Voting rights events reflect reform effort
Advocates: Such a united front rare in recent years
decades-old fight to expand and protect voting rights will intensify this weekend, when multiracial coalitions of civil, human and labor rights leaders hold rallies in Washington and across the nation to urge passage of federal voter protections eroded since the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
It’s a united front that rights advocates say hasn’t been seen in two generations, when the landmark federal legislation removed barriers keeping voters of color from easily accessing the ballot box.
The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives this week passed legislation Tuesday that would restore sections of historic voting legislation that allowed legal challenges to state voting laws. The Voting Rights Act also required states with a history of voter discrimination to get federal preclearance before changing laws.
The outcome now hinges on the Senate, where Republicans have promised to block voting-rights legislation and where Democrats don’t have enough votes to overcome a filibuster rule that requires some GOP support for passage. With midterm elections approaching next year, some fear the window of opportunity is closing to do away with the filibuster and beat back state-level voter suppression.
“I think this has given us a sense of urgency,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, whose “March On for Voting Rights” event with the families of Martin Luther King Jr. and the late Rep. John Lewis on Saturday will move from Washington’s Mcpherson Square to the National Mall, with the U.S. Capitol as a rally backdrop.
“The Senate is now the battleground,” Sharpton said. “And clearly the timing of this couldn’t be better. Everything that we’re concerned about – whether it’s health care, whether it’s student loans, whether it’s educational equality, whether it’s economic relief – none of it can happen if our votes are lessened.”
The list of speakers includes Reps. Joyce Beatty, Terri Sewell, Sheila Jackson Lee and Mondaire Jones, along with civil-rights attorney Benjamin Crump, the family of George Floyd, and American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten.
Sharpton’s march and those in doza ens of other cities, including Atlanta, Houston, Miami and Phoenix, cap a week of actions against a wave of proposals in conservative-leaning states to curb access to early voting, mail-in vote casting and ballot drop boxes used in pandemic-era elections.
Advocates say it’s a reaction to shifting racial demographics, made clear in recently released 2020 census data, and a corresponding shift in the balance of power between the white majority and Black and Latino people, as well as rapidly growing Asian communities.
The Democratic proposals include the John Lewis Voter Advancement Act, which would restore and strengthen the weakened 1965 law and add protections against suppression tactics affecting Indigenous communities. The separate For the People Act would create a national standard for voter registration, mail-in balloting and early voting, as well as curb racial gerrymandering and institute campaign finance reforms.
Meanwhile, a wave of Republicanbacked state initiatives could disproportionately disenfranchise voters of color at a time when they have turned out at the polls at historically high levels in states like Georgia and Missouri.