{"id":42029,"date":"2021-11-08T15:17:13","date_gmt":"2021-11-08T23:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=42029"},"modified":"2021-11-08T15:17:13","modified_gmt":"2021-11-08T23:17:13","slug":"voting-rights-is-the-civil-rights-issue-of-our-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=42029","title":{"rendered":"VOTING RIGHTS IS THE CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE OF OUR TIME"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by\u00a0Mark Hedin<\/a><\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0Nov 8, 2021<\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0Voting Rights<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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From left to right: Wade Henderson, Interim President, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights & The Leadership Conference Education Fund; John C. Yang, President and Executive Director, Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC; Jacqueline De Leon, Staff Attorney, Native American Rights Fund; Sean Morales-Doyle, Acting Director, Democracy Program<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Advocates press for national standards<\/em><\/p>\n

By Mark Hedin, Ethnic Media Services<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the \u201ccivil rights issue of our time,\u201d voting rights advocates say, but three different proposals to strengthen and create nationwide standards on voting are all stalled in Congress.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocracy is facing challenges unlike any we have seen in modern time,\u201d said Wade Henderson, CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, at a press briefing hosted by Ethnic Media Services and LCCR on Nov. 5.<\/p>\n

Already this year, in 19 states, legislators have passed 33 laws that will make it harder to vote. In all, 425 new voting rules have been proposed in 49 states.<\/p>\n

Generally, where it\u2019s been challenging to vote, the new laws have made it harder, Henderson noted. In Florida and Georgia, for example, giving water or snacks to people waiting in lines to vote is now a crime.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0\u201ctorrent\u201d of new rules<\/a>\u00a0on voting across the country is due to two recent Supreme Court decisions gutting the 1965 Voter Rights Act, combined with the \u201cBig Lie\u201d frenzy stoked by former president Trump, still trying to overturn the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still have tools available to us, but fewer than we once did,\u201d said Sean Morales-Doyle, of Brennan Center\u2019s\u00a0Democracy Project.<\/p>\n

And even in those two recent rulings that gutted the Voting Rights Act \u2013 2013\u2019s Shelby v. Holder and July 2021\u2019s Brnovich v. DNC \u2014 the Supreme Court acknowledged Congress\u2019 ultimate responsibility for setting federal voting standards, Morales-Doyle pointed out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe actually do have two pieces of legislation that would help us get us past this moment,\u201d Morales-Doyle pointed out. \u201cThe Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights\u00a0Advancement Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Nov. 3, Republican Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, was the 51st \u201cyes\u201d vote for discussing the proposed John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.<\/p>\n

Jacqueline DeLeon, of the Native American Rights Fund\u00a0(NARF), noted that Murkowski was elected, in part, thanks to native Alaskan voters traveling long distances to get to polling places to vote in the pitch-black dark in the snow after learning how to spell her name to support her write-in election in 2012.<\/p>\n

But filibuster rules in the Senate meant that 51 of 100 possible votes was not enough.\u00a0 Because of the filibuster, it takes 60 votes to do most things. There are currently 50 Republican senators, two Independents and 48 Democrats.<\/p>\n

But 51 votes would be enough to change that filibuster rule, for example, by making an exception for voting laws, similar to the exception made for Supreme Court nominations in 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll eyes are on Congress and the Senate,\u201d Morales-Doyle said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in Indian Country, change is long overdue.<\/p>\n

DeLeon described how some reservations have no polling places at all, forcing impoverished voters to drive 100 miles on dirt roads into sometimes inhospitable, racist border towns to exercise their voting rights.<\/p>\n

Lousy mail service, too, can make registration and absentee voting difficult-to-impossible, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNatives vote if they\u2019re provided a fair opportunity, but they\u2019re too often not given that fair chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to get away from the framing that the voting rights is a Democratic ask,\u201d she concluded. \u201cThis is about protecting American citizens from racist abuse and denying them their right to participate in the American political process.\u201d<\/p>\n

John C. Yang, of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-AAJC, also emphasized the nonpartisan importance of seeing that everyone\u2019s voice is heard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen we have an argument on the values, on the issues. We try to persuade the voters that our policies make sense. That\u2019s the beauty of democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur community is quite diverse,\u201d he said. Asian Americans have become the fastest-growing ethnic group in the country. \u201cWe have individuals of all different political stripes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us, it is about making sure that every citizen that has the right to vote has the opportunity to do so in a most efficient and effective manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

He described how voter-ID laws sometimes run afoul of language barriers. And once a person has secured their right to vote, having multi-lingual voting materials and mail-in voting is also important.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is about having communities not feeling that they are less of a citizen because of their immigrant status or because they have limited English proficiency, or because they have different socio-economic means that don\u2019t allow them to vote during a 9-5 period.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henderson pointed out how 13 of the same senators who stopped the Lewis Act last week, such as John Conryn of Texas, had all previously voted in favor of continuing the VRA.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to take the fight to them,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a right and we should demand it and we should generate the political heat necessary to obtain it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Leadership Conference has prepared 14 reports documenting\u00a0the state of voting rights in 13 states<\/a>\u00a0across the country:\u00a0Alabama<\/a>\u00a0(second Alabama report<\/a>), Alaska,\u00a0Arizona<\/a>,\u00a0California<\/a>,\u00a0Florida<\/a>,\u00a0Georgia<\/a>,\u00a0Louisiana<\/a>,\u00a0Mississippi<\/a>,\u00a0New York<\/a>,\u00a0North Carolina<\/a>,\u00a0South Carolina<\/a>,\u00a0Texas<\/a>, and\u00a0Virginia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way forward is through Congress, and Congress needs to be told that over and over and over again,\u201d Morales-Doyle said.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0 the meantime, he and other voting rights advocates are using what tools they still have to take the battle to the courts.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department recently joined a suit by the Brennan Center, Mexican American Defense and Educational Fund and others against\u00a0new rules in Texas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of the work stops while we\u2019re waiting for Congress to act, but we still need Congress to act,\u201d Morales-Doyle said.<\/p>\n

\u201cApart from suing, we need to keep up the work to change the public narrative on this. And people DO want an expansive democracy!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Mark Hedin\u00a0|\u00a0Nov 8, 2021\u00a0|\u00a0Voting Rights From...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-local","category-opinion","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42030,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42029\/revisions\/42030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}