The Moment of Truth for Democracy Reforms
FRED WERTHEIMER’S WEEKLY NOTE | April 29, 2021
“The right to vote lies at the heart of representative government. The battle to enact H.R. 1/S. 1 must be won on behalf of the nation’s eligible voters.”
The moment of truth is approaching for the most sweeping democracy reform legislation in a generation.
The reforms in the For the People Act, H.R. 1 and its Senate companion S. 1, would protect the right of every eligible citizen to vote, prevent partisan gerrymandering, and provide an alternative way to finance campaigns to free federal officeholders from Washington’s system of political money corruption.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has set a deadline for the Senate to vote on S. 1 prior to the August recess. The House passed its companion version, H.R. 1, in March.
Calling the legislation a “high priority,” the Biden Administration has joined in supporting the Schumer deadline. And last night in his speech to Congress and the country, President Biden called on Congress to send the legislation, as well as the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, “to my desk right away.”
The need for Congress to take expeditious action to pass these essential democracy reforms is made clear by the efforts being pursued by Republican state legislatures around the country to enact voter suppression laws that could deprive millions of citizens of their sacred right to vote.
Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress are opposing the For the People Act, which would override these state voter suppression efforts. Congressional Republicans are feigning concerns about the absence of bipartisan legislation when their real goal is to ensure that nothing is done to interfere with the voter suppression efforts in the states.
It is crystal clear that the state efforts have little to do with “preventing voter fraud” and everything to do with preventing people of color and other potential Democratic voters from being able to vote.
It is also crystal clear that Republicans in Congress are collaborators with Republican state legislators in a raw, brazenly partisan effort to gain political advantage at the expense of the nation’s democratic values.
The country has not seen anything like this Republican effort to grab power by preventing eligible citizens from voting since the days of Jim Crow segregation.
The right to vote lies at the heart of representative government. The battle to enact H.R. 1/S. 1 must be won on behalf of the nation’s eligible voters.
As Senator Schumer says, “Failure is not an option.”
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