Heather Cox Richardson, February 25, 2021

Click here for Heather Cox Richardson's newsletter. Stories covered:

1. Trump tax returns and underlying documents -- millions of pages -- have been turned over from Trump's tax firm, Mazars, to Cyrus Vance, District Attorney for the Southern District of New York (Wall Street).  

2. Testimony in the House hearings into the January 6 insurrection, including discussion of the deployment of the National Guard. Also, 35 officers of the Capitol police are under investigation for their behavior on the 6th; six have been suspended. Predictably, the police union is fighting back. Security videos of Capitol tours have been turned over for investigation, to see if some congresscritters were providing reconnaisance tours for insurrectionists (or they may have been innocent tours, showing family and friends around the Capitol). 

3. Passage of the  Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. The bill passed by a vote of 224 to 206, with three Republicans joining the Democrats.

4. The U.S. launched missile attacks against Iranian facilities in Syria. This is in retaliation for Iranian missile strikes against the Green Zone in Baghdad earlier this month. It's an indication to the Iranians that although the U.S. wants a new nuclear deal, they will not put up with Iranian military activity in the region.

5. Finally, the portion I like best:

Another development that has staying power is the attempt of Democrats to guarantee the right to vote. In the face of voter suppression legislation in Republican legislatures around the country, Democrats in Congress are trying to pass a law, called the For the People Act, to stop partisan gerrymandering, limit money in politics, and expand voting access.

This is huge.  She goes on:

The For the People Act, numbered in Congress as H.R. 1 and S. 1, would provide for automatic voter registration across the country and would require paper ballots. It would require that early voting be made available, and would expand mail-in voting. It would authorize $1 billion for upgrades to state voting systems.

Polling by Data for Progress and Vote Save America shows that the principles in H.R. 1 are very popular, across parties. Sixty-eight percent of Americans approve of the reforms in the bill. Sixteen percent oppose the measure. The items within the bill are also popular. Eighty-six percent of Americans support a plan to prevent foreign interference in our elections; 7% oppose it. Eighty-five percent of us want to limit the amount of politics; 8% oppose that idea. Eighty-four percent of us want more election security; 8 percent do not.

Seventy-four percent of us want to see nonpartisan redistricting; 11% do not. Sixty-eight percent want to see 15 days of early voting; 19% do not. Sixty percent want same-day voter registration; 29% do not. Fifty-nine percent want automatic voter registration; 29% do not. Even with the Republican attacks on mail-in voting, fifty-eight percent of us want to be able to vote by mail; 35% do not.

Democrats passed a version of H.R. 1 in the previous Congress, but then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to take it up. Now, every House Democrat supports the bill, while Republican lawmakers oppose it.

To try to stop the bill from becoming law, Republicans are launching a full-throated defense of the filibuster, a tradition that enables a minority in the Senate to stop legislation unless it can command 60 votes. Republican objections to this popular, and seemingly vital, measure will test whether the Senate will protect the filibuster or continue to chip away at it.