We at this site defer to no one in our anger at Sen. Manchin and Sinema for abandoning the very voters that put Joe Biden in the White House and Democrats in the majority, Black Americans. Republicans have changed the election laws in red states to make it much more difficult to vote for people in “urban” areas.
The MAGAs are not going to allow a 2020 to happen again. Manchin and Sinema could’ve stopped the blatant modern Jim Crow implications by helping to pass a federal voting rights act and instead stood in the way.
But that does NOT mean that we Democrats should now begin following the MAGA lead and start censuring Senators for simply doing something unpopular as Arizona Democrats are now doing:
Members of the Arizona Democratic Party executive committee passed Saturday a resolution to censure Sen. Kyrsten Sinema over her vote to keep the filibuster.
The closed-door vote Saturday morning came after an avalanche of anger from liberals who characterize Sinema, D-Ariz., as an obstructionist who helped doom Democrats’ chances at passing voting-rights legislation.
The censure has no practical effect but does deliver a strong message of condemnation and reflects the will of the party’s most active and loyal members.
JUST IN: The Arizona Democratic Party's executive committee formally censured Sen. Kyrsten Sinema as a result of her inaction on changing the filibuster rules to pass voting rights reform. https://t.co/MzfVGfA3uh [1]
— ABC News (@ABC) January 22, 2022 [2]
“No practical effect,” except a statement of disapproval. It does have a practical effect though. It makes MAGA-type politics normal, censuring pols that wouldn’t simply comply with what the Trump/loyalty/MAGA machine wanted.
Censure means “express severe disapproval of (someone or something), especially in a formal statement.” They are to be used when someone gets a DUI or is caught with a quasi-illegal conflict of interest, they are not to disapprove of a vote.
Someone has to maintain some standards and some normalcy with regard to a functioning democracy and if not us, who? We can all abhor her vote (and her, if one so chooses) without handing down these meaningless “bad!” slap on the wrists for not doing as told.
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