What we lose when we don’t vote
11th December 2023 · 0 Comments
Voting rights advocates, civil rights leaders and political analysts are screaming warnings and beating drums on news shows and podcasts that American democracy will die in 2024 if Americans don’t step up and speak up the only way they can: through the ballots.
Recent local election results confirm the silent majority of voters who hold golden tickets to freedom – the vote – refused to cash it in. Less than one-third of registered voters in Louisiana turned out to choose a governor, secretary of state, treasurer and other critical elective posts.
Now, extremist Republicans hold the reins of power, and wanna-be dictator and puppet master Donald J. Trump is pulling their strings.
The old excuses, “My vote won’t change anything,” “Politicians are gonna do what they want, anyway,” and “I don’t have time to vote,” are pathetic cop-outs that endanger everyone, especially you!
Louisiana is still the Deep South, where the confederacy’s plantation mentality is alive and kicking..
Confederates learned long ago that infusing white privilege, dominance and supremacy into state Constitutions via legislative laws was the way to hold on to power and exclude Blacks and other ethnic groups from having viable representation by violating voting rights through constitutional amendments and the courts.
When you refuse to register to vote or cast ballots, Blacks, people of color and anyone who isn’t wealthy is screwed.
What do you and we lose when you don’t vote? The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Delving more deeply, when you don’t vote, you risk losing:
• Quality of Life Programming: Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP benefits, Social Security, Unemployment benefits, Section 8, Affordable Housing for First Time Homebuyers.
• A Viable Safety and Criminal Justice System – The right to choose judges and elect people who prefer the correct type of police officers to patrol your neighborhood and streets effectively.
• Education – Students and Parents have the right to decide who governs their schools and what curriculum will be taught.
• Infrastructure – Surely, priority in fixing streets will be afforded to neighborhoods where people voted for candidates committed to repairing infrastructure.
When you don’t vote, other voters who may not think like you get to elect people who will decide monetary policies for you, people who will determine what benefits you will be afforded, people who will decide what you can do with your body, people who will decide who gets to breathe clean air and drink clean water, and people who will determine how much tax you must pay for services you may not directly receive.
If you don’t vote, all the advocacy in the world won’t keep us from being ruled by dictators. Thankfully, some in our community are ringing the bell and sounding the alarm about the danger of not voting.
Carl Galmon, who by many has been dubbed as “our resident Drum Major for Justice” has dedicated his life to fighting for civil rights and against injustice everywhere, but most of his time has been spent battling for voting rights. Galmon’s motto is “Apathy is Not an Option!”
The civil rights leader’s testimony at various official hearings includes stats and facts that prove his central thesis that Blacks’ voting rights have been and continue to be violated in Louisiana.
During the 2018 hearing held by the Louisiana Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, Galmon went on the record again, bearing witness to the state’s gerrymandered maps and lack of polling sites. Also testifying was attorney Ronald Wilson, a New Orleans resident who is among the nation’s most respected voting rights attorneys.
Fast forward five years, and the fight continues.
At the beginning of Thanksgiving Week 2023, the fight over gerrymandered maps continued with coordinated attempts by Republicans to weaponize the courts to subvert decisions made by no less than the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that Alabama had to redraw its maps.
In a glaring example of desperate Republican extremists’ attempt to stop fair maps from being drawn in several states, including Louisiana, a 2-1 decision by a three-judge panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis ruled that only the U.S. attorney general can enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires fair maps where minority populations’ preferred candidates can win elections. Individuals and organizations can’t bring lawsuits.
Of course, that decision is plain stupid and an in-your-face power grab that won’t hold water.
But by the time the U.S. Supreme Court decides to review or not review that case, the Republicans will have met their goal: delay, delay, delay. The objective is to delay redrawing congressional maps until after the 2024 and 2025 election season, allowing the Republicans to maintain a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and maybe the U.S. Senate because of the gerrymandered maps they drew after the 2020 Census.
The delay tactic is straight out of Donald Trump Sr.’s playbook .
Pick any case, including Louisiana’s congressional gerrymandered maps challenge, which ended in the ultra-conservative U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Louisiana’s congressional maps must be redrawn, and the Republican delay tactic is in play.
Based on the federal court ruling in St. Louis, Attorney General and Gov.-elect Jeff Landry, endorsed by Trump, asked the Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to have the 5th Circuit Court en banc review its November 10 decision by a three-judge panel that the current congressional maps must be redrawn, according to NOLA.com.
Thankfully, last Thursday, officials from the Department of Justice filed a motion to intervene to “defend the constitutionality of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act,” stating that the agency plans to file a brief in the case by December 19.
Had voters turned out, we may have a Democratic governor instead of Landry. Only 36 percent voted statewide; in New Orleans, 27 percent, and in Jefferson Parish, 32 percent, WWL-TV reported.
Because you didn’t vote (you know who you are), the state government will be controlled by a Republican trifecta: The Governor’s Office, state House, and state Senate are all Republicans.
One political analyst says people don’t watch the news anymore, so they don’t know how at risk we are of being ruled by fascists. Another analyst blames a lack of unity among Democrats and a lack of funding from the DNC as reasons why we got what we got.
The bottom line is you didn’t vote. Because you didn’t, we risk losing democracy, economic opportunities, and a higher quality of life.
This article originally published in the December 11, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
