argues that while the trial is of “enormous importance” it would be a mistake to think that it alone could turn the tide.
      Biden is ending ‘the US’s longest war’Joe Biden yesterday announced that it was time “to end America’s longest war”, as he confirmed that all remaining US troops in Afghanistan would return home in the run-up to the 20th anniversary of 9/11.The president said that 2,500 US troops and 7,000 from Nato allies would begin leaving on 1 May. Minutes later, all Nato members released a joint statement confirming they would undertake an “orderly, coordinated and deliberate” removal of troops in tandem.
      We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan, hoping to create ideal conditions for the withdrawal and expecting a different result,” Biden said, in a late afternoon speech at the White House.
      Democrats are trying to add more justices to the supreme courtDemocrats have unveiled a plan to add four justices to the US supreme court, taking the total number from nine to 13. The new bill will be presented by the senator Ed Markey and representatives Jerrold Nadler, Hank Johnson and Mondaire Jones at a news conference later today.
      What do progressives think? Progressives have long been pushing to expand the court after Trump’s three appointees tipped it firmly to the right, especially as the court is due to tackle issues of voting rights, reproductive rights and the environment.
      What do conservatives think? The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, said the idea of expanding the court was “a direct assault on our nation’s independent judiciary”. Given conservatives’ control of the supreme court, they are likely to oppose any expansion.
      Biden has not adopted a clear stance on supreme court expansion, but in the past has said he is “not a fan” of the idea. However, last week, he created a bipartisan commission to look at the history of the court and the possible impact of changing its size. As for this bill, it is so politically inflammatory that it is unlikely to be approved.
      Lawmakers are also advancing a bill to create a slavery reparations commission to examine slavery and discrimination since 1619 and recommend remedies. After impassioned debate, the House judiciary committee voted by 25-17 to advance the bill last night; the first time it has acted on the legislation. It will now be considered by the House and Senate, but seems unlikely to go further given Congress is so closely divided.
      The White House is to expel Russian diplomats for US cyber-attacksThe White House is expected to announce sanctions against Russia as early as today for interfering in US elections, alleged bounties on US soldiers in Afghanistan and masterminding cyber-attacks.
      What will the sanctions entail? About 10 Russian diplomats are expected to be expelled, and 30 entities are likely to be blacklisted. The White House may also ban US financial institutions from buying rouble bonds issued by Russia’s government.
      In other news …
      Capitol police were woefully unprepared for the 6 January insurrection, an internal report has found. The report described poor training and intelligence, riot shields that shattered on impact, and weapons that had expired. It comes in advance of a congressional hearing later today.
      The Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine will be in limbo for longer after US health advisers told the White House they needed more evidence to decide if the vaccine could be linked to blood clotting, and how big the risk of administering the shot was.
      All US cars and trucks could be electric by 2035, amid rapid developments in technology and the cost of electric vehicle batteries, new research has found. At present, just 2% of all cars sold in the US are electric.
      Stat of the day: only 3% of the world’s ecosystems are intact, a study has suggestedJust 3% of the world’s land is ecologically intact – meaning it has a healthy population of all its original animals and an undisturbed habitat – a study has found. The rare spots that are undamaged by humans are predominantly in areas such as the Amazon and Congo tropical forests. Previous studies had suggested about 20 to 40% of land was intact.Don’t miss this: the equal rights amendment still faces an uphill battleThe fight to get the equal rights amendment enshrined into law has been going on for almost a century, and appears close an eventual victory. But with legal difficulties and a persistent lack of urgency from lawmakers, the amendment is not over the line yet.Last Thing: magic mushrooms could be just as effective as antidepressantsMagic mushrooms could be as effective as antidepressants for treating moderate to severe depressive disorders, according to a new study. One co-author of the study said the “results signal hope that we may be looking at a promising alternative treatment for depression”.Sign upSign up for the US morning briefingFirst Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If youare not already signed up, subscribe now. More

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      Georgia is updating Jim Crow. Now, he’s Dr James Crow | David Daley and Rev Jesse Jackson

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      Georgia has a long history of racial inequity at the ballot box. Voters wait an average of just six minutes in line after 7pm in precincts where 90% of residents are white. But when 90% of voters are Black? The wait soars to 51 minutes.Between 2012 and 2018, Georgia shuttered 8% of all precincts statewide, and moved 40% of them. According to a study by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the combination of fewer precincts and longer commutes could have kept as many as 85,000 people from casting a ballot in 2018. This disproportionately burdened Black voters, who were 20% less likely to make it to the polls as a result.Now Georgia’s GOP legislature has enacted another 92 pages of voting restrictions and regulations that will make voting much more complicated and burdensome. It’s harder to register to vote. It’s more difficult to get a ballot. And it will be tougher to cast it.The new law cuts the amount of time that voters have to request an absentee ballot in half. It adds additional new voter ID provisions for requesting and casting an absentee ballot; studies show that voters of color are much more likely than white voters to have their ballots disqualified for missing that step.It limits four of the state’s most populous, and predominantly Black counties, to just 23 drop boxes – down from 94 during the 2020 election – and makes them available only during government office hours, rather than around the clock. Mobile voting centers have been banned. Early voting hours have been sharply curtailed.The right to vote is the foundation of every right we hold as a citizen. It should be simple for everyone to make their voice heard. That should be the goal of every election. We should be able to register easily, request a ballot without unnecessary complications, and cast that ballot without waiting in long lines or driving long distances. When you limit the ways in which people can vote, you are limiting the number of people who can vote. All of this is common sense. None of it should even be controversial.The supporters of these provisions suggest that they are necessary because of widespread voter fraud during the 2020 election – a baseless assertion for which they are unable to provide any evidence. Or they suggest that they’re needed to restore faith, especially among Republicans, in the legitimacy of our elections. This is especially convoluted, since nothing has done more to damage that sense than month after month of these unfounded “fraud” allegations. It’s also hard to accept these arguments in good faith, since these new voting laws arrive so quickly after an election many of these same lawmakers refuse to admit they lost.Yet in recent days, as Republicans race to enact similar new restrictions in Texas, Arizona, Florida and elsewhere, many conservative lawmakers have suggested that these tough laws they are so hurriedly passing won’t actually affect turnout at all. Some in the media have shrugged as well, and in a particularly egregious “both sides” framing, have criticized President Biden for being too hyperbolic in calling the Georgia law “Jim Crow on steroids”. The New York Times pointed to political science research that purports little connection between turnout and convenience, and suggests that the partisan impact of easier mail-in voting is negligible. Those who really want to vote will find a way, some suggest. Others argue that expanded absentee voting makes no real difference, and may have provided Democrats with as little as a 0.2 percentage-point increase in turnout last November.These arguments fail to understand how voter suppression works, and how it has been used to hold back the Black vote, especially across the south, for decades.Those who want to keep people from voting can’t rely on fire hoses or crude Jim Crow tactics like poll taxes and literacy tests any longer. They need to modernize Jim Crow, so that he becomes Dr James Crow, a specialist in statistics, expert at layering traps for Black voters while pretending they’re race neutral. Then they raise the barriers for Black voters and other communities of color by demanding the particular forms of ID lawmakers know they’re least likely to have, or assign more voters and fewer machines to some precincts, generating lines just a little bit longer, perhaps carefully positioning other voting centers a few miles away, maybe just too far for convenient public transportation. The intent and the effect are the same: creating restrictions that keep Black voters away from the polls.This is voter suppression by skimming: discourage some people from voting with longer lines. Knock others off the lists through a roll purge, often after incorrectly determining that voters had moved, and force them to cast a provisional ballot. Pass an ID requirement, then close the department of motor vehicles offices in Black counties. Make it more difficult for others to get an absentee ballot. Standardize the early voting hours from 9am to 5pm, rather than 7am to 7pm, to make it that much harder for working people. Make fewer drop boxes available, and limit those hours to the workday as well.Pretty soon all of that adds up. And in Georgia, it doesn’t need to add up to that much to make a major impact.56 years after Selma, we are still debating whether some citizens in a democracy are second-classAfter all, 0.2% in Georgia isn’t statistical noise at all. President Biden defeated Donald Trump in Georgia last November by fewer than 12,000 votes. He earned 49.5% of the vote. Trump captured 49.3. The difference? That’s right: 0.2%.The then incumbent senator David Perdue fell just 13,470 votes short of the 50% needed to avoid a runoff with Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff – a race Perdue would lose nine weeks later, handing Democrats control of the US Senate. The difference between a runoff or a Perdue victory? That’s right: 0.27%.In 2018, Governor Brian Kemp defeated Stacey Abrams by fewer than 55,000 votes. That’s within the range that the Journal-Constitution study suggested could have been dissuaded by longer commutes to the polls. Kemp’s office – he made the rules for his own race as the state’s then – secretary of state – also reportedly stalled 53,000 voter registration applications ahead of the election; 80% of those belonged to Blacks, Latinos and Asian Americans, according to the Associated Press.Then, when activists like Abrams’s Fair Fight and Black Voters Matter redouble their efforts to overcome suppression by working even harder to register and turn out voters, academics and New York Times analysts reach the clueless conclusion that these restrictive efforts don’t really matter, or that they could inspire a backlash that raises Black turnout. Stop, please. Sometimes a runner lugging an extra 10-pound weight might finish ahead of a competitor carrying none at all. That hardly makes the race fair, or the extra burden negligible. It means they had to work harder for the same opportunity.Just as importantly: voting rights aren’t about partisan outcomes. They’re about fairness and equality for all.We all deserve the same access to the polls. No matter what hours we work. No matter where we live, or whether our ID is up to date from a recent move. No matter if we want to vote by mail or in-person. Yet almost 56 years after Selma, after the Voting Rights Act, we are still debating whether some citizens in a democracy are second-class. On the simplest of questions, in much of America, we still have so very far to go.
      The Rev Jesse L Jackson Sr is the founder and president of the Rainbow Push Coalition
      David Daley is the author of Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count and Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy More

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      Clyburn offers Manchin history lesson to clear Senate path for Biden reforms

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      Jim Clyburn, the House majority whip, said on Sunday he intends to give Joe Manchin a lesson in US history as he attempts to clear a path for Joe Biden on voting rights and infrastructure.Manchin, a moderate Democratic senator from West Virginia, has emerged as a significant obstacle to the president’s ambitious proposals by insisting he will not vote to reform or end the Senate filibuster, which demands a super-majority for legislation to pass, to allow key measures passage through the 50-50 chamber on a simple majority basis.His stance has drawn praise from Republicans: Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, hailed Manchin as the politician “almost singlehandedly preserving the Senate”.But Democrats appear to be losing patience – and none more vociferously than Clyburn.“I’m going to remind the senator exactly why the Senate came into being,” Clyburn, from South Carolina, told CNN’s State of the Union, refreshing criticism of Manchin that has included saying he feels “insulted” by his refusal to fully embrace voting rights reform.“The Senate was not always an elective office. The moment we changed and made it an elective office [was because] the people thought a change needed to be made.“The same thing goes for the filibuster. The filibuster was put in place to extend debate and give time to bring people around to a point of view. The filibuster was never put in place to suppress voters … It was there to make sure that minorities in this country have constitutional rights and not be denied.”Clyburn has assailed Manchin for promoting a bipartisan approach to voting rights and refusing to endorse the For the People Act, a measure passed by the US House and intended to counter restrictive voting laws targeting minorities proposed by Republicans in 47 states and passed in Georgia last month.“You’re going to say it’s more important for you to protect 50 Republicans in the Senate than for you to protect your fellow Democrat’s seat in Georgia? That’s a bunch of crap,” Clyburn told Huffpost this month, referring to Senator Raphael Warnock’s 2022 re-election battle that supporters feel has become much harder due to the new voting laws.On Sunday Clyburn also reached into history to repeat his contention that the Georgia law is “the new Jim Crow”, a claim repeated by Biden but which Republicans say is unfair.“When we first started determining who was eligible to vote and who was not,” Clyburn said, “they were property owners. They knew that people of colour, people coming out of slavery did not own property.“…And then they went from that to having disqualifiers. And they picked those offences that were more apt to be committed by people of colour to disqualify voters.“The whole history in the south of putting together those who are eligible to vote is based upon the practices and the experiences of people based upon their race. So, I would say to anybody, ‘Come on, just look at the history … and you will know that what is taking place today is a new Jim Crow. It’s just that simple.”Despite the urging of Clyburn and others, Manchin remains steadfast in his belief bipartisanship is Biden’s best path to implementing his agenda. In a CNN interview last week, the senator said the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol “changed me”, and said he wanted to use his power as a swing vote in the 50-50 Senate “to make a difference” by working with Republicans and Democrats.“Something told me, ‘Wait a minute. Pause. Hit the pause button.’ Something’s wrong. You can’t have this many people split to where they want to go to war with each other,” he said, of watching a riot mounted by supporters of Donald Trump seeking to overturn his election defeat on the grounds it was caused by voter fraud – a lie without legal standing.Manchin said he had a good relationship with the White House and wanted to meet Warnock and Georgia’s other Democratic senator, Jon Ossoff, to discuss voting rights.On Sunday, Clyburn said the riot also had “a tremendous effect” on him.“When I saw that Capitol policeman complain about how many times he was called the N-word by those people, who were insurrectionists out there, when I see [the civil rights leader] John Lewis’s photo torn to pieces and scattered on the floor, that told me everything I need to know about those insurrectionists, and I will remind anybody who reflects on 6 January to think about these issues as well,” he said.Clyburn was among the first major figures to endorse Biden last year, helping nurse him through bleak times after rejections in early primaries.The congressman has Biden’s ear and in an interview with the Guardian in December promised to keep pressure on his friend to fulfill a promise in his victory speech directed to African Americans: “They always have my back, and I’ll have yours.”“I think he will,” Clyburn said. “I’m certainly going to work hard to make sure that he remembers that he said it.” More

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      How Biden's $2tn infrastructure plan seeks to achieve racial justice

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      Joe Biden has said his $2tn plan to rebuild America’s “crumbling” roads, bridges, railways and other infrastructure would rival the space race in its ambition and deliver economic and social change on a scale as grand as the New Deal. The president has also vowed his “once-in-a-generation” investment will reverse long-standing racial disparities exacerbated by past national mobilizations.Embedded in his sprawling infrastructure agenda, the first part of which Biden unveiled this week, are hundreds of billions of dollars dedicated to projects and investments the administration says will advance racial equity in employment, housing, transportation, healthcare and education, while improving economic outcomes for communities of color.“This plan is important, not only for what and how it builds but it’s also important to where we build,” Biden said at a union carpenters’ training facility outside Pittsburgh last week. “It includes everyone, regardless of your race or your zip code.”His proposal would replace lead pipes and service lines that have disproportionately harmed Black children; reduce air pollution that has long harmed Black and Latino neighborhoods near ports and power plants; “reconnect” neighborhoods cut off by previous transportation projects; expand affordable housing options to allow more families of color to buy homes, build wealth and eliminate exclusionary zoning laws; rebuild the public housing system; and prioritize investments in “frontline” communities whose residents are predominantly people of color often first- and worst-affected by climate change and environmental disaster.The plan also allocates $100m in workforce development programs targeting historically underserved communities and $20m for upgrading historically Black college and universities (HBCUs) and other minority-serving institutions (MSIs), and quadruples funding for the Manufacturing Extensions Partnership to boost investment in “minority owned and rurally located” businesses.Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party (WFP), said it was clear Biden had been listening to activists and understood the interlocking challenges of racial injustice, climate change and economic inequality.“This is not race-neutral – it’s actually pretty aggressive and specific,” he said, noting the coalition of Black voters and women who helped Biden clinch the Democratic nomination and win the White House.Perhaps the boldest pieces of the proposal is a $400bn investment in care for elderly and disabled Americans. In his speech, Biden said his agenda would create jobs and lift wages and benefits for the millions of “unseen, underpaid and undervalued” caregivers, predominantly women of color.Ai-jen Poo, co-founder and executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, called it “one of the single most impactful plans to address racial and gender inequity in our economy”.Poo said the coronavirus pandemic, which disproportionately hurt women and people of color, showed just how critical care workers are to the wellbeing of the nation. And yet many of these workers still struggle to care for themselves and their families.Poo believes Biden’s plan can do for caregiving and the economy what past jobs programs did for manufacturing, turning dangerous, low-wage jobs into opportunities for upward mobility and security. Home care workers have been excluded from labor protections – Poo said this effort places them at the forefront.“There’s nothing more fundamental and enabling to our economy than having good care for families,” she said. “Without that, nothing else can function – we can’t even build roads, bridges and tunnels without care.”Biden’s plan also provides for $100bn for high-speed broadband internet alongside provisions to improve access and affordability, which White House officials say will help to close the digital divide between white and Black and Latino families.“The internet is a tool that all of us rely upon,” said Angela Siefer, executive director at National Digital Inclusion Alliance. “And when certain segments of the population, particularly those who have been historically left out, don’t have access to the tools, they fall even further behind.”Biden said his plan would help drive down costs by increasing competition and providing short-term subsidies for low-income households. Siefer said these measures are important, but she was skeptical rates would fall enough to make high-speed internet affordable for low-income families without more permanent subsidies.Improving digital literacy is also critical to confronting racial inequality, Siefer said, adding: “To really achieve equity, we have to get beyond the thinking: let’s just make it available.”The proposal also includes $5bn for community based violence-prevention programs, an investment Black and Latino activists have long argued will help reduce the impact of gun violence.The administration has suggested additional efforts to close the racial wealth gap, like universal pre-kindergarten, affordable higher education and improved family leave, will come in the second piece of what could be a $4tn program.Republicans accuse Biden of delivering a “Trojan Horse” to fund progressive initiatives.“Biden’s plan includes hundreds of billions of spending on leftwing policies and blue-state priorities,” the Republican National Committee said. It singled out parts of the bill that aim to tackle racial and gender inequality, such as “$400bn for an ‘unrelated’ program for home care that ‘was a top demand of some union groups’.”While many senior Democrats welcomed the plan, many progressives have said it doesn’t go far enough. They have called for $10tn over the next decade to confront climate change, including more robust investments in renewable energy and a target of shifting the US to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.Biden has said he is open to negotiation and hopes he can attract Republicans to the plan. The president suggested Republicans would rush to act if they learned the drinking water on Capitol Hill flowed through lead pipes.As Congress begins the process of turning Biden’s blueprint into legislation, progressive groups are mounting a campaign to pressure lawmakers to embrace an even more ambitious agenda. The WFP is part of a coalition of groups staging protests to demand Congress deliver “transformational economic recovery”.“If you’re going to be big and bold, be big and bold and solve the problem fully,” Mitchell said. “We are at a crisis moment and we won’t get another shot.” More

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      Trump and Carlson lead backlash as MLB pulls All-Star Game from Georgia

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      Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson led rightwing backlash after Major League Baseball said it would not play its All-Star game in Georgia because of a new law that restricts voting rights in the state.The former president and the Fox News host some say is his Republican political heir thereby ranged themselves against current president Joe Biden and the Democrat he served as vice-president, Barack Obama.“Baseball is already losing tremendous numbers of fans,” Trump said in a statement, “and now they leave Atlanta with their All-Star Game because they are afraid of the radical left Democrats.“… Boycott baseball and all of the woke companies that are interfering with free and fair elections. Are you listening Coke, Delta and all?”Coke and Delta are among companies which have expressed concern over the Georgia law, which restricts early and mail-in voting, measures seen to target minority voters likely to back Democrats.Laws under consideration in other Republican-run states have attracted criticism from corporate America. The Georgia law was passed by Republicans after Biden won the state against Trump and Democrats won both Senate runoff elections in January.Referring to the segregation of the post-civil war south, Biden called the law: “Jim Crow in the 21st century.”In his own statement on Saturday, Obama congratulated MLB “for taking a stand on behalf of voting rights for all citizens”.He also said: “There’s no better way for America’s pastime to honor the great Hank Aaron, who always led by example.”Aaron, known as the Hammer, was a long-time MLB home-run record holder who played for the Atlanta Braves and endured racist abuse throughout his life in the sport. He died in January, aged 86.MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said he had “decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year’s All-Star Game and MLB draft” from the home of the Atlanta Braves.“Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box.”The move was not without precedent. In 2016 North Carolina lost the right to host high-profile NCAA college events over a bill which restricted rights for transgender people.On Friday night Carlson, who some say could be a contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 if Trump does not run again, claimed MLB “believes it has veto power over the democratic process”.Before MLB acted, Biden said he would support moving events from Atlanta. Carlson said that showed the president was “willing to destroy even something as wholesome as the country’s traditional game purely to increase the power of his political party”.The chief of the MLB players union has indicated support for the move. In a statement on Friday, the New York Yankees great and Miami Marlins chief executive Derek Jeter said: “We should promote increasing voter turnout as opposed to any measures that adversely impact the ability to cast a ballot … We support the commissioner’s decision to stand up for the values of our game.”Georgia governor Brian Kemp – a bête noire for Trump over his refusal to overturn Biden’s win – said MLB had “caved to fear, political opportunism and liberal lies”. He also decried “cancel culture”, a key Republican talking point.Stacey Abrams, who Kemp beat in a 2018 election he ran as Georgia secretary of state, said she was “disappointed” the All-Star game would not be played in the state.But Abrams, who campaigns for voting rights and has become an influential figure in the national Democratic party, also said she was “proud of [MLB’s] stance on voting rights” and “urged events and productions to come and speak out or stay and fight”.Also on Friday, nearly 200 companies signed a statement expressing concern at moves to restrict voting rights in Republican-run states.Many observers pointed out that the political ramifications of MLB’s decision to move the All-Star Game will be stronger than the economic fallout, given that coronavirus-related restrictions would have placed limits on capacity at the event this year.A leading professor of sports economics warned that MLB could risk losing the support of conservatives in a fanbase which skews right.“After the country’s top professional basketball and football leagues embraced the Black Lives Matter movement last year,” Andrew Zimbalist of Smith College told the New York Times, “they faced organised boycotts from conservatives, though the effort ultimately had little effect. And baseball’s fanbase is older and whiter than basketball’s or football’s.” More