Courtesy of Bastrop Advertiser
August 6, 2020
By Joni Ashbrook
Recently, the casket carrying civil rights icon John Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. to saluting state troopers.
When Lewis led a march across that bridge in 1965, law enforcement didn’t salute him, they beat him, fracturing his skull.
Lewis knew that leading a march demanding voting rights for Black people was dangerous, but he believed that right was “sacred” and he risked his life for it.
Many Black people, including Lewis, nearly died that “Bloody Sunday,” and the world’s outrage over the brutality galvanized support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
During Lewis’ 17 terms in Congress, he continued to fight for voting rights especially after the Supreme Court defanged the act in Shelby County v Holder.
In 2013, the conservative justices voted to remove the “preclearance” teeth of the law that required states with a history of racial discrimination to get federal approval before implementing changes to their election rules.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg strongly dissented in Shelby. She recounted how in 2010 federal investigators had secretly recorded Alabama officials plotting to block a ballot initiative that could increase African American turnout.
Chief Justice John Roberts’ argument for ending that crucial protection for voters of color was that he felt “our country has changed” and racism was no longer a problem.
What has “changed” is the GOP strategies. Today, clubs and vicious dogs aren’t used to disenfranchise people of color, it’s done with more finesse.
However, the GOP did just dust off and tweak an old favorite, the poll tax. In 2018, Florida voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment to restore voting rights to felons who’d completed their sentences.
The thought of more people voting shook Florida’s GOP to their undemocratic cores, so they quickly passed a law clarifying that in order to regain their voting rights, felons had to first pay all fines related to their conviction.
Republicans stink at helping Americans keep their homes in a pandemic, but they excel in blocking minority voters.
In 2018, North Dakota Republicans implemented a law that was blatantly designed to limit Native American voters who helped elect Democrat Sen. Heidi Heitkamp by fewer than 3,000 votes in 2012.
That law required voters to present an ID card with a current residential address knowing that tribal communities don’t have street addresses, they rely on P.O. boxes. Heitkamp lost her seat, but more importantly democracy lost.
The majority Hispanic community in Dodge City, Kansas received national attention shortly before the 2018 midterm elections.
The county clerk moved their lone polling place out of town more than a mile from the nearest bus stop without consulting the community.
The clerk was flippant to dissenters. She received a letter from the ACLU asking her to publicize a voter help line, then she forwarded it to Secretary of State Kris Kobach adding “LOL.” Kobach is king of suppressing minority voters.
Dodge City’s meat processing plant employs many people, so they truly need a voice at the ballot box since this administration has mandated those plants stay open during the pandemic, but won’t mandate safety protections for them.
Last year House Democrats passed a bill restoring the Voting Rights Act, but it’s been sitting on Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s desk for over 200 days.
Democrats called for renaming the bill in honor of Lewis and for McConnell to bring it up for a vote, but he’s refused.
Even during America’s racial reckoning and calls to honor Lewis for a lifetime striving to make this nation live up to its promise, Republican lawmakers won’t allow restrictions on their voter suppression playbook.
