The SOTU: Biden Is Right – Congress Must Pass The Freedom To Vote And John R. Lewis Voting Rights Acts

“A transformational moment in history happened 59 years ago today in Selma, Alabama. Hundreds of foot soldiers for justice marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge – named after the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan – to claim their fundamental right to vote.

“They were beaten. They were bloodied and left for dead. Our late friend and former colleague John Lewis was on that march. […]

“But 59 years later, there are forces taking us back in time: voter suppression, election subversion, unlimited dark money, extreme gerrymandering.

“John Lewis was a great friend to many of us here. But if you truly want to honor him and all the heroes who marched with him, then it’s time to do more than talk.

“Pass the Freedom to Vote Act, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act!”

 – President Joe Biden, 2024 State of the Union address

On Thursday night, President Joe Biden delivered a strong State of the Union message. He shared a full agenda of urgent issues, along with his plan for addressing each one – among them, urging Congress to pass strong legislation to protect voting rights and our democracy.

Before his State of the Union message, 43 groups, including Democracy 21, urged the President to immediately and publicly ask Congress to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

“As you’ve made clear,” the groups wrote in a letter to the President, “anti-democratic forces are working to take away the freedom to vote, cause chaos in our electoral systems, and corruptly tilt our politics in favor of big money special interests. No less than the future of our Republic is at stake.”

The Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act address a broken political system and include comprehensive democracy reforms to deal with widespread voter suppression, a corrupt campaign finance system, and extreme gerrymandering, among other important democracy reforms.

The call for action was organized by Democracy Sentry and joined by pro-democracy advocates, civil rights groups, labor unions, LGBTQ+ groups, reproductive rights organizations, climate action groups, and others.

The need for these reforms is urgent.

Three key events triggered the current breakdown of our political system.

Citizens United

In 2010, the Supreme Court’s infamous Citizens United decision returned to federal elections the unlimited contributions and secret “dark money” contributions that played a key role in the Watergate scandals, the worst political scandal of the 20th century.

Citizens United opened the floodgates to huge corrupting, influence-seeking contributions that benefit federal officeholders and that are pervasive today in our campaigns.

It’s no wonder that a new Pew Research poll found that a majority of Americans – including 65 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of Republicans – say “reducing the influence of money in politics should be a top policy goal this year.”

Only strengthening the economy and defending against terrorism ranked higher in importance among Americans.

Similarly, a Pew poll from last summer found that more than 80 percent of Americans say major campaign donors have too much influence over decisions that Members of Congress make, and 73 percent say lobbyists and special interest groups have too much influence.

Shelby County

In 2013, the Supreme Court’s Shelby County decision obliterated the Voting Rights Act that had been in existence for almost 50 years.

This decision gutted the legislation that protected the rights of voters of color and all eligible citizens from the rampant voter suppression and discrimination that had existed prior to the 1965 passage of the Voting Rights Act.

A new study from the Brennan Center shows the adverse effect that Court ruling has had on voter turnout.

The Brennan Center found that the voter turnout gap between white and nonwhite voters has consistently grown since the Shelby decision and is growing most quickly in parts of the country that were previously covered by protections in the Voting Rights Act that were gutted by the Court’s 2013 decision.

Trump’s Lies

In 2020, Trump began telling one of the biggest and most damaging political lies in American history. His nonstop lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him and that widespread voter fraud had occurred, along with his attempted presidential coup, unleashed attacks on voting rights in many states.

The Brennan Center has documented the slew of voter suppression laws passed by Republican state legislatures starting in 2021 in response to Trump’s false claims. These new laws discriminate against people of color, urban voters, students, voters with disabilities, Native American voters, and others perceived as favoring Democrats.

Trump’s lies have done enormous damage to the peaceful transfer of power that has been a hallmark of our democracy since Day One and his lies continue to greatly undermine public confidence in the integrity of our elections.

In the last Congress, we came close to passing the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The bills passed the House and came within two Senate votes needed to adopt a modest modification to the antiquated filibuster rule that would have allowed passage in the Senate.

We know that reform legislation is DOA in today’s dysfunctional GOP House.

But, the continuing work being done today will make a difference.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are publicly committed to making these bills top priorities in the next Congress. Depending on the outcome of the 2024 elections, they are apparently prepared to move quickly on these bills.

As President Biden said in his State of the Union message, “Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today.”

Protecting our democracy is the most pressing cause of our time.

The Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act should be the first order of business in the next Congress, so that President Biden, if reelected, can sign them immediately into law.

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Fred’s Weekly Note appears on Thursdays in Wertheimer’s Political Report, a Democracy 21 newsletter. Read this week’s and other recent newsletters here. And, subscribe for free here and receive your copy each week via email.