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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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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