Month: March 2021

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Jim Crow in the 21st Century

Instead of celebrating the rights of all Georgians to vote or winning campaigns on the merits of their ideas, Republicans in the state instead rushed through an un-American law to deny people the right to vote. This law, like so many others being pursued by Republicans in statehouses across the country, is a blatant attack on the Constitution and good conscience.

The above quote is a statement from President Joe Biden the day after the Georgia Legislature rushed through, and Governor Brian Kemp signed into law, Georgia’s SB 202, the most restrictive voting rights law in the country.

President Biden continued:

This is Jim Crow in the 21st Century. It must end.

The president’s statements were no hyperbole. The severity of the restrictions of Georgia’s new voting law hasn’t been seen since the Jim Crow Era where Black Americans were subject to absurd hurdles to vote in the form of literacy tests that literally no one would pass today and other restrictions such as property tests and grandfather clauses. Under the new law, some counties will only have one ballot drop box and in-person early voting hours will be mostly restricted to a 9 am – 5 pm timeframe, when most people work. 

Adding to the absurdity of this new Jim Crow Era for Georgia Republicans is the arrest of Black Georgia state lawmaker Park Cannon. Cannon has served in Georgia’s House of Representatives since 2016 and she was peacefully protesting the signing of the legislation with others. A Facebook Live video posted to Twitter shows Cannon outside of the locked room where Governor Brian Kemp was signing SB 202 into law. Cannon merely knocked on the door and was immediately arrested by Georgia State Patrol officers.

Canon was charged with felony obstruction of law enforcement and a misdemeanor for preventing or disrupting General Assembly sessions or other meetings of members. 

Many Georgia activists and Democratic lawmakers decried the arrest of Park Cannon, recalling scenes from the Jim Crow Era of the early and mid 20th century. 

The signing of SB 202, the arrest of Park Cannon, and the fact that the charges against her continue to stand to this day, is a reassertion of white supremacy at a time when Black voting power, particularly in some places in the South, is growing. The rise of Black voting and political power is challenging the generations-old white supremacist power establishment and they’re reacting to it the same way they did during the Jim Crow Era. 

SB 202 is one example of the reassertion of white supremacy. Another example can be seen in the not-so-subtle slave era imagery set as the literal backdrop to Governor Brian Kemp’s signing of the bill — the Washington, Georgia Callaway Plantation which held slaves in the 1800s.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signs S.B. 202 on Thursday, March 25. Kimberly Wallace says the painting behind him depicts the plantation on which her family members worked, going back to slavery. Image provided by CNN

The legislation that was passed into law in Georgia not only aims to suppress the Black vote, but also allows Republicans to seize control over how elections are run in the state.

The Washington Post reports:

The new law removes the secretary of state from serving as chair of the State Board of Elections, giving the legislature the authority to appoint a majority of the members, and authorizes the state board to suspend local election officials.

If these measures had been in place in 2020, critics say, the state board could have tried to interfere when the secretary of state, Republican Brad Raffensperger, certified Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the state and rejected Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that the election was stolen.

Separately, the new power to suspend county election boards could give state officials unprecedented influence over all manner of election decisions, including the acceptance and rejection of mail ballots, early-voting hours, poll-worker hiring and the number of polling locations, critics say.

All told, the measures represent an unprecedented power grab and an attempt to usurp local control, said Lauren Groh-Wargo, executive director of Atlanta-based Fair Fight Action, the voting rights group founded by Stacey Abrams, a Democrat who ran for governor in 2018. They allow legislators to target heavily Democratic counties in the metro Atlanta region, home of the state’s highest concentration of Black and Brown voters, “if they don’t like how elections are being run,” she said.

“It will make what we all lived through in 2020 child’s play,” Groh-Wargo said in a call with reporters earlier this week, before the measure passed. “Donald Trump won’t have to strong-arm our election administrators. The most radical fringes of the Republican Party sitting in the state legislature will be able to wipe out boards of elections.”

What the Washington Post is describing here is a small-scale political coup which is exactly what Trump and the insurrectionists tried for months to accomplish, culminating in the January 6th insurrection. If SB 202 is allowed to remain in place, not only will democracy in the state of Georgia be imperiled, but also the entire country. Republicans across the country will be emboldened to pass similar laws in the states they control, like Florida and Texas. Rising Democratic and Black political power will face massive roadblocks. The only way to reverse our current dangerous trajectory is to pass both H.R. 1 and H.R. 4 which would override draconian voter restrictions across the country and reverse the Republican coup against Georgia’s election system. 

The day after SB 202 was signed into law, Senator Raphael Warnock, who won a January runoff election in Georgia, noted that “our democracy is in a 911 emergency.” 

Senator Warnock continued:

“I’m not about to be stopped or stymied by debates about Senate rules,” Warnock said, referring to the Senate filibuster. “I respect rules … but no Senate rule should overrule the integrity of our democracy. And I was on the phone with my colleagues even last night.”

Our democracy is indeed in an emergency. The survival of a functioning US democracy will depend on Democrats reforming or gutting the filibuster and then passing H.R. 1 and H.R. 4. If we’re successful, this is not to say that US democracy won’t face future threats and attacks. But we must pass these crucial bills so that we can have the tools to fight another day.

Image credit: Stacey Abrams via Twitter

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News

Illinois is making last year’s voting rights expansion permanent

Illinois is set to permanently expand voting rights in the state. All that’s needed is Governor Pritzker’s signature.

Illinois was one of several states that expanded voting rights last year amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Among other things, Illinois extended early voting hours, allowed curbside voting, and replaced a single judge verifying signatures with a bipartisan panel. The state also automatically sent vote-by-mail applications to voters who participated in the 2018 general election, the 2019 municipal elections, or the 2020 presidential primary.

“Sending vote by mail applications to residents who have participated in recent elections will allow more people to exercise that right from the safety of their own homes and help reduce the spread of COVID-19 in our communities,” Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said last June.

However, some of the changes made last year – which passed through the legislative process and the governor signed into law – were set to expire on January 1. Specifically, authorization for ballot drop boxes and curbside voting expired. Before the changes that were made in 2020, state law was silent on ballot drop boxes and curbside voting – neither authorizing their use nor forbidding them.

The latest bill – which passed both the Illinois state House of Representatives and Senate and awaits Governor Pritzker’s signature – makes last year’s changes permanent.

According to The Pantagraph:

The changes include allowing election authorities to install drop box sites where voters can submit mail-in ballots without postage during and on Election Day. The bill also permits curbside voting where people can fill out ballots outside the polling place during early voting and on Election Day.

So while a number of Republican-led states are swiftly moving to restrict voting after a record number of voters exercised their right to vote last November, Illinois is a state where voting rights are expanding.

Photo Credit: Illinois Public Media, Flickr

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Georgia’s new voter suppression law makes it illegal to give water to voters waiting in line

Voting should be a quick and simple process. In many places, you can show up at a polling place, request a ballot, verify your identity, and fill out the ballot in 15 minutes.

But states with a history of racial discrimination are often different. They may erect artificial barriers that are meant to deter – or even intimidate – voters. The barriers are usually meant to target people of color but sometimes young voters and college students – who may not have the knowledge or the proper identification – find themselves caught up in the voter suppression web as well.

Georgia is a perfect example of this. Just last October, the state had 10-hour long lines in counties with large black populations. This, by the way, was in the midst of a pandemic where Georgians – particularly the elderly and immuno-compromised – were quite literally putting their life at risk just to vote.

It’s not like state officials were caught by surprise. Back in June 2020, Georgia conducted its primary elections. Voters in Atlanta waited for hours. Volunteers provided bottled water and sandwiches to make the wait a little more bearable. It’s not far-fetched to imagine that those volunteers saved lives as voters waited in the heat for hours on end.

What was the reaction from Georgia’s Republican-controlled legislature and Governor Brian Kemp to the outrageously long lines at polling places? Surely, their concern was making sure that this never happened again, right?

Think again.

Their concern was making sure that the state’s black voters – who had helped Joe Biden become the first Democrat to win the state since 1992 (and also helped elect a pair of Democratic senators in January) – would have to suffer even more if they dared to exercise their right to vote.

The newly-enacted voter suppression law “criminalize[s] any attempt to approach voters in line, even if only to give them food or water.”

And if you want to avoid those long lines? Good luck. The law limits the use of convenient and secure ballot drop boxes, shortens the window to request a mail-in ballot, and restricts in-person early voting hours.

In short, this law is meant to suppress voting among the state’s black voters. Rather than expand the number of polling places and make vote-by-mail easier after voters waited for hours during two separate elections last year, Republicans in the state legislature (along with Governor Kemp) decided to make voting even more onerous in order to hurt Democrats. That’s morally reprehensible.

Stacey Abrams is right. This is Jim Crow 2.0.

Image Credit: Steve Schaefer, AJC

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Republicans launch national attack on voting rights

People in the crowd hold up an image of Stacey Abrams as President-elect Joe Biden speaks in Atlanta, Monday, Jan. 4, 2021, to campaign for Georgia Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate, Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

What is so notable about this moment, and so disconcerting, is that they are not hiding. There is no attempt to pretend that the intention is not to restrict votes.

They are responding by actually doing what the insurrectionists sought.

– Stacey Abrams, responding to questions during an interview with The Guardian

Republicans in Texas, the country’s second-largest state, have begun to roll out election bills aiming to restrict voting rights in a push to curtail the rising political power of Democrats in the state.

“We must pass laws to prevent election officials from jeopardizing the election process,” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said Monday [March 15], urging lawmakers to get election integrity bills “to my desk so I can sign it.”

However, the Houston Chronicle reports that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton found only 16 cases of voters providing false addresses on their registration forms after 22,000 hours were spent investigating “voter fraud.”

NBC News explains the nature of the Texas bills to restrict voting:

Several bills seek to limit early voting to certain hours or to standardize hours across the state, which would expand early voting in smaller counties while limiting it in the largest counties. All would cut early voting hours in urban, Democratic areas.

Other proposed legislation targets mail voting, which lawmakers say needs additional precautions to prevent fraud.

Republicans have proposed a bill that would shrink the period when voters could return mail ballots, while another bill would ask voters to mail back photocopies of their driver’s licenses or other qualifying identification with their mail ballots.

Several bills also seek to ensure that noncitizens stay off the voter rolls and urge election officials to aggressively purge the rolls. And a slew of bills would add or increase penalties for fraud or mistakes made by voters or officials in running elections.

Hughes’ election bill, which he said he expects will be the vehicle for any voting legislation coming out of the Senate, would impose civil fines on local officials who don’t purge their voter rolls quickly enough — $100 for every voter the secretary of state’s office identifies as improperly being on the books.

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Republican from Harris County, has sponsored a bill that would prohibit election officials from waiving signature match requirements on mail ballots, which he said hasn’t happened in Texas.

“We saw it in Atlanta, Pennsylvania — Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee,” he said, pointing to many of the Democratic cities with large populations of Black voters that Trump’s allies baselessly accused of orchestrating a large voter fraud campaign to steal the election.

The Texas GOP understands what we understand – that conservative politics are becoming increasingly unpopular and out of touch with a changing society, and the only way they can win is to abandon democracy. 

The Texas GOP is not alone. Georgia’s Republican attack on voting rights is getting the most attention, and rightly so. The Georgia GOP is scrambling to roll back the rise of Democratic political power. For the first time since the 1992 election, a Democrat won Georgia’s electoral votes. And in what seemed like a nearly impossible feat, Georgia voters sent two Democrats to the Senate during the January 5, 2021 runoff elections. Unfortunately, the GOP is still in control of Georgia’s state government and they are doing everything they can to make it very difficult for Democratic voters, particularly Black voters, in upcoming elections. 

The New Yorker reports:

The Georgia House bill proposes to shorten the period of early voting, prevent ballots from being mailed out more than four weeks before an election, reduce the use of ballot drop boxes, further criminalize giving food or water to those waiting in line to vote, and severely restrict early voting on Sundays, when many Black churches take their congregants to polling places.

The Senate bill would cut mobile voting facilities, end no-excuse absentee voting, and require people who are qualified to vote absentee to provide a witness’s signature on the ballot envelope. Additional proposals would end, among other things, automatic voter registration at the Department of Driver Services. All these measures are meant to diminish turnout and undo the state of affairs that led to Democrats winning the Presidential race in November and both Senate runoff races in January.

Voter advocacy and civil rights groups are coming together to try and thwart these draconian bills by calling on major corporations to come out against this attack on democracy. Organizers say that this is not an issue of partisanship or taking sides for or against a particular party, but that this is an issue about whether certain Georgians are effectively blocked from participating in democracy itself.

The Telegraph reports:

Fenika Miller, the Georgia state coordinator for Black Voters Matter, said the group is running a corporate accountability campaign to garner support to squash House Bill 531, Senate Bill 241 and Senate Bill 202, which she said would restrict Georgian’s access to vote.

In the summer of 2020, many companies, such as Coca-Cola, took a pledge during the protests against the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery.

“They were going to stand on the side of racial equity and inclusion and help to move the needle to make sure that communities of color and Black communities in particular were protected, and so, all that we’re doing is asking them to make good on that pledge,” she said. “We’re asking them to be bold and to take a stand and to say that we do not believe that restricting access to the ballot will help democracy.”

There is precedent for corporations opposing blatantly oppressive legislation. Arizona is a perfect example where a 2014 anti-LGBT bill was passed by the state’s legislature but was then vetoed by right-wing Governor Jan Brewer after corporations mounted strong pressure for her to veto the legislation. 

CNN Business reported:

After business owners lashed out, Arizona’s governor vetoed a bill that would have allowed retailers to refuse service to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender customers based on the owners’ religious convictions.

The bill drew controversy since it passed the Arizona legislature last Thursday. While proponents say the legislation was introduced as a way to afford religious freedom to business owners, critics say it opened the door to discrimination.

“When the legislature passes bills like this, it creates a reputation that Arizona is judgmental and unwelcoming,” states a letter that more than 80 businesses sent to Gov. Brewer on Monday. “This will haunt our business community for decades to come.”

After business owners lashed out, Arizona’s governor vetoed a bill that would have allowed retailers to refuse service to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender customers based on the owners’ religious convictions.

The bill drew controversy since it passed the Arizona legislature last Thursday. While proponents say the legislation was introduced as a way to afford religious freedom to business owners, critics say it opened the door to discrimination.

“When the legislature passes bills like this, it creates a reputation that Arizona is judgmental and unwelcoming,” states a letter that more than 80 businesses sent to Gov. Brewer on Monday. “This will haunt our business community for decades to come.”

National corporations including American Airlines (AAL), AT&T (ATT ), Delta Airlines (DAL), Intel (INTC), Marriott (MAR), PetSmart (PETM), Starwood (HOT), and Yelp (YELP) were among those urging Brewer to veto the bill, saying the law would be bad for the state’s reputation and bad for business — repelling tourists, potential employees and current workers who live in the state.

“I can assure you that this proposed legislation is causing tremendous concerns for our employees, particularly those who live and work in Arizona,” American Airlines CEO Doug Parker wrote in a letter to Brewer.

Meanwhile, Intel, which has nearly 12,000 employees in Arizona, said the bill directly conflicted with its own non-discrimination policy, which “values and welcomes diversity in the workplace.”

It is our belief that this type of corporate pressure could be mounted in Georgia with the possibility of thwarting most of the measures proposed by Georgia’s GOP. 

Amid the mounting pressure, corporations such as Coca-Cola, Aflac, Delta, Home Depot, and UPS have issued statements in support of voting rights.

Newsweek reports:

The statements from the corporations came after civil rights and activist groups— including Black Voters Matter, the New Georgia Project Action Fund, and the Georgia NAACP—called on major Georgia-based corporations on Friday to publicly speak out against voting restrictions proposed by the state’s GOP and stop donating money to the Republican legislators sponsoring the bills.

The groups focused on six of the largest companies in Georgia, which include Aflac, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, Home Depot, Southern Company and UPS. All six companies belong to the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.

The Georgia Chamber previously shared in a February 5 statement the importance of voting rights, saying it’s “one of the most sacred rights of a U.S. citizen.” The Georgia Chamber, however, didn’t voice opposition against any specific legislation at the time.

The Georgia Chamber said it has “expressed concern and opposition to provisions found in both HB 531 and SB 241 that restrict or diminish voter access,” and “continues to engage in a bipartisan manner with leaders of the General Assembly on bills that would impact voting rights in our state.”

The statements by the corporations and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce are a start, but they are much weaker, especially the statements by the Chamber of Commerce, than what we saw during the Arizona anti-LGBT legislation battle in 2014.

Voting and civil rights groups in Georgia are keeping up the pressure, but time is running out. If these bills pass, they would be among the most restrictive in the country. If these corporate leaders believe in our democracy, they will do everything they can to mount the pressure needed to stop these disastrous bills. If not, then we have a much bigger problem on our hands than we thought. It would set a precedent and signal to Republicans across the country that corporate America has given them a green light to attack our democracy.

It appears as though Republicans are betting on that. Across the country, more than 253 bills have been introduced in 43 states to date in what can only be described as a coordinated campaign to end US democracy as we know it. The bills introduced in these states by Republicans take similar aim at early voting, mail-in voting, and other practices which make it easier for people to vote – a baseline for any functioning democracy. Some of the measures were put into effect in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic which made in-person voting dangerous.

Republicans have ruled by minority for decades and now that rule is under threat. This is mostly why they cling so hard to Donald Trump – a disgraced former president who attempted a violent overthrow of US democracy after months of delegitimizing and nearly imperiling an election he was widely expected to lose. 

The only tools they have left are to surrender to political civility and moderation or to adopt authoritarian and at times borderline fascist tendencies, aiming to dismantle key pillars of our democracy. They’re opting for the latter and they’re mounting a national campaign to achieve this goal. Such suppression of democracy occurring in any other country would prompt leveling of sanctions on them at this very moment. 

Drastic action must be taken to stop this coordinated campaign on our democracy. We support and urgently call on the Senate to pass the House’s H.R.1 which would amount to a historic overhaul of our voting and election system and protect our democracy against these attacks by Republicans. Even if some of these draconian election bills do pass in some states, passing H.R.1 would override them. But to get this done, we will need to reform the filibuster. So, we urgently call on Senate Democrats to reform the filibuster in a way that allows the passage of this and other extremely important legislation. With Democrats controlling the House, Senate, and the White House, we have to pass this legislation now and save our democracy.

Image Credit: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

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Florida anti-protest bill targets 1st Amendment

As a multitude of Republican-led states move to restrict the right to vote, Florida is going beyond voter suppression and targeting the 1st Amendment.

HB1 – which its authors are dubbing an “anti-riot” bill – has the potential to criminalize peaceful protests. According to Micah Kubic, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida (via The Hill):

How easy will it be to stifle political protest in Florida if this new law passes? This easy: Under the new law, if a thousand people are marching peacefully to protest the current leadership, all it will take is for a handful of people to decide to throw a brick through a shop window and the entire crowd will be subject to arrest, a felony conviction and a hefty fine if law enforcement deems the peaceful protest “a riot.” That brick thrower could be an infiltrator acting to deliberately derail a perfectly legal demonstration.

And to make sure that peaceful protesters can’t continue demanding change, they will be denied bail until they see a judge. That’s right. You don’t have to commit a crime yourself or engage in any disorderly and violent conduct; you just need to be exercising your constitutional right to peaceful protest while someone else — with no connection to you — is engaging in such conduct.

Will police and local elected leaders shut down a protest as quickly as that? There’s a good chance they will, and here’s why. [Governor] DeSantis’ bill states that if they don’t, the city itself can be held liable for any amount of personal injury or property damage. This is a radical change in the law, which currently protects municipalities from such sweeping liability, and it will drive local officials to over-militarize their law enforcement response to peaceful protests in an attempt to avoid costly civil litigation.

But how about if no one throws a brick through a window? How about if people with different political positions just yell at each other on the street? No problem, the DeSantis law takes care of that too. The proposed law: “Creates the crime of mob intimidation, prohibiting a mob from forcefully compelling or attempting to compel another person to do any act or to assume or abandon a particular viewpoint.”

Florida is one of at least 11 states where similar legislation has been introduced that would greatly restrict the right to assemble and protest in the wake of last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests.

Image Credit: Mike Shaheen, Flickr

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Biden backs filibuster reform

In an important shift, President Biden now appears to be on board with reforming the filibuster.

According to Vanity Fair:

Biden indicated in an interview Tuesday that while he remains set against eliminating the filibuster entirely, he will support efforts to reform it, making the procedure what he says it was originally “supposed to be.” “I don’t think that you have to eliminate the filibuster. You have to do it what it used to be when I first got to the Senate back in the old days,” Biden told George Stephanopoulos in an ABC News interview. “You had to stand up and command the floor. You had to keep talking.”

Biden, who spent decades in the upper chamber, reveres the body’s traditions and, both as senator and vice president to Barack Obama, was known for his knack for bipartisan dealmaking. In ascending to the presidency after four years of polarization under Donald Trump, Biden expressed confidence that cooperation between Democrats and Republicans would be possible and that he could work within the existing system to deliver for the American people. He’s by no means abandoning those aspirations. But, he acknowledged to Stephanopoulos, the filibuster has helped bring the Senate to the point where “democracy is having a hard time functioning.”

That should be a welcome line for the growing number of Democrats who have called for the filibuster to be eliminated or reformed, particularly with Mitch McConnell and the GOP threatening to exploit the tool to thwart efforts to fight back against their disenfranchisement crusade in states across the country. (McConnell on Tuesday blasted efforts to reform the filibuster, saying it was the only thing preventing a “scorched-earth Senate.”) “He’s being vague about it, but that’s alright…As a student and creature of the Senate, he certainly knows how to choose his words carefully on this subject,” said Senator Dick Durbin of the interview. “But I think he’s acknowledging the obvious: the filibuster has really shackled the Senate.” Biden isn’t going as far as some progressives would like, but reforming the filibuster to make it more difficult to use is something that could still make a difference in terms of the power McConnell’s minority party can wield. 

If you follow us regularly, you’ll know that we are supporters of reforming or eliminating the filibuster. The filibuster stands in the way of pro-democracy reforms like the For the People Act and Washington DC statehood. The filibuster is also stymying efforts to combat state-level voter suppression.

Having the president of the United States as an ally to your cause is important, especially if you want to convince members of his party to change the rules in the Senate.

Watch the relevant part of the interview below:

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For the People Act aims to build a real American democracy

US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (C), Democrat of California, speaks alongside Democratic members of the House about H.R.1, the "For the People Act," at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, January 4, 2019. - Democrats announced their first piece of legislation to reform voting rights provisions, ethics reforms and a requirement that presidential candidates release 10 years of tax returns. (Photo credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

Praised by many as a sweeping and historic reform to US democracy, House Democrats passed H.R. 1, also known as the For The People Act. The bill passed the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives on March 3, 2021. This is the second time the bill has been voted on by the House. The bill was first introduced and then passed in the newly-Democratic House in March of 2019 but was quickly blocked from ever receiving a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate. The current bill, which aims to greatly expand voting rights, develop a strategy to lower the influence of money in politics, end gerrymandering, foster government transparency, and more, will again face hurdles in the Senate, but this time because of the filibuster. 

So, what’s in the bill? Below, we’ll take a look at a few of the bill’s most important components. 

Voter registration modernization

All states would be required to begin Automatic Voter Registration for federal elections. Eighteen states, plus DC, have already implemented AVR. Voter registration in every state would become opt-out as opposed to the opt-in system most states have. In this case, eligible citizens would need to indicate that they don’t want to be registered to vote. This is likely to be a very insignificant number of people. Some 50 million eligible voters would be added to the rolls.

Voter purging has been one of the main tactics employed by Republicans to suppress Democratic turnout. A state’s ability to purge voters from voter rolls would be greatly curtailed under  H.R. 1. H.R. 1 would not stop all cross-check purges, as there does need to be a system that identifies duplicate registrations, but it aims to stop the abuse of the system through voter suppression purges by putting in place needed protections or so-called conditions on removal of registered voters.

As it becomes harder for Republicans to win majorities, we’ve seen them engage in increasingly brazen voter intimidation tactics. One example, among dozens, is in Michigan in October 2020, where far-right actors were charged with felonies by the state’s Attorney General for voter intimidation where they used racist robocalls to target and intimidate Black voters from voting.  H.R. 1 would ban these and many other deceptive practices and all voter intimidation in federal elections.

H.R. 1 aims to end the disenfranchisement of individuals with previous felony convictions. States would be required to inform citizens of their restored voting rights in writing; however, this does not apply to those who are currently incarcerated. An amendment to H.R. 1 that would have restored the voting rights of those who are currently serving time in prison, failed in a 97-328 House vote. 

The Appeal explains:

Representatives Cori Bush of Missouri and Mondaire Jones of New York, who were both elected to the House last year, proposed an amendment to H.R. 1 that would have allowed those convicted of felonies to vote from within prison. Only Maine, Vermont, and Washington, D.C., enable anyone with a felony conviction to vote from prison, and other states are debating whether to join them. Some other nations, including Canada and Israel, have national mandates that extend voting rights to incarcerated people.

The amendment failed today in a 97-328 vote. Not a single Republican voted for the measure, and it also failed among Democrats. However, activists and lawmakers fighting to expand voting rights say they’re hopeful that the vote was the beginning, rather than the end, of a national debate on voting rights for prisoners.

“This fight is not over—it’s only the beginning,” Bush told The Appeal: Political Report. “The victory was in getting those 97. Look at who those 97 are. They’re a mixture of what our caucus is made of: not just progressives, not just people who claim to be progressive, not just people who look like me.”

Even with the failure of the amendment, this is a monumental step in the right direction and a sign that we are moving closer to voting rights for those who are currently incarcerated.

The end of gerrymandering

Under H.R. 1, partisan gerrymandering would effectively be banned, an extraordinary development for US elections and politics. Independent redistricting commissions would be created in states and they would be tasked with developing plans to redraw districts. The redistricting process would be open to participation and review of the public. Efforts would be made to ensure that the commission equally represents Democrats, Republicans, and even third parties. Most importantly, rules would be put in place to ensure that the political power of communities of color is not diluted, a current practice that ensures Republicans win far more seats than they should based on their vote share.

Limiting the power of big money in politics

The passing of Citizens United in 2010 was a crushing blow to democracy. 11 years and 6 federal election cycles later, we are seeing the consequences of this disastrous Supreme Court decision. Extremely wealthy individuals can now spend unlimited sums of money on Super PACs which can have large impacts on political races.

The intercept explains:

Under the bill, candidates for congressional office could opt into a system that would provide matching funds for small donations. To qualify, the candidate would need to raise $50,000 from at least 1,000 individuals; take no more than $1,000 from any contributor; and spend no more than $50,000 of their own money.

In return, all donations to the candidate up to $200 would be matched with public funds at a 6 to 1 ratio. Thus if you gave $10 to someone running for Congress, they would receive that plus another $60, totaling $70.

The Civil Rights Act of our time

We’ve only covered just a few of the historic components of H.R. 1. Just these components alone would make H.R. 1 one of the most important pieces of legislation in the history of this country besides the 1964 Civil Rights Act. H.R. 1 would not only repair the damage done to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by Republicans in the decades since its passing, but it would greatly expand access to voting and put in place protections against voter suppression in unprecedented ways. The act would help to build a political and electoral system worthy of the 21st century. 

The stakes in passing this historic legislation in the Senate are monumental. As Republican politics continue to become more unpopular with time and as demographics continue to trend against them, they have now completely jettisoned democracy for authoritarian measures even as they already have a structural advantage in the House and the Senate. Let there be no doubt that Republican attempts to further impair US democracy will continue and grow. 

The Washington Post explains the current, broad attack on US democracy in 43 states:

In 43 states across the country, Republican lawmakers have proposed at least 250 laws that would limit mail, early in-person and Election Day voting with such constraints as stricter ID requirements, limited hours or narrower eligibility to vote absentee, according to data compiled as of Feb. 19 by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice. Even more proposals have been introduced since then.

The impact of H.R. 1 not passing the Senate will have immediate effects. It will likely impair Democrats’ chances of holding on to their very slim majorities in the House and Senate in 2022, making passing this type of legislation impossible for many years to come. 

What’s required is filibuster reform. Right now, current Senate rules require 60 votes to break a filibuster. It’s more likely that we will figure out interstellar space travel this year than it would be to find 10 Republicans to help break a filibuster for ground-breaking legislation. It’s also unlikely that we can even eliminate the filibuster outright since conservative Democrats such as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have both voiced that they are against eliminating the filibuster. Still, passing H.R. 1, or any other progressive legislation, doesn’t require the elimination of the filibuster. There are ways to reform the filibuster in a way that establishes majoritarianism in the Senate. Our recent article offers a fair compromise on the filibuster. The Washington Post article referenced above also offers proposals for filibuster reform.

We must pass H.R. 1 — for the people and for the survival of our democracy.

Photo Credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

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President Carter condemns Georgia voter suppression efforts

President Jimmy Carter has released a statement condemning voter suppression efforts and calling for “fair, open, and secure” elections.

The former president is a resident of Georgia. Republicans in the state legislature are pushing voting restrictions following President Joe Biden’s win in the traditionally-Republican state in November. Democrats won two subsequent runoffs for United States Senate seats in January.

The statement reads:

In 1962, I ran to represent the 14th Senate District in the Georgia legislature. I won my Senate seat, but only after the courts ruled that a ballot box had been illegally “stuffed” with votes for my opponent. My experience with our election system was one of the reasons Rosalynn and I created The Carter Center. Since 1989, we have observed 113 elections in 39 countries and helped build consensus on standards for democratic elections, perhaps the most fundamental of which are the rights to vote and be elected.

One thing we have learned from our international work is that while states must safeguard the integrity of the election process to prevent fraud, this should not be at the expense of voters’ access to the polls. They should proactively expand voter access through safe, secure administrative practices.

Since that 1962 Senate race, Georgia has established itself as a leader in providing voter access and taking steps to enhance election integrity. Georgia now uses technologies that provide a paper trail allowing voters to review their ballot before it is cast. In addition, Georgia requires post-election risk-limiting audits that make it possible to check the accuracy of voting machines. Indeed, November saw a successful set of elections with record turnout and few or no fraudulent ballots counted—which should make us all proud.

Now, as our state legislators seek to turn back the clock through legislation that will restrict access to voting for many Georgians, I am disheartened, saddened, and angry. Many of the proposed changes are reactions to allegations of fraud for which no evidence was produced—allegations that were, in fact, refuted through various audits, recounts, and other measures. The proposed changes appear to be rooted in partisan interests, not in the interests of all Georgia voters.

I also am disappointed that advocates for these restrictive changes have repeatedly and selectively referenced a report prepared by a 2005 commission that I co-chaired with former Secretary of State James Baker. While our report noted a few good and bad examples of vote-by-mail practices, its main recommendation was that further study of voting by mail was needed. In the 16 years since the report’s release, vote-by-mail practices have progressed significantly as new technologies have been developed. In light of these advances, I believe that voting by mail can be conducted in a manner that ensures election integrity. This is just one of several ways to expand access to the voting process for voters across the state, regardless of political affiliation.

American democracy means every eligible person has the right to vote in an election that is fair, open, and secure. It should be flexible enough to meet the electorate’s changing needs. As Georgians, we must protect these values. We must not lose the progress we have made. We must not promote confidence among one segment of the electorate by restricting the participation of others. Our goal always should be to increase, not decrease, voter participation.

Photo Credit: Children’s Bureau Centennial, Flickr

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Opinion

A fair and democratic compromise on the filibuster

The filibuster remains in the news as a hurdle to progress on everything from the minimum wage to voting rights. So here is a proposal on the filibuster that everyone should be able to support.

Rather than completely eliminate it – as I’ve argued in the past – the Senate could modify its rules so that in order to filibuster a bill, you have to physically stand at a lectern, speak, and hold the floor for as long as you can stand. Let’s call it the Mr. Smith Goes to Washington rule.

In that classic American film, Jimmy Stewart’s character talks non-stop on the Senate floor for 25 hours in a bid to delay a corrupt appropriations bill and defend his own reputation against scandalous (and completely fabricated) accusations.

The Mr. Smith Goes to Washington rule would give the minority party the chance to delay a bill and rally the American people against it. If a bill is as bad as opponents claim, they could still potentially stop it. However, it would not give a minority of senators a veto that does not exist in the Constitution. Once opponents cede the floor, the bill moves to a vote.

It’s a fair and democratic compromise. Opponents of a bill will still have an opportunity to slow and potentially kill unpopular legislation. Meanwhile, it will restore the concept of majority rule in the Senate and make it a functioning governing body again.

Photo Credit: John Brighenti, Flickr, CC BY 2.0