Interesting Concept

Dean Baker makes the case for offering a $1000.00 payment to people who live in places where voting and managing the vote is non-partisan and inclusive.

Even under existing rules, it would avoid a filibuster, and if the Right Wing assholes™ want to not take the money, then their own voters will deal with them. (As an aside, I like the idea of a tax credit for voting, but that's for another day)

He calls this, "Buying Democracy in a Good Way," and I like it:

Brian Beutler tweeted something this week that got me thinking about ways the Democrats can get around a Republican filibuster on voting rights: make it about money. The key problem facing any voting rights measure is that the Republicans are determined to filibuster anything that limits the ability of states to suppress the vote or gerrymander congressional and legislative districts.

………

But, the Democrats can pass bills that involve appropriations with a simple majority through the reconciliation process. This is where the point that Brian made comes in, we can make voting rights about money.

Suppose the next reconciliation bill included a provision that gave $1,000 per person to every adult living in a state where the districts are drawn by an independent commission, where basic provisions of access are guaranteed (e.g. two weeks of early voting, no excuse absentee voting), and where elections are run by career civil servants and cannot be overturned by elected officials. We should probably throw in some provisions about mandatory five-year prison terms for harassing or threatening election officials.

………

I suppose the Republicans can argue that voter suppression and gerrymandered districts are a matter of basic rights that are more important than money, but I’m not sure that would be a winning position. In any case, I really would love to find out.

Yes, I would like to see the results this experiment as well.