“We still need to fight for it”: House Dems reintroduce key voting rights bill
Amid a looming government shutdown and lacking the votes to pass it, House Democrats uplift one of their signature pieces of legislation named after one of their most iconic members.
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As Alabama state legislators actively defy a Supreme Court order to draw a second majority-minority congressional district that doesn’t discriminate against Black voters, House Democrats marked National Voter Registration Day by reintroducing one of their signature pieces of legislation: The JOHN R. LEWIS Voting Rights Advancement Act, named after the late civil rights icon and former Atlanta congressman.
The bill would restore and modernize Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which was struck down a decade ago by the Supreme Court, protect voters from race-based discrimination, and set minimum standards to enable all voters to experience free and fair elections.
“In those 10 years, we’ve witnessed relentless attacks on voter access, closing polling stations without notification, bans are early voting and vote by mail, strict ID requirements, purging of voter rolls and the list goes on and on,” Rep. TERRI SEWELL (D-Ala.), the author of the bill told reporters on Tuesday. “One thing is clear: The fight for voting rights is as urgent today as it was a decade ago.”
Voting rights was once a bipartisan issue. After former Democratic President LYNDON B. JOHNSON signed the Voting Rights Act into law in the mid-1960s, four Republican presidents—RICHARD NIXON in 1970, GERALD FORD five years later, RONALD REAGAN in 1982, and GEORGE W. BUSH in 2006—signed legislation reauthorizing the law.
“We are urging the Republicans in this Congress to shake the poisonous partisanship that has brought you to this point of trying to undermine the right to vote and stand on the shoulders of your four Republican presidents who were there trying to lift up the right to vote in the past,” House Minority Leader HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-N.Y.) said. “We’re gonna continue to show up and stand up and speak up until we end the era of voter suppression in this country.
Congressional Republicans have ignored these entreaties up to now. They characterize Democratic voting rights bills as an overreach of the federal government and describe the real issue as so-called election integrity—or lack thereof.
House Republicans introduced a bill in July that would impose mail ballot restrictions, burden election workers who are already facing unprecedented harassment from partisan poll watchers, invite more secret money into the political process and allow extreme gerrymandering.
Just like the John Lewis bill, the ACE Act has little chance of passing Congress or being signed into law by President JOE BIDEN under the current legislative composition.
“What we have seen time and time again is not just House Republicans, but Republican state legislatures, have sought to reduce opportunities for people to access, to exercise their franchise and to vote,” Rep. PETE AGUILAR (D-Calif.), the number-three House Democrat said to Supercreator News on Tuesday morning. “It’s not lost on many members of the Democratic Caucus how important that right is—and how, sadly, we still need to fight for it.”
One of those members is the newest House Democrat, Rep. JENNIFER McCLELLAN (D-Va.), who before becoming the first Black woman elected to Congress from Virginia led the passage of the first comprehensive Voting Rights Act by a southern state.
“My great-grandfather had to take literacy tests. My grandfather, my father had to pay poll taxes. My mom didn’t vote until after the Voting Rights Act [passed]. And Virginia is the birthplace of American democracy but we were also the capital of the confederacy, so for us to be the first state in the south to pass that is incredibly powerful,” McClellan added. “But your right to vote shouldn’t depend on your state. So that’s what we really need the federal government to act.”
Another catalyst: The Big Like former President DONALD TRUMP’s continues to push that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Rep. Sewell told Supercreator News after a press conference that the scariest part of the Trump era is that the former president still has such a devoted following.
“And so we’ve got to stop it,” Sewell said. Everything really hinges I think on mobilization and organization.”
Case in point: Following House votes this afternoon, Sewell led a rally in front of the Supreme Court to galvanize grassroots support for the bill.
House Democrats need to flip five seats to reclaim the majority. Depending on the outcome
But Rep. SUZAN DelBENE (D-Wash.), the head of the House Democrats’ campaign arm says she and her colleagues aren’t taking any voter for granted.
“It’s important that we keep making sure that our voices are heard and that in the spirit of John Lewis, in terms of ‘good trouble’ in making sure that folks are aware and that we're pushing and fighting for these rights across.”
The reintroduction of the John Lewis Act comes as Pennsylvania rolled out automatic voter registration in the state for eligible voters getting or renewing their driver’s license or ID card at the DMV unless they choose to opt-out.
Sen. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-Pa.) told Supercreator News he was proud his state is leading on issues of democracy and voting rights.
“Voting should be easy, transparent, and I know it’s secure in Pennsylvania,” he said. “We get it done right. And let me tell you: In 2020, it was the safest, most secure and accurate election in Pennsylvania history. And that's how we're doing it and we're gonna keep doing it the right way.”
But at the federal level, the road ahead for voting rights is long and bleak with Republicans in control of the House and Senate rules that require 60 votes to advance legislation to a floor vote.
Sen. RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D-Ga.) believes it’s a cause worth fighting for though.
“Voting rights is not just one other issue alongside other issues. It’s the very framework in which we get to fight for the things that matter,” he said while acknowledging his deep disappointment that lawmakers failed to pass voting rights legislation last Congress. “I think we gotta do everything we can to move that agenda forward, which is why I’ve introduced the Freedom to Vote Act. We’ll continue to push on that.”
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