We're about be in for a season of Democrats trying to extend voting rights through federal legislation, which is their constitutional right through Congress. It's going to be a complex struggle.
And meanwhile, Republicans are trying to reduce who can vote, as an Arizona lawyer defending restrictions explained to the Supreme Court last week:
“What’s the interest of the Arizona RNC in keeping, say, the out-of-precinct ballot disqualification rules on the books?" Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked, referencing legal standing.
“Because it puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats,” said Michael Carvin, the lawyer defending the state's restrictions. “Politics is a zero-sum game. And every extra vote they get through unlawful interpretation of Section 2 hurts us, it’s the difference between winning an election 50-49 and losing an election 51 to 50.”
He thinks everyone voting is unfair and must be illegal! GOPer rejection of majority rule is getting explicit and very ugly.
But horrible as this is, something perfectly amazing just happened in Virginia.
Not so long ago, Virginia was Dixie, the land of celebrating the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, and Robert E. Lee. It was a place that still had segregated toilets in my youth -- driving through with my mother escaping Buffalo winters on spring break, I marveled in horror.
In the last few years, an emerging majority of people of color and a significant fraction of suburban whites in the DC and Richmond suburbs have won the state legislature and governor's office for Democrats. That new majority worked to pass a Voting Right Act for the state. Listen to a legislator, Delegate Marcia Price, and share her delight in this once unthinkable accomplishment:
"There is nothing extraordinary about us that do the work. It is just the choosing to do it. So whatever your lane is, whatever your time, talent and resources can get done ... GO DO THAT!"
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