Ohio, other states try to restrict voting access
At the heart of our country’s political debates are questions about our values and perspectives on legislating our deeper beliefs about right and wrong, relationships and priorities.
As a pastor and a citizen, when I weigh in on our country’s political debates, I strive to apply the principles of loving our neighbors and honoring the dignity of every person.
As I look at the bills in Congress and at the Statehouse in Columbus right now that would make voting more difficult for US citizens and Ohioans, I see no dignity or honor.
That these bills specifically target Black voters is even worse.
Ohio’s House Bill 294, currently under consideration in the Statehouse, proposes to drastically cut back voters’ access to secure drop boxes for ballots, which were crucial to ensuring strong turnout during the pandemic.
This bill would also cut back early voting and make absentee voting more onerous. Not coincidentally, these safe and verified voting methods are used by many Black voters, and the bill contains no corresponding proposals that would disproportionately disenfranchise white voters.
This shouldn’t surprise anyone, but it should shock our conscience.
Ohio is part of a shameful trend.
Eighteen state legislatures, all controlled by Republican politicians, have begun erecting new barriers to voting that target Black, Brown and Native American voters.
That’s why the U.S. House of Representatives passed the For the People Act, which would increase the accessibility and transparency of our democracy by improving voter registration, ending partisan gerrymandering, expanding voting-by-mail and improving voting access for voters of color and other underrepresented groups.
The Senate could have followed suit, but instead, a faction of Republicans, including our Senator Rob Portman, exploited a loophole — the filibuster — to stop this bill that Americans overwhelmingly favor.
During Dr. Martin Luther King’s time, segregationists used the very same tool to block both the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. It was shameful, underhanded and cowardly back then, and it remains so today.
When voters have the power to choose our leaders, they pass policies that help us all thrive. Americans turned out in record numbers to choose new leaders in Washington, and it’s making a difference in our lives already.
The American Rescue Plan Act, passed earlier this year, put $33 billion in federal funding into our state — ranging from child tax credits that put money straight into working families pockets to new funding for our schools and pandemic relief.
The Build Back Better Plan currently working its way through Congress forms the basis of what many faith leaders are calling a Holy Recovery. It makes the essential infrastructure of family life — child care, school, and health care — more affordable.
Democratic, independent and Republican voters favor all of these policies. They’re only possible because they’re not subject to the filibuster and because enough Americans elected leaders who share our values. If the filibuster remains, the Freedom to Vote Act will be blocked by a Senate minority, and anti-voting laws in 18 states will stop voters from rising up to win such policies in the future.
But in the end, the forces of needless obstruction and veiled hatred fold when we work together across race, place and faith to make sure we can all flourish. Today, we must mobilize and demand a Holy Recovery, with moral urgency that rises to the moment, keeping in mind that filibustering politicians never stopped the civil rights movement.
As King said, “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom.”
Rev. Dan Clark is Ohio director at Faith in Public Life.