PEORIA, Ill. – In spite of now-failed efforts to reform voting rights in the Senate, do elections need to be reformed?
Bradley University Political Science Assistant Professor Megan Remmel says, not necessarily, at least not the way Democrats are doing it, since there are voting policy inconsistencies at the state level.
“There’s certainly lots of recommendations I think a political scientist or a policy analyst would make,” said Remmel. “But, it’s never going to happen at the national level — at least, not any time in the near future. It’s never going to be consistent across states.”
That said, Remmel does believe Democrats need to push forward with their agenda.
Part of the defeat is being connected to an inability to change the Senate rules on filibusters.
Remmel says an assertion Senator Joe Manchin made that nothing gets passed without first a filibuster, just isn’t true.
“For many, many, many decades, the Senate passed things by majority rule. When the filibuster came in to play, it was relatively uncommon. It’s obviously become more common now. But, it was a bigger deal. It was a less-used tactic.”
Remmel says it was used a lot in the 1800’s on measures involving tariffs, before taking on a racial component that often killed civil rights legislation.
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