July 30, Filibuster versus Voting Rights

 

The filibuster isn’t democratic; we all know.

The Senate may be stymied when one senator says, “No.”

Since sixty votes are needed to achieve an override,

A lot of bills that would have passed were laid aside and died.

 

Democracy depends upon the people’s voting rights.

That doesn’t mean the franchise should be mostly for the whites.

New Jim Crow laws in Red States aim to do precisely that, (1)

Because they know Black voters will vote mostly Democrat.

 

The House has passed two bills that would protect the right to vote.

Now, in the Senate, there’s the filibuster wall and moat,

Where Red State senators, who sense white power on the wane,

Hope they can filibuster voting rights right down the drain.

 

Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, both give priority

Unto the filibuster, like a form of sanctity.

While voting rights are sacred in a true democracy,

The filibuster custom has a racist legacy.

 

In ’64 the filibuster held up civil rights,

When Jim Crow laws kept voter registration just for whites.

And, now that blacks are voting, Jim Crow’s coming back again.

Without Jim Crow, Republicans fear that they cannot win.

 

So, Joe and Kyrsten, what’s the cause of your obduracy?

How can you let a Senate custom kill democracy?

So, save the filibuster or the voting rights of all?

Well, Joe and Kyrsten, that’s the question and now it’s your call.

 

• Jim Crow refers to a series of laws about segregation and white-black interactions mostly in Southern states that followed Reconstruction in 1877 until the mid 1960s, when federal civil rights and voting rights laws were enacted during the Johnson administration. The original Jim Crow was a black character in a minstrel show.