The gang's all here

A bipartisan group of senators sketching out an infrastructure proposal got a big boost yesterday, as 11 more senators joined the original 10 in support of the still-unreleased blueprint of a deal. The group now includes 11 Republicans, nine Democrats, and one independent, accounting for a fifth of the entire chamber. The initial framework, written by the likes of Sens. Mitt Romney, Kyrsten Sinema, Rob Portman, and seven others, falls short of the sweeping infrastructure proposal that President Biden has pitched, but aims to try to satisfy the president's hunger for bipartisanship.

• — Here's the plan. The bipartisan deal calls for about $974 billion in infrastructure spending over five years. This would include roughly $579 billion in new spending, in addition to some redirected spending from other programs. Biden had originally requested more than $2 trillion in new infrastructure spending, but White House officials had signaled they were willing to consider a package closer to $1 trillion.
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• — "Bringing in more and more people." The Senate negotiators expanded their efforts to include the House, inviting Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Brian Fitzpatrick, leaders of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, to their most recent meeting. Gottheimer and Fitzpatrick said their roughly $1 trillion, eight-year blueprint is similar to the five-year, similarly sized package that the Senate is assembling. "This can get across the finish line," Gottheimer said. —The Washington Post
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• — Fallback position. Meanwhile, in the House, congressional Democrats are preparing to forge ahead with a process to pass a larger infrastructure proposal without any Republican votes, if needed. Backed by the White House, congressional Democrats are pursuing a "two track" strategy. One track would continue negotiations with Republicans, while the other is preparing for budget reconciliation, a process that would allow legislation to pass with a simple majority. Stay tuned. —CBS News

Milbank: Putin evades question with GOP talking point

"For the past few years, Republicans in Congress have echoed Russian propaganda. On Wednesday, in Geneva, Vladimir Putin returned the favor: He echoed Republican propaganda. After a meeting with President Biden, Russia's strongman used his moment on the international stage to hold a news conference. ... [ABC News' Rachel Scott] asked why his 'political opponents are dead, in prison, or poisoned.' Putin offered up the fiction, again oft told by Trump and Republican leaders, that the violent Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol was an ordinary political protest. 'As for who is killing, whom are throwing whom in jail, people came to the U.S. Congress with political demands; over 400 people had criminal charges placed on them,' the dictator replied." —Dana Milbank in The Washington Post

Dana Milbank is an author and columnist at The Washington Post.

MORE: Biden rejects Putin's 'ridiculous comparison' between Capitol rioters and Alexei Navalny at summit —The Guardian

A surprising key to rebuilding democracy

Timothy Snyder, a history professor at Yale University and the author of "On Tyranny: 20 Lessons from the 20th Century," has some ideas about mending our damaged democracy. He spoke about them this week at the Global Media Forum. His advice? Bring back the local newspaper. "Most of the counties in the U.S. have no proper newspapers reporting the news," he said. "And when you lose that, you feel the vacuum. You feel the polarization that arises from that as people go upward into levels of things where they don't really know what they're talking about—and where they're drawn into two opposing camps." Boosting local journalism may in fact be one of the most vital steps to saving democracy, according to Snyder. "This is so extraordinarily important because if people don't have local newspapers...then they distrust what they call 'the media' their entire lives. If there's no connection to the local, then people immediately skip to the national, or to the international, or to the realm of conspiracy." —Deutsche Welle

MORE: The cost of Trump after Trump —The Atlantic

Norden & Weil: We must protect the workers who protected democracy

"Election officials are the unsung heroes of the 2020 election. Despite facing threats to their personal safety, a pandemic, and a flood of disinformation, they managed to run an election with the highest turnout in more than 100 years. If we are going to protect our democracy, we must protect them. This will require a whole-of-society approach that includes federal and state legislatures, prosecutors, law enforcement, and social media companies. Most importantly, those with the power to do something should consult closely with election officials and workers themselves. It is no exaggeration to say that the survival of our democracy depends on it." —Lawrence Norden & Matthew Weil on CNN

Lawrence Norden is the director of the Election Reform Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law. Matthew Weil is director of the Elections Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

MORE: 'Potential crisis for democracy': Threats to election workers could spur mass retirements —Politico

Drutman: The parties are the problem

"A politics defined by hatred of political opponents is a politics ripe for hateful illiberalism. The new scholarship on comparative polarization is crucial in understanding this dynamic. Given the current binary structure of American party politics, this conflict is mostly locked in. No level of social media regulation or media literacy or exhortation to civility is going to make much of a difference. But it also offers a kind of master key: If the structure of a party system is as crucial as these studies suggest it is, then the solution is obvious: The U.S. may want to change its voting system to become more proportional." —Lee Drutman in FiveThirtyEight

Lee Drutman is a senior fellow in the Political Reform program at New America and the author of "Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America."

MORE: Sean Illing: Is a pro-democracy coalition to defeat Trumpism possible? —Vox

Focus on state legislation

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has signed a bill that prescribes how Texas teachers can talk about America's racial history in the state's K-12 public school classrooms. The legislation specifically aims to ban the teaching of "critical race theory," which studies how race and racism have impacted social and local structures in the U.S. The bill also requires teachers who discuss current events related to race to "give deference to both sides." Governors in Idaho and Tennessee have signed similar bills into law with more than a dozen other states considering legislation. —Houston Chronicle

• —Texas. Texans can carry handguns without a license or training starting Sept. 1, after Gov. Abbott signed the permitless carry bill into law yesterday. House Bill 1927 eliminates the requirement for state residents to obtain a license to carry handguns if they're not prohibited by state or federal law from possessing a gun. Abbott's office will hold a ceremonial signing of the bill and other gun-related legislation today. —The Texas Tribune
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• — Missouri. A new Missouri law has caused confusion for police departments, which are questioning its legal implications. The 2nd Amendment Preservation Act voids any federal gun laws and allows a person to sue a police department for up to $50,000 if an officer infringes on their 2nd Amendment rights. "We are being forbidden to cooperate with the federal government on gun charges," Cape Girardeau Police Chief Wes Blair said, adding, "I don't know that we'll have much choice; otherwise we'll be violating state law. —Fox News St. Louis
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• — Rhode Island. The state of Rhode Island will provide funding through a reworked state budget to allow every city and town police department in the state to purchase body cameras for its officers. State House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi said the program is just the first of a number of extensive reforms. Legislators are also discussing the addition of civilians to the review panels that investigate allegations of police misconduct. —The Providence Journal

Karabell: Becoming a more perfect union

"Of course, we must constantly and critically question the breezy, arrogant belief that the U.S. is a most perfect union of freedom, democracy, and openness. Yet, another form of American exceptionalism—the notion that the U.S. is not the best of countries but the worst—is equally distorted and, in its way, just as toxic and conceited. Confronting our complex history and ultimately embracing a more equitable, balanced, and humble culture may be a tall order in these fractious times. But that makes it even more imperative that we fully reckon with who we are and who we are capable of becoming." —Zachary Karabell in Project Syndicate

Zachary Karabell is the founder of The Progress Network and the author of "Inside Money: Brown Brothers Harriman and the American Way of Power."

MORE: House passes bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, sending it to Biden —CNBC

America is often referred to as an experiment in democracy, so let us imagine it as a laboratory experiment, with tables and microscopes and test tubes and clipboards. Like all long-running lab experiments, this one has grown in complexity. Now it faces a crisis—not because of the equipment or the researchers, but because an angry, disturbed person has broken into the lab and taken a sledgehammer to everything. If the experiment fails, it will be his fault. If the experiment survives, we must find ways to prevent disturbed people from getting through the door. —Tim P., New Mexico

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