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The fight to voteNative Americans‘They don’t include Native voices’: tribes fight to ensure their votes countAs the Native American population grows to the largest in modern history, groups say it’s vital that they organize to make sure they’re not left out of the redistricting process The fight to vote is supported byAbout this contentK More
Fight to voteUS voting rightsHow Democrats could actually pass their new voting rights billDespite the huge obstacle that the filibuster poses, this new bill is significant – Democrats aren’t willing to let voting reform go The fight to vote is supported byAbout this contentSam LevineThu 16 Sep 2021 10.00 EDTLast modified on Thu 16 Sep 2021 13.16 EDTSign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterHappy Thursday,My inbox quickly filled up with statements of support on Tuesday morning after Democrats unveiled the latest iteration of a federal bill that would drastically expand voting rights.The bill, the Freedom to Vote Act, has been described as a “compromise”, hashed out over the summer by a group of Senate Democrats after Republicans filibustered an earlier version of it. But while the bill does get rid of some key things from the initial version, it still is pretty expansive. It would require states to offer at least 15 days of early voting, along with same-day registration, as well as automatic and online registration. It would enshrine new protections for local election officials and poll workers amid growing concerns about intimidation and partisan interference in their work. And it sets new criteria that states have to follow when they draw electoral districts to curb the practice of severely manipulating districts for partisan gain.We’ve been here before. It’s no secret that the bill is probably dead on arrival in the US Senate as long as the filibuster, the rule that requires 60 votes to advance legislation, remains in place. A handful of Democrats, led by Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have vocally supported keeping the measure in place.As I read through the cascade of statements praising the new bill, I was struck by how many of them coupled their enthusiasm with calls to eliminate the filibuster. It was a grim recognition of the quagmire Democrats have confronted since taking control of Congress in January: voting reform is impossible while the filibuster is in place.So where do things go from here?Despite the huge obstacle that the filibuster still poses, I do think this new bill is significant. First, it shows that Democrats aren’t willing to let voting reform go; by coming back so quickly with a new bill, they’re signaling that they are prepared to force a fight over the filibuster.Second, Democrats are showing Republicans that they are willing to make concessions in their signature piece of legislation. They dropped a provision from the earlier version that would have required officials to send absentee ballot applications to all registered voters. They also got rid of a provision that would have required every state to set up independent commissions to draw districts. The new legislation also allows states to require identification to vote while also setting up a process for people who lack ID to vote. These will all up the ante on Republicans to negotiate in good faith.Third, it’s significant that Manchin played an active role in crafting the bill and is now the one shopping it around to get Republican support. That support seems unlikely (“It is a solution in search of a problem, and we will not be supporting that,” Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, said on Tuesday). If Manchin is unable to personally persuade Republicans to sign on, despite the concessions from Democrats, it will only increase pressure on him to revise his stance on the filibuster.Joe Biden also has indicated a new willingness to pressure reluctant Democrats on their filibuster position.‘All options are on the table’Manchin said this week “the filibuster is permanent”. But there are a number of things Democrats could do short of getting rid of the rule entirely. They could carve out voting rights legislation from the filibuster, or lower the threshold needed to advance legislation down from 60 votes. They could also require anyone who wants to filibuster legislation to actually speak continuously on the Senate floor to delay legislation, an idea Biden has endorsed.Whatever Democrats ultimately do, one thing is clear: it needs to happen quickly (Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, has vowed to hold a vote on the measure as soon as next week). States are already beginning the once-a-decade process of redrawing district lines, making it all the more urgent to get the anti-gerrymandering provisions of the bill in place.“We are giving him the opportunity to do that with a bill that he supports and that he modified,” Schumer said of Manchin on Tuesday. “If that doesn’t happen, we will cross that bridge when we come to it. As I’ve said, all options are on the table.”Reader questionsThank you to everyone who wrote in last week with questions. You can continue to write to me each week at sam.levine@theguardian.com or DM me on twitter at @srl and I’ll try and answer as many as I can.Q: I’m originally from France, and don’t get me wrong, I’m not in support of any voting restrictions, however, we’ve always had to show our IDs in order to be able to vote in France, and it’s never really been a problem (I don’t think). So I’m wondering why ID requirements are such a big deal in the US to vote.Unlike many European countries, the US doesn’t automatically issue a free identification card to its citizens. There are some experts I’ve spoken with who believe that if the US did automatically issue free ID cards, a voter ID requirement would be more tolerable. (You can read more on this idea in this recent piece in the Atlantic.)Academic research on voter ID has shown mixed things on the effect it has on overall turnout. Nonetheless, courts in Texas and North Carolina have found in recent years that lawmakers have specifically enacted voter ID requirements intending to discriminate against minority voters.In many cases, the key part of a voter ID measure is not whether ID is required, but what kinds of IDs are acceptable and how easy it is for someone to prove their identity and vote if they don’t have an acceptable ID. In Texas, for example, lawmakers infamously allowed people to vote using a state gun permit, but not a student ID. In North Carolina, lawmakers excluded IDs they knew Black people were more likely to possess from those acceptable to vote.One last point: states often justify ID measures by saying they will offer free ID to anyone who cannot afford one. But that’s somewhat misleading. Even if there is no dollar amount attached to an ID, there’s a time cost for people to gather the documents they need to prove their identity and take the time to go to the DMV to do that.Q: I’m an ignorant Brit with a simple question: how come fair and equally accessible voting isn’t guaranteed in the US constitution?A lot of people are really surprised to learn there’s no guaranteed right to vote in the constitution. The Founding Fathers initially limited voting to a small group of people.Later amendments to the constitution protect access to voting by outlining the reasons why government can’t block people from the ballot box. The 15th amendment, for example, says that government can’t block someone from voting “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude”. As concerns over voter discrimination rise, some scholars believe there should be a renewed push to add an affirmative right to vote to the constitution.TopicsUS voting rightsFight to voteUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansUS SenatefeaturesReuse this content More
US politicsAl Sharpton calls on Biden to fight the filibuster: ‘If we can’t depend on you here, when can we?’ The veteran civil rights leader is determined to dismantle the centuries-old Senate tool in the battle for voting rights – will Biden join him?Lauren Gambino in Washington@ More
OpinionDonald TrumpTrump’s coup attempt has not stopped – and Democrats must wake upRobert ReichHe still refuses to concede and riles up supporters with his bogus claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Tens of millions of Americans believe him Sun 5 Sep 2021 01.00 EDTLast modified on Sun 5 Sep 2021 01.02 EDTThe former president’s attempted coup is not stopping. He still refuses to concede and continues to rile up supporters with his bogus claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Tens of millions of Americans believe him.Trump reportedly nears DC hotel rights sale as ally says ‘I think he’s gonna run’Read moreLast Sunday, at a Republican event in Franklin, North Carolina, Congressman Madison Cawthorn, repeating Trump’s big lie, called the rioters who stormed the Capitol on 6 January “political hostages”.Cawthorn also advised the crowd to begin stockpiling ammunition for what he said was likely to be American-versus-American “bloodshed” over unfavorable election results.“Much as I am willing to defend our liberty at all costs,” he said, “there’s nothing I would dread doing more than having to pick up arms against a fellow American.”On Tuesday, Texas Republicans passed a strict voter law based on Trump’s big lie – imposing new ID requirements on people seeking to vote by mail and criminal penalties on election officials who send unsolicited mail-in ballot applications, empowering partisan poll watchers, and banning drive-through and 24-hour voting.This year, at least 18 other states have enacted 30 laws that will make it harder for Americans to vote, based on Trump’s lie.On Thursday, at Trump’s instigation, Pennsylvania Republicans launched an investigation soliciting sworn testimony on election “irregularities”, scheduling the first hearing for next week.Arizona’s Republican “audit” will report its results any day. There’s little question what they’ll show. The chief executive of Cyber Ninjas, the company hired to conduct it, has publicly questioned the election results. The audit team consists of Trump supporters and is funded by a group led by Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.The Republican chair of the Wisconsin state assembly campaigns and elections committee has begun “a full, cyber-forensic audit”, akin to Arizona’s. Trump’s first White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, says Wisconsin Republicans are prepared to spend $680,000.These so-called audits won’t alter the outcome of the 2020 election. Their point is to cast further doubt on its legitimacy and justify additional state measures to suppress votes and alter future elections.It’s a vicious cycle. As Trump continues to stoke his base with his big lie that the election was stolen, Republican lawmakers – out to advance their careers and entrench the GOP – are adding fuel to the fire, pushing more Americans into Trump’s paranoid nightmare.The three top candidates to succeed Richard Burr in North Carolina all denounced the senator’s vote to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial. The four leading candidates to succeed Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania all embraced Trump’s call for an “audit” of election results.A leading contender for the Senate seat being vacated by Richard Shelby in Alabama is Representative Mo Brooks, best known for urging the crowd at Trump’s rally preceding the Capitol riot to “start taking down names and kicking ass”. Brooks has been endorsed by Trump.Yet even as Trump’s attempted coup gains traction, most of the rest of America continues to sleep. We’ve become so outrage-fatigued by his antics, and so preoccupied with the more immediate threats of the Delta variant and climate-fueled wildfires and hurricanes, that we prefer not to know.A month ago it was reported that during his last weeks in office Trump tried to strong-arm the justice department to falsely declare the 2020 presidential election fraudulent, even threatening to fire the acting attorney general if he didn’t: “Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the [Republican] congressmen.”The news barely registered on America’s collective mind. The Olympics and negotiations over the infrastructure bill got more coverage.A top Trump adviser now says Trump is “definitely running” for president in 2024, even though the 14th amendment to the constitution bars anyone from holding office who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the nation.Federal legislation that would pre-empt state voter suppression laws is bogged down in the Senate. Biden hasn’t made it a top priority. A House select committee to investigate the Capitol riot and Trump’s role is barely off the ground. The justice department has made no move to indict the former president for anything.But unless Trump and his co-conspirators are held accountable for the damage they have inflicted and continue to inflict on American democracy, and unless Senate Democrats and Biden soon enact national voting rights legislation, Trump’s attempted coup could eventually succeed.It is imperative that America wake up.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist
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The fight to voteTexasTexas legislature gives final approval to sweeping voting restrictions billBill, nearly identical to a measure that passed last week, gives poll watchers more power and prohibits 24-hour and drive-thru voting The fight to vote is supported byAbout this contentTue 31 Aug 2021 18.50 EDTLast modified on Tue 31 Aug 2021 18.52 EDTSign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterThe Texas legislature gave its final approval on Tuesday to a new bill that would impose substantial new restrictions on voting access in the state.The restrictions would only add to those already in place in Texas, which has some of the most burdensome voting requirements in the US and was among the states with the lowest voter turnout in 2020.The Texas house of representatives gave its approval to a final form of the measure on Tuesday, 80-41. The senate quickly followed with an 18-13 vote Tuesday afternoon. The bill, nearly identical to a measure that passed the legislature last week, would prohibit 24-hour and drive-thru voting – two things officials in Harris county, home of Houston, used for the first time in 2020.‘Democracy will be in shambles’: Democrats in last-ditch effort to protect voting rightsRead moreIt would also prohibit election officials from sending out unsolicited applications to vote by mail, give poll watchers more power in the polling place and provide new regulations on those who assist voters.The bill now goes to the desk of Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican. Civil rights groups are expected to swiftly challenge the measure once it is signed into law.The sole remaining point of disagreement between the two houses on Tuesday was a provision inserted by the House that would have clarified people could not be prosecuted for illegally voting unless they knew they were ineligible.The bipartisan provision was inserted after Crystal Mason, a woman from Fort Worth, was prosecuted and sentenced to five years in prison for mistakenly voting while ineligible in 2016. Lawmakers ultimately removed the protection after objections from the Texas senate Republicans, who said it could be used to protect non-citizens who illegally voted, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, is also bringing charges against Hervis Rogers, who waited seven hours in line to vote in 2020, but appears to be ineligible because he was on parole for a 1995 felony conviction.The bill marks the end of a weeks-long standoff between Democrats and Republicans over the bill. In late May, Democrats walked out of the legislature, denying Republicans the necessary quorum to pass the initial version of the bill, which would have made it easier for judges to overturn elections and restricted early voting on Sundays, a day traditionally used by African American churches to encourage people to vote.Republicans subsequently cut both provisions from the bill. But before a new version could be considered in a July special session, Democrats in the state house left the state and flew to Washington DC, again denying Republicans a quorum to proceed with legislation. While the Democrats in Washington lobbied federal lawmakers to pass federal voting restrictions, state senator Carol Alvarado undertook a 15-hour filibuster on the senate floor to try and block the measure.Earlier this month, after Abbott called a second special session to consider the measure, the house speaker, Dade Phelan, signed civil arrest warrants for the Democrats who refused to show up at the capitol (no one was ultimately arrested). But slowly, a trickle of Democrats began to return to the capitol, giving Republicans a majority, and enraging Democrats who wanted to continue to stay away.Democrats always knew Republicans would eventually pass the bill. But they hoped that by staying away from the capitol, they were buying time for Congress to act while also trying to hold negotiating leverage with Republicans, Rafael Anchía, a Democratic state representative, told the Guardian earlier this month.While the new law is likely to be aggressively challenged in court over the next few months, Democrats made it clear that the only way to stop it would be federal voting reform. The filibuster, a senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance legislation, stands in the way.“At this point, there is only one solution to preserve democracy and voting rights in Texas and around the country: we must enact federal legislation that will protect our voting rights,” Gilberto Hinojosa, the chairman of the Texas Democratic party, said in a statement.“We need the US Senate to take up the baton, pass this bill into law, and preserve our democracy. Nothing less is on the line.”TopicsTexasThe fight to voteUS voting rightsRepublicansDemocratsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
The fight to voteUS voting rights‘Democracy will be in shambles’: Democrats in last-ditch effort to protect voting rightsParty members say their control of both the House and Senate is at risk if they do not pass new legislation to protect elections The fight to vote is supported byAbout this contentSam Levine in New York and Ankita Rao in WashingtonTue 31 Aug 2021 06.00 EDTLast modified on Tue 31 Aug 2021 08.40 EDTSign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterDemocrats are pushing what may be their last chance to hold off voter suppression efforts by Republicans, and say that their control of both the House and Senate is at risk if they do not pass their new legislation to protect elections.Their bill, which cleared the US House on a party-line vote last week, has now been taken up by a bitterly divided Senate. It would ensure that states with a recent history of voter suppression must obtain federal approval before making any changes to their election systems, while also undoing a recent supreme court decision that makes it harder to challenge laws under the Voting Rights Act.Will America’s latest redistricting cycle be even worse than the last? Read moreBut Democrats appear unlikely to get more than a handful of GOP votes in the Senate on the bill. They need the support of 10 Republicans to overcome the filibuster, the procedural rule requiring 60 votes to advance legislation. Just one Senate Republican, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, has said she supports reauthorizing the provision, an early signal of how difficult it will be to get Republicans to sign on at a time when state party members are pushing more voting restrictions.Outside groups continue to escalate pressure on members of Congress to pass the bill, which is named after John Lewis, the civil rights icon. They held marches in Washington on Saturday – the 58th anniversary of the historic march on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr gave his I Have A Dream Speech.Theodore Dean, 84, attended the 1963 march and drove 16 hours from Alabama to attend the march for voting rights in Washington on Saturday.“I’m here because I got grandchildren and children,” he said. He added that the fight over voting rights “gets worse every year. Sometimes it feels like it goes down instead of up. My children and grandchildren need to be able to vote too.”Democrats have highlighted the importance of passing voting rights legislation since the beginning of the year, but the bill arrives in the Senate at a moment when the stakes are uniquely high. State lawmakers are currently drawing maps for electoral districts that will be in place for the next decade. Unless the bill passes, it will be the first time since 1965 certain states with a legacy of racial discrimination won’t have to get their district approved before they go into effect. That could encourage state lawmakers to draw districts that make it harder for Black and other minority voters to elect the candidate of their choice, critics say.The blockade also underscores how Democrats have not yet found a way to deal with the filibuster. Even amid loud calls to do away with the process, a handful of moderate Democrats, led by Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have refused, holding up Democratic efforts to pass voting rights protections, among other measures.“The same people who are suppressing the vote are also using the filibuster to block living wage – it’s not about one issue,” said the Rev William Barber, a co-leader of the Poor People’s Campaign and a civil rights leader. “Anyone who tries to make this about one issue like voting rights, you’re misleading the people. You have to draw this line and connect the dots.”There are also fraught political stakes for Joe Biden. Amid growing concern the White House wasn’t taking the fight for voting rights seriously enough, the president gave a public speech on the topic in July. Still, White House advisers have said they believe they can “out-organize” voter suppression, an idea that has infuriated civil rights leaders.“You said the night you won that Black America had your back and that you were going to have Black America’s back,” the Rev Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader, said at the rally in Washington on Saturday. “Well, Mr President, they’re stabbing us in the back. In 49 states, they’ve got their knives out stabbing us in the back.“You need to pick up the phone and call Manchin and others and tell them that if they can carve around the filibuster to confirm supreme court judges for President Trump, they can carve around the filibuster to bring voter rights to President Biden,” he added.“We have a problem here. We have Republicans on one side saying the bill isn’t needed,” said Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP. “And then we have far too many Democrats who lack the sense of urgency that it’s going to be absolutely critical to protect the rights of voters.”Republicans successfully filibustered a different voting rights measure earlier this year – one that would prohibit partisan gerrymandering, as well as require same-day, automatic and online voter registration. But Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP, said he was confident this bill would actually pass.“I don’t think we’re gonna have the same fate with this piece of legislation that we’ve seen, being stalled in the Senate. I do believe there will be the necessary political will to pass it,” said Johnson, who has met with the White House and members of Congress to push for the bill. Pressed on whether he believed 10 Republicans would sign on to the bill, Johnson suggested Democrats could do away with the filibuster to pass the bill.“I’m not suggesting it’s gonna require 10 Republicans. I am suggesting the legislation will pass,” he said. “I don’t see a doomsday. I see a reality that voting rights protections must pass before the end of this year … Our democracy will be in shambles if it’s not done.”A Republican filibuster of the John Lewis bill could offer Democrats wary of getting rid of the rule one of the clearest examples to date of how it has become a tool of obstruction. The last time the Senate voted to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act in 2006, it passed 98-0 before being signed by George W Bush, a Republican.“This iteration of the Voting Rights Act, this should be something that should garner bipartisan support. And if it garners none, and if there’s not even a serious conversation about tweaks to get to a deal, then I think that tells us something,” said Damon Hewitt, the president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a group that strongly supports the bill.“It tells us that there was never really an attempt to play ball. Or, even if there was some attempt, there was just insufficient political will,” he added.Texas Democrats also heightened the stakes when they fled the state capitol last month to thwart Republican efforts to pass new sweeping voting restrictions. The Texas lawmakers spent much of the last month in Washington lobbying to pass federal voting protections. The standoff ended last week when the Texas bill passed; if Congress fails to act on its own legislation now, it could make the effort from Texas lawmakers look futile.In Washington on Saturday at the march, there was a sense of history and an awareness of how the fight for voting rights now mirrored the struggle of the civil rights movement.“Our ancestors did these marches and did these walks and talk – so this is like something that I’m supposed to do,” said Najee Farwell, a student at Bowie State University.“It’s kind of changed but you still can see the same stuff going on. If you look at pictures back from 1950 it’s still the same stuff going on right now,” said Jemira Queen, a fellow student.TopicsUS voting rightsThe fight to voteDemocratsRepublicansUS SenateUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More
US voting rightsWashington voting rights march marks Martin Luther King anniversaryNearly 60 years after the I Have a Dream speech, crowds came to the capital again to protest attacks on minority rights Ankita Rao in WashingtonSat 28 Aug 2021 16.25 EDTLast modified on Sat 28 Aug 2021 16.31 EDTTheodore Dean marched in Washington DC in 1963, somewhere in the crowd behind Martin Luther King Jr. Exactly 58 years later, he decided to drive 16 hours from Alabama to do it again.Will America’s latest redistricting cycle be even worse than the last? Read more“I’m here because I’ve got grandchildren and children,” the 84-year-old told the Guardian as he and his son made their way past the White House.Dean joined thousands for March On for Voting Rights, an event organized by a coalition of civil rights groups and nonprofits. Speakers included Rev Al Sharpton and Cori Bush, a Democratic congresswoman from Missouri.The US Senate will soon vote on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a measure passed by the House which would restore protections from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 at a time when minority voters are the target of concerted Republican efforts to restrict access and participation. Furthermore, lawmakers across the US are set to redraw electoral districts, a process open to partisan abuse.In Washington on Saturday, however, it was clear that voting rights was not the only issue on people’s minds. While some marchers carried posters supporting the end of the filibuster and gerrymandering, weapons wielded to great effect by Republicans in state and federal government, others chanted about police violence toward Black people, worker’s rights, the Afghanistan withdrawal and minimum wage.In many ways, the spectrum of issues reflected Dr King’s agenda 58 years ago, when on 28 August 1963 he told a crowd at the Lincoln Memorial: “I have a dream.”“The original march on Washington was not just about Black people and voting rights – it was for jobs and justice,” said Rev William Barber II, a prominent activist and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, after his own speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, at a “Make Good Trouble Rally”.“It was about brutality, poverty, voting rights. There was unfinished business.”Barber said the US was facing issues that had little to do with Donald Trump, the Republican president beaten by Joe Biden but still an active force in national politics from the far right.“In some ways Trump not being president is forcing the movement to have to understand this was never about a person,” Barber said. “All Americans should be worried, concerned, mad and dissatisfied. We may be a civil oligarchy and not a democracy, and the next step is autocracy.”Barber and the Poor People’s Campaign have held marches and rallies across the US, particularly in states like Texas, where lawmakers passed a sweeping elections bill this week that would curb access to voting, and West Virginia, where both cities and rural areas are seeing high rates of poverty and joblessness.West Virginia is home to Senator Joe Manchin, a centrist Democrat who along with Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona has refused to end the filibuster, a procedural rule Republicans have used to block key voting rights legislation.“It doesn’t have to be this way,” said Rev Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, adding that a summer of action had given her hope. While the coronavirus pandemic further exposed deep economic disparities, she said, it also gave rise to temporary legislative solutions, such as an eviction moratorium and stimulus checks.“We can take our experience here and make it work for everybody,” she said.On Saturday, thousands braving 93F (34C) heat were holding on to optimism too.“Our ancestors did these walks and talk so this is something I’m supposed to do,” said Najee Farwell, a student at Bowie State University in Maryland who rode a bus to the march with fellow students.“I feel as though if I don’t stand up, who else is going to?”TopicsUS voting rightsUS politicsCivil rights movementMartin Luther KingRaceUS CongressProtestnewsReuse this content More
