The last couple of weeks have had a mix of news that leaves so many possible topics for a post (and some may get a follow-up).

First, before taking their August recess (or in Congress-speak “District Work Period”), the Senate passed the infrastructure bill and the budget resolution that will be the basis for a reconciliation bill when Congress returns.  The House will take up these two items when the House returns.  Progressives want to table the infrastructure bill until the reconciliation bill passes (to force moderates to support the reconciliation bill).  Moderates want to finish up the infrastructure bill before something that happens that could doom that bill.

Second, the House will also be voting on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.  As expected, in the aftermath of this year’s Supreme Court decision in Brnovich undermining Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the bill has been expanded to fix both Section 2 and reinstate the preclearance requirements struck down in Shelby County.    While there will almost certainly be changes in the House, the real debate will be when it gets to the Senate.  The Republicans will attempt to block this bill, and it will be up to a handful of Democratic Senators to balance whether protecting the rights of African-Americans and other minority voters matters more than protecting the filibuster.

Third, the dominant story sucking up all of the atmosphere has been the fall of the Afghanistan government the second that we stopped propping it up.  While the Biden Administration has gotten a lot of blame from the neocon dominance of the foreign policy establishment, there is a lot to go around.  The Reagan Administration actually set the chain of events in motion that led to the formation of the Taliban by deciding that it was worthwhile to back religious fundamentalists in Afghanistan to make things difficult for the Soviet Union.  The George W.  Bush Administration failed to defeat the Taliban in the initial invasion of Afghanistan allowing a wounded but not defeated Taliban to retreat to rural Afghanistan and Pakistan where they spent the next two decades rebuilding and continuing the struggle.  And, of course, the Orange Menace negotiated the surrender deal that required the U.S. to withdraw.

Fourth, COVID-19 is not going away.  Many of us know somebody who has died from COVID-19 and other people who have tested positive for COVID-19.  If we do not have improvements in vaccination rates, most of us will, at some point, get COVID-19, and a lot more people will die.  But the Republican governors in many of the states refuse to take the lead in pushing the necessary public health policies and they continue to fight against local government that attempt to fill the gap.

Fifth, we now have the precinct level census numbers.  Whether or not this will be a good thing for Democrats or not is still hard to tell.  Looking at the draft maps that I did, the general tendency is that predominantly rural districts that were balanced based on the 2019 estimates are now short of population while suburban districts are over-populated.  Urban districts are more mixed with a lot depending on the state.  And which party benefits depends on how quickly the suburbs are shifting toward the Democarats.  In short, 2022 may be a difficult year, but Republican efforts to maximize wins in 2022 may make things easier for Democrats in 2026 and 2028.

Sixth, we do have elections coming up for the rest of the year.  September will have three significant elections.  On September 14, we will have the recall election in California.   The last time that California had a recall election, the Democratic incumbent was very unpopular, and the Democrats, unsuccessfully, tried to hedge their bets by running a serious candidate in the “replacement” part of the election.  This time, Governor Newsom should be able to survive, and no leading Democrat is running in the replacement part of the election.  However, as a special election, turnout will be key.  If the Republicans manage to get their voters to turnout, there might be just enough dissatisfied independents and Democrats for “yes” to prevail on the recall question especially if Democrats stay home.  At that point, it is entirely possible that a Republican could win the replacement election with 20-25% of the vote.

On September 20, we will have an election in Canada.  Technically, this election is a “snap” election as the next regular election was not due until October 2023.  But the last election was indecisive with the Liberal Party falling just short of a majority in Parliament.  The polls are now favorable to the Liberals, and they think that the government has done a good enough job on COVID that they want to take the chance that they could gain enough seats in this election to pick up a majority.  The Liberals need a gain of fifteen seats to get the majority.  It’s not going to easy.  With the current swing shown in polling, the Liberals should pick up at least eleven districts but there are a bunch more seats that will depend on what happens over the next four weeks.  With a month to go, the folks at 338 Canada (the Canadian equivalent to 538) are currently projecting that it is highly likely (about 9 in 10) that the Liberal Party will be the largest party in the next Parliament but that there is only a 1 in 4 chance that the Liberals gain an absolute majority.  The difference between being a minority government and being a majority government is somewhat similar to the situation that we currently have with the U.S. Senate where the Democrats have to get some additional support from moderate Republicans to pass legislation.  If the Liberals get 170 seats, they can pass whatever they want.  If they only have 165 seats, they need to get one of the other parties to support a bill for it to pass.

Part of the issue in Canada is the Bloc Quebecois.  If readers remember from previous posts on Canada, the Bloc is a separatist party based in Quebec.  And, since Quebec (the second largest province) has about one-quarter of the seats, a good performance for the Bloc makes it harder for a party to win a majority in the rest of the country.  Additionally, the Bloc tends to take votes away from the more progressive national parties swinging some seats from the Liberals to the Conservatives by splitting the progressive vote.   The other issue is the New Democratic Party which is more progressive than the Liberals.  As with the Bloc, the NDP tends to take votes from the Liberals (as do the Greens, but the Greens are not yet strong enough nationally to be significant in most ridings).  There are some ridings that are definitely three-way races between the Conservatives, the Liberals, and the NDP.  When the NDP is strong, they win the riding.  When the NDP is weak, the Liberals win the riding.  If the NDP is just strong enough, the Conservatives steal the riding.

Finally, there will be the German elections on September 26.  Germany has a mixed-member system in which each lander (the German equivalent of states) has a set number of constituencies and starts with an equal number of list seats.  If a party gets 5% of the vote in the state, they are entitled to seats.   Each party then gets list seats added to the constituency seats until they have a proportional number of seats.  (In other words, a party does not get list seats if they have won more constituency seats than the number of seats that they are entitled to on a proportional basis).  If a party has won too many constituency seats, the lander gets additional seats in parliament so that each party has, at least, the number of seats that they are entitled to based on proportional representation.  (And that summary is somewhat oversimplified.)

Because of the proportional aspect of the German system, it is hard for anybody to get a majority.   But the relative strength of the parties determine who is in a position to from a coalition and who is part of that coalition.  The current Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is retiring.  The main issue is how much of the support the Christian Democrats (and their allies in Bavaria, the Christian Social Party) that the CDU has been getting under Merkel’s leadership may migrate to other parties.  In the last election, the CDU/CSU combined for around 32% of the vote.  The other major parties in the contest are the Social Democrats (SDP) who received 20% of the vote in the last election, the Alternative for Germany (a far right, nationalist party bordering on being a neo-Nazi/fascist party) that received 12% of the vote, the Free Democrat Party (FDP) (a free market, business-oriented party) which received around 10% of the vote.  The other two significant parties that are likely to receive seats are the Left (an extreme left party that has its roots in the old East German Communist Party) and the Greens.  After the last two elections, the CDU and SDP formed coalition governments.  Neither party is particularly happy being coalition partners but the Alternative for Germany and the Left are viewed as being outside the pale as potential coalition partners and they have just enough seats and the FDP and Greens do not have enough seat to allow either the CDU and SDP to form a two-party coalition with either the FDP or the Greens.  It has been easier to form a two-party coalition with the two major parties than to create a three-party coalition that includes both the FDP and the Greens.  The current polls are showing big losses for the CDU/CSU and big gains for the Greens.  If these numbers end up being the case, you might end up with a situation where the SDP and Greens could form a majority, but it’s going to be close.  The most likely result, right now, seems to be a close three-way race between the CDU/CSU, the SDP, and the Greens with the CDU having a slight plurality, but it may takes weeks after the election to determine the shape of the new government.