Republicans — the party of widespread election denialism — have all but conceded their futility in winning over voters through the strength of their arguments.
Their infatuation with voter suppression measures is evidence of this. But conservatives appear to have learned that even voter purges and restrictive identification requirements can’t shore up white-dominant, totalitarian rule as quickly as they’d like.
In their rummaging for a more blunt instrument to bludgeon multiracial democracy, they’ve reached back to the Jim Crow era and found a few.
I’m thinking I’ll start keeping a list of some of the most egregious, desperate power grabs undertaken by conservatives. I don’t anticipate this being an exhaustive list, but I hope it’ll be an adequate summation of the GOP’s antidemocratic efforts.
Here are just a few examples.
Mississippi
Conservatives in the Mississippi Senate recently approved a bill that would strip local officials’ control over the water supply in the largely Black city of Jackson, one of the poorest cities in the nation. Jackson has repeatedly dealt with water contamination because of poor investments in the city’s infrastructure. The new legislation would place control over the city’s water in the hands of nine unelected officials. Four would be selected by Jackson’s mayor, but — conveniently for Republicans — five would be selected by the governor and lieutenant governor, both of whom currently are white Republicans.
The proposal is being teed up for approval right as about $800 million in federal aid is set to arrive in Jackson to improve the city’s water infrastructure. White conservatives in Mississippi, true to form, want more of a say in who gets that money — and who doesn’t.
Check out this clip of Joy Reid discussing the proposal with Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba and retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré.
.@ltgrusselhonore on MS Senate putting #Jackson water under state control: "How could we stoop so low in the 21st century to come in & take the sovereignty of a city… Now that the mayor & the delegation has gotten $800 million they want to take it over now." #TheReidOut pic.twitter.com/QDWQqqAufZ
— The ReidOut (@thereidout) February 28, 2023
Washington, D.C.
At the federal level, conservatives (with the help of Sen. Joe Manchin, a conservative West Virginia Democrat) appear to have enough votes to overrule a new criminal code approved by the Council of the District of Columbia, which is largely Black, that would eliminate most mandatory minimum sentences, reduce maximum penalties and allow for jury trials on misdemeanor charges.
As an op-ed in The Washington Post noted last fall, changes in the code are needed to address years of ineffective, often-racist policing.
In February, House Republicans passed a measure that would veto the new criminal code, and Senate Republicans seem likely to do the same, as some — like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — try to portray D.C. as hellish terrain.
When Democrats were in total control of Congress, they put D.C. statehood on the table, a signal of their belief that the people of Washington deserve the same as millions of other Americans. Republicans are offering peonage instead. On Wednesday, civil rights activists in Georgia gathered to demonstrate against measures that would strip power from Black elected officials and voters. Republicans in Georgia’s House of Representatives recently approved a measure that would allow for the removal of all members from a local elections board in Ware County and change who appoints the board’s members. The five-person panel currently has three Black members, including the chairperson. Typically, Democrats and Republicans each get to name two members, and then those four choose a fifth person to chair the board. The GOP bill, which is making its way through the state Senate, would give the Ware County Commission, currently under Republican control, the power to name four members, who would then choose a fifth member to be the chair. The board’s current chair, Clarence Billups, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the effort is “simply going to dilute minority votes by denying representation on the election board.” Republicans in the Georgia Senate have introduced a similar measure for the elections board in Macon-Bibb County, which would give the majority-Black county’s mayor significant power to remake the board to the mayor’s liking. The county holds nonpartisan elections for mayor, but the current mayor is white and has previously run for office as a Republican. Stay tuned for more. I’m confident the Republican Party’s illiberal inclinations won’t end here.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog. Recommended
Georgia
