George Zornick | The Nation

The sequester isn’t so scary—that’s what The Washington Post proclaimed this week. It’s an attitude many people in Washington seem to have adopted, as momentum to solve the slashing automatic cuts has almost entirely vanished.

But for Sharon MacGregor, a graphic designer and medical education worker in Paterson, New Jersey, the sequester is terrifying indeed. MacGregor was laid off last July when her company went belly-up, and she is still looking for work. She is one of the 4.3 million* Americans who are “long-term unemployed,” which is defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as being unable to find work for more than twenty-seven weeks.

Once you become long-term unemployed, you start drawing from the federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation fund, which was signed into law by George W. Bush in 2008 as the economy cratered. The idea was to throw a lifeline to people who exhausted the standard twenty-six weeks of state unemployment benefits, in a recession that, even today amidst a so-called recovery, has an average unemployment length of almost thirty-seven weeks.

But the EUC, like most federal programs, is subject to the automatic sequester cuts, and will lose $2.4 billion this fiscal year. (That represents 8 percent of the $30 billion in domestic non-Medicare budget sequester cuts.) It’s a big chunk of money—and it’s being taken away from the people who have already suffered the most during the downturn. The average resulting benefit reduction is $43 per week, out of an average EUC benefit of $289.

States have some flexibility about when to implement the cuts, and New Jersey chose June 30—meaning that very soon, MacGregor will get her first check where her benefits have been sequestered by the US Treasury. Because she collects close to the maximum EUC benefit, MacGregor expects to lose $225 every two weeks.

“I support myself. That’s $500 less I’ll have a month,” she told The Nation. “Unemployment was already a significant cut—like 50 percent of my old salary. So now I’m going down even more, to about 40 percent of my old salary.”

MacGregor said she was already on a bare-bones budget, buying only what she needs, and receiving a rent reduction in exchange for caring for an infirm neighbor. She said the sequester cut will force her to extend her credit purchases and borrow from her parents—after having a career of her own for over twenty years now. “This is gonna… it’s not enough,” she said. “I don’t have enough to make ends meet right now.”

She added that she is allowed to work part-time in addition to her unemployment benefits, but can’t earn more than 20 percent of her unemployment check, or else she’ll lose the benefits. But since the check is smaller, so too is the 20 percent threshold. “So it’s not like I can even make up the income anywhere else—I can’t,” she said.

MacGregor’s story is unfortunately typical for the millions of Americans who will see their long-term unemployment benefits cut, or already have.

“It’s pretty hard to overstate the significance. These are folks who can least afford to absorb these kinds of cuts,” said Maurice Emsellem, policy co-director at the National Employment Law Project. “They’re tapped out financially. They are surviving week by week on these benefits, for the most part, so a significant cut to their benefits—it just makes is really hard to pay your bills, put food on the table.”

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NELP released a study this week showing how the EUC cuts would be felt in all fifty states, which faced difficult choices about how to implement the benefit cuts. Some initiated the cuts quickly, which meant the benefit reductions were spread out over more time and thus smaller—about half of the states initiated the cuts in May and June.

The states with the highest percentage reductions for all weekly EUC benefits are Maryland (22.2 percent), New Jersey (22.2 percent), Montana (19.6 percent), Connecticut (19.2 percent), Arizona (16.8 percent) and Illinois (16.8 percent).

New Jersey, like several of those states, has among the highest unemployment rates in the nation. The delay in implementation meant an average cut of $85 per week in the state, or a 22 percent reduction.

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MacGregor said she’s reached out to all of her Congressional representatives, pleading for a fix—but hasn’t gotten anywhere. “You get the standard BS back. The BS form letters you get back. You never get anybody to call you, or get back to you personally,” she said.

“I just think it’s wrong. Congress can pull the salaries that they can pull, and get the benefits that they get, and yet they expect us to bear this burden. They don’t even care. The unemployed are like a joke to them,” MacGregor continued. “I just think this country is just… what happened to taking care of our own? We don’t do it anymore.”

*This number has been updated.

Inside the new—exploitative—temporary economy.

Chief Justice John Roberts. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)

The bad news about Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling in Shelby County v. Holder is, of course, that the majority declared Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. That’s the part of the law that determines which localities are covered under Section 5, which requires areas with problematic voter discrimination to pre-clear any changes to voting laws with the Justice Department.

The good news, however, is that the Court did not find Section 5 itself unconstitutional, much to the chagrin of some conservatives. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “Congress should update the coverage formula to require that states and localities with recent voting rights violations preclear new election law changes.”

The Beltway wisdom is that this will never happen—the Congress is hopelessly dysfunctional, and specifically, obstructionist Republicans are happy with the Supreme Court’s decision and completely unwilling to allow new formulas for Section 4. “As long as Republicans have a majority in the House and Democrats don’t have sixty votes in the Senate, there will be no preclearance,” Senator Charles Schumer declared bluntly Tuesday.

But everything is impossible until it isn’t. Suppose for a second Congress is able to act on Roberts’s request to update the coverage formulas—how would it do so?

One step would be to have the Senate Judiciary Committee pass out such legislation. The chairman of that committee, Senator Patrick Leahy, has already promised to do that: “I intend to take immediate action to ensure that we will have a strong and reconstituted Voting Rights Act that protects against racial discrimination in voting,” he said in a statement Tuesday.

The next would be to have that bill debated by the full Senate. And Majority Leader Harry Reid is already on board, too: “I have asked Chairman Leahy to immediately examine the appropriate path for the Senate to address this decision,” he said Thursday. “I am confident in Congress’s ability to judge what is necessary to prevent racial discrimination in election practices.”

So far, so good. The House, of course, is a tougher road: the majority is held by Republicans, and the Republican chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Representative Bob Goodlatte, does not appear to be particularly interested in this issue—unlike his Republican predecessor, who happened to be a strong defender of the Voting Rights Act.

But some House Democrats are determined to try—and in fact, to make the Voting Right Act even tougher than it was before.

At a press briefing on Capitol Hill Tuesday afternoon, Representative James Clyburn—the third-ranking Democrat in the House—said that the Court’s decision was an opportunity to expand Section 4 beyond the mainly Southern application that existed until Tuesday.

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Clyburn noted that thirty-eight states enacted some form of voter identification before the last election. He also referenced Ohio and Pennsylvania in particular, where some Republican officials blatantly admitted the voter identification laws were meant to suppress the black vote or achieve partisan goals. (In Ohio, a close adviser to Governor John Kasich said, “We shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban—read African-American—voter-turnout machine.” In Pennsylvania, the Republican leader of the state House said voter identification laws are “gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.”)

“If you look at…the actions that thirty-eight states took in the run-up to the 2012 elections, there are records that have been developed,” Clyburn said. “Most of us are very familiar with the record that developed in Pennsylvania. And I’m pretty familiar with the activities taken by the secretary of state in Ohio. Let’s look at their language, and the record we will develop this time—we’ll bring their words into this record. We didn’t have their words in 2006 [during the last reauthorization]. We’ve got them now.”

Clyburn continued: “The intent to turn the clock back is very, very clear. I think that there are counties in Pennsylvania and in Ohio that would probably come under in the new formula that we develop.”

There are caveats to this approach: for one, the majority opinion in Shelby suggested that new formulas still might not pass constitutional muster unless they prove Jim Crow–era levels of discrimination, which the justices don’t think applies to voter identification bills. “No one can fairly say that” current data “shows anything approaching the ‘pervasive,’ ‘flagrant,’ ‘widespread,’ and ‘rampant’ discrimination that faced Congress in 1965,” it read.

But most Democrats in Congress disagree—and remember this was a 5-4 vote, and the Supreme Court could look different by the time any new Congressional Section 4 formulas reach it.

The larger problem of course is Schumer’s point: Republicans in Congress won’t allow Clyburn’s approach to become law. But on a day where President Obama opened the door to denying the Keystone XL pipeline, it is important to remember that public pressure shouldn’t be underrated—especially, in this case, when targeted at a Republican Party that is already admittedly worried about its appearance as racially intolerant.

[UPDATE: Late Tuesday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor released a rather stunning statement to Talking Points Memo endorsing Congressional action: “My experience with John Lewis in Selma earlier this year was a profound experience that demonstrated the fortitude it took to advance civil rights and ensure equal protection for all,” Cantor said. “I’m hopeful Congress will put politics aside, as we did on that trip, and find a responsible path forward that ensures that the sacred obligation of voting in this country remains protected.”]

This was the tone struck by several members of the Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday, some of whom marched for civil rights fifty years ago and aren’t afraid of doing it again.

“The American people should use the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington, and other opportunities, to say we still need protection in our country,” said Representative John Lewis at a briefing Tuesday. “They must compel each and every member of Congress to act in a bipartisan fashion to fix, or repair, what the Supreme Court broke. We must do it. We must do it now, before another national election takes place. It is our calling. It is our mission. It is our mandate, and we have an obligation to act.”

Representative Marcia Fudge, chair of the CBC—and who also said she wants Section 4 formulas expanded—agreed. “If they want us to march again, then we are up to the task,” she said.

Take Action: Tell Congress to Guarantee the Right to Vote

Ari Berman explains what was lost when the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act.

Representative Michele Bachmann at a rally outside the US Capitol on June 19, 2013. Photo by George Zornick.

Halfway through a passionate speech Wednesday that railed against comprehensive immigration reform, Representative Michele Bachmann asked if every person under the age of 18, amidst the crowd of hundreds, could join her on the small stage outside the US Capitol.

A surprising number of kids rushed up to the makeshift platform, filling it to a somewhat alarming capacity. Bachmann had to ask some to stand on the grass nearby instead. “We don’t want to collapse. Like our economy,” she cracked.

Then Bachmann hoisted up a lily-white infant. “Say hello to Terra. And say hello to America’s future,” she shouted, as the crowd went nuts. But, Bachmann quickly intoned, “little baby Terra is looking at a very different future.”

This rally, organized by Tea Party groups across the country and promoted by Glenn Beck on his Internet television empire for much of the past week, is basically the GOP’s worst nightmare. As party leaders and the consultant class try to convince the Republican base, 60 percent of which opposes a pathway to citizenship, to support an immigration bill, and as people like Senator John Cornyn frame their opposition as pro-reform but concerned about border security—well, you don’t want Michele Bachmann on the Capitol lawn, holding up white babies and talking about America’s future.

Representatives Bachmann, Steve King and Louie Gohmert organized the rally as a “Lincoln-Douglas” style debate to show Congress—and specifically House Speaker John Boehner—that significant opposition to the idea of immigration reform exists inside and outside Congress.

Such voices have been largely marginalized in the reform debate so far, but the conservative base in the House, as we noted last week, is launching a push to force Boehner only to introduce bills that can pass with a majority of the Republican caucus. That is: only to introduce bills that do not offer a clear pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.

There was, to be sure, a strong nativist tone to the rally. American and Gadsden flags abounded, as did the ever-present activists dressed up as Revolutionary War–era patriots. There were also signs: “Immigration Reform = Legalized Invasion.” Another large flag had a Jesus fish stylized with the stars and stripes; “Proud American Christian,” it read. “Shut the door,” read another. “No Amnesty for Illegals,” read several.

Bachmann and the other speakers knew their audience. “It looks like a beautiful family reunion to me. It looks like the American family is here, at your house,” Bachmann began her speech. “Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t real people that the politicians fear more than anything else. We’re seeing a lot of real people here today, and I’m so extremely grateful that you’re here.”

“Very quickly we are observing a nation that we no longer recognize,” Bachmann said. But she also apparently understood that her wider audience wasn’t limited to the people in attendance—and realized how this all might look. “And by that I mean, it has nothing to do with the color of anyone’s skin,” she continued. “It has nothing to do with anyone’s ethnicity. It has to do with our American creed: because bottom line, we are believers, and proud believers, in the Declaration of Independence.”

The heart of Bachmann’s speech, and many of the speeches Wednesday morning, was that a new wave of immigrants would further bankrupt an already broken state. “If you walk into that building, the United States Treasury, and you can get past the guards that are there, and you get over to the vault, and you say, by some miracle, ‘Would you open that vault?’—I’m just here to say, if they opened it, it would be moths and feathers that would fly out.” Her explanation of why baby Terra won’t have a future is that she would have to pay “up to 75 percent of her future income” to support an expanding welfare state.

Well, what about the CBO report, released yesterday, that said immigration reform will reduce deficits? The rally had an answer in the form of Robert Rector, a Heritage Foundation expert, who assured the crowd with plenty of facts and figures that the CBO had it all wrong. In short: “The CBO is bullshit!” as one man shouted out during the lecture.

This is where, perhaps, the real danger to immigration reform lies, as members of Congress who are undecided contemplate their votes: the economic insecurity and distrust of government that have undergirded not only the Tea Party, but are also shared by plenty of other Americans these days.

That view was best expressed by a member of the Pittsburgh Tea Party who took the microphone at one point, as organizers encouraged attendees to do. “Why is it that instead of having NSA tap the phones of the American citizenry, they don’t go find out who these illegals are and who they’re calling back in their home countries, and to whom they are sending money—American money—back to their banks?” the man said. “These are the things that we want to know.”

Plenty of other signs spoke to this concern. “Exporting Illegals—Importing Jobs for Americans!” said one; “Amnesty = Cheap Votes + Cheap Labor.”

These folks share a common concern with senators like Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an avowed liberal who spoke on the Senate floor Tuesday about the dangers of importing low-wage labor from Mexico when many Americans are out of work.

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For many people who attended the rally, these economic concerns were wedded with concerns for an explicitly white, Christian country—and combined with the fear of losing majority and political power.

“It will cause capitalism to crash,” one retired teacher from Moore County, North Carolina told me matter-of-factly about immigration reform. “Capitalism crashes, we’re into socialism.”

“These people [immigrants] don’t realize they’re being given all this stuff just to collect their votes so that people in power can gain more power—and they’re so ignorant,” she continued. “You know they spoke of their educational level, it averages the highest is about tenth grade. They’re being used as pawns. The people that are here are educated, they know what’s going on, they are aware. They also, most of them are Christian, okay, they have conscience. They know right from wrong—and it’s against their conscience just to see these people used as pawns,” she said as she sliced an apple in her folding chair. “They’re going to end up losing their freedoms. They’re just being led like sheep to the slaughter.”

Why do Aiyana Jones and Trayvon Martin matter? Read Mychal Denzel Smith’s argument here.

The headline-grabbing debate over immigration reform is happening in the Senate this week, as the entire body debates a series of amendments to the comprehensive legislation passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee last month. There is a very real chance that reform could die there—if, for example, Senator John Cornyn’s border security amendment passes, the bill might become unsupportable for many Democrats.

But lurking in the background is an even more difficult fight in the House, where the Republican caucus is much more hostile to reform. House members are beholden to smaller, more conservative districts, and there are no leaders calling for reform analogous to Republicans Marco Rubio and John McCain in the Senate.

This week began with some promising signs from the office of House Speaker John Boehner. For months, he said virtually nothing about his strategy for passing immigration reform—not even whether one existed—but Politico reported Monday that “privately, the Ohio Republican is beginning to sketch out a road map to try to pass some version of an overhaul in his chamber.” The next morning, during an ABC News interview, Boehner hinted that he might allow an immigration bill to pass the House with a majority of Democratic votes, thereby abandoning the so-called “Hastert rule.”

Without question, that was tremendous news for proponents of immigration reform. But don’t think conservatives opposed to any legislation didn’t notice—and the first unified effort by anti-immigration House members might have now begun.

Thursday morning, Glenn Beck’s website The Blaze had the exclusive news that seventy members of the House GOP “are planning a politically risky showdown” with Boehner. Led by Representatives Steve King, Michele Bachmann and Louie Gohmert, the group is demanding two things from Boehner: (1) a special Republican conference meeting about immigration, and (2) a promise to be true to the Hastert Rule.

The caucus meeting could be perilous for Boehner—his strategy of keeping the House at a very low temperature and mollifying, at least for now, the hardline anti-immigration members couldn’t survive a head-to-head confrontation. Boehner would have to address their Hastert rule request directly. (Note, too, that conservative activists also began pressuring Boehner on the Hastert rule this week—the heads of the Club for Growth, Heritage Action, the American Conservative Union and the Family Research Council sent Boehner a letter on Tuesday demanding he never stray from the Hastert rule again.)

Boehner could of course ignore their request for a meeting, but that’s a somewhat unattractive option as well. [UPDATE: Boehner announced late Thursday that on July 10, there will be a caucus-wide meeting on immigration. It’s not immediately clear if he was acting in response to the conservative push, nor whether they will insist on meeting sooner.] The Blaze report said the letter will arrive in Boehner’s office on Friday.

What’s striking—and potentially catastrophic for the GOP, politically—is how direct the leaders of the looming House revolt are about opposing immigration reform. This is in contrast to say John Cornyn, who is at least claiming to support reform but pushing for stronger border security requirements.

Representative King, for example, not long after the Blaze story broke, characterized undocumented students who came to his Capitol Hill office thusly:

Bachmann just gave an interview to World Net Daily this week that depicted "amnesty" as a master plan to create a permanent “progressive class.” The Blaze included that interview in its exclusive on the new Bachmann-King-Gohmert strategy:

“This is President Obama’s number one political agenda item because he knows we will never again have a Republican president, ever, if amnesty goes into effect. We will perpetually have a progressive, liberal president, probably a Democrat, and we will probably see the House of Representatives go into Democrat hands and the Senate will stay in Democrat hands,” Bachmann said.

She also said that if it passes, the bill would create a permanent progressive class.

“That’s what’s at risk right now. It may sound melodramatic, I don’t mean it that way, but this is that big and that important,” Bachmann said.

And Beck was quick to do his part. Within an hour of The Blaze’s story, Beck appeared on his web television show to herald the House GOP revolt and described it as a potential Waterloo for the entire Tea Party:

These seventy [members] are standing up and saying, ‘Take away all of our power.’ They know that if they lose, they lose. The Tea Party has—this is putting all of the chips on the table. You’ve been asking for it, you’ve been asking for people with a spine.

This one is not going to be easy. They’re going to be called racist, they’re going to be called every name under the sun, and so will you. You have to know why you are for it, why you say… I am not a racist. I am not violent. But I am not going to be silent any more. We have been silent far too long.

You may have noticed Beck’s slight intimation of violence there. As his fifteen-minute rant on the House GOP pushback escalated, he called for both civil disobedience and, apparently, violent struggle:

Is there anything worth losing your life over, more important than this? Is there anything more important than standing up for human dignity? For the rights of all mankind? They are going to try to make this into a civil rights case, and it is not. It is an affront to anyone who understands civil rights. Martin Luther King Jr. was not saying, ‘We’re all breaking the law here.’ Unless the law is unjust, you cannot eat at that supermarket counter. The hell I can’t.

No, I’m not quite sure what that means either. But the point is that Beck wants his audience to see the immigration battle as a must-win, where the entire Tea Party movement is at stake. Seventy House GOP members, including several Tea Party stars, are ready to being the battle. While this was, at some point, inevitable, it's bad news for Boehner, and much more importantly, bad news for immigration reform.