Hope on Voting Rights remain
24th January 2022 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer
Democrats lost the filibuster battle last Wednesday, January 19. Nevertheless, a late vote that evening by Bill Cassidy and a stirring defense of her vote for the reauthorization of the original Voting Rights Act by Susan Collins in 2006 may prove that a deal, similar in language and size to the original Voting Rights Act, could be possible. More importantly, efforts to expand voter access and opportunity continue to advance in many “Red States,” most recently in Ohio. Louisiana might also prove the next state to expand minority access to voting, starting on February 1 in the looming legislative special session.
In other words, Democrats need not be depressed, even though Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin ultimately rejected President Biden’s impassioned plea to the U.S. Senate to end the Republican filibuster in order to pass his two highly-prized election protection bills – and despite the fact that both the Arizona and West Virginia Democrats originally voted in support of the two pieces of legislation.
The media generally overlooked two important developments last Wednesday night. First, Maine GOP Senator Susan Collins reminded her critics, particularly Georgia Democrat John Ossoff, that she not only voted for the Voting Rights Act in 2006, but would support it again, including its critical preclearance provisions. Her point that the “Freedom to Vote Act” was 730 pages versus the five pages of the original legislation, and contained many additional elements, was generally overlooked by the press. She might be open to a deal, Collins proclaimed less than subtly.
So might many of her fellow GOP moderates. At least ten Republicans come from states where some of the reform provisions of the “Freedom to Vote Act” are already in force. They include Louisiana Republican Bill Cassidy, who almost seemed hesitant to vote against the legislation last Wednesday. For whatever reason, Cassidy was nearly the last ballot cast, long after the roll call vote asked for his “yea or nay” by name.
Louisiana already has a long early voting period, so enacting the current legislation’s proposed 15-day early voting period hardly frightens a Republican from the Pelican State. Moreover, the legislation’s requirement that election day becomes a federal holiday does not hold much terror as Louisianans typically vote on Saturdays anyway. Here, most people here are off of work on election day, which is justification for the day-off in the bill. Our state also allows mail-in voting, all be it for the elderly and those over 65.
Cassidy, who defied Donald Trump to create a bipartisan consensus to pass last year’s infrastructure bill with Collins, Manchin, and Sinema seems to be a prime candidate to enact a modified version of the original Voting Rights Act, with the more popular provisions of the “Freedom to Vote Act” included.
There would have to be some amendments to woo the GOP moderates, of course. Manchin convinced his fellow Democrats to include a Voter ID provision to get West Virginia Senator’s support, yet the ID language still allowed for a broad variety of identifications which Republicans contended could prove unreliable – such as a utility check. The GOP still wants a photo ID granted from a governmental body. Democrats generally believe that the cost and difficulty of access of such an ID would disenfranchise poorer, often minority voters.
Some Republicans, including Cassidy, have floated the idea of providing the federal “Passport Card” for free as a means of increasing disadvantaged access to photo ID’s. Progressives may not love the concept, but the Democratic caucus already endorsed the concept of providing identification to vote. Using a card-based federal passport constitutes only a small step further.
Moreover, other GOP reform ideas actually enjoy some Democratic support – including a requirement that electronic voting machines print a “receipt” ballot at the end of voting which can be placed into a ballot box for recounts and greater certification. Including these notions, and a few others, might convince ten Republicans to do exactly what most of the Senatorial party did in 2006, support Voting Rights Act reauthorization.
Even if the GOP fails to garner a bipartisan spirit, efforts to overcome Republican gerrymanders are succeeding on the state level, providing Democrats with more of a potential chance to pick up congressional districts later this year in so-called “Red States.”
On Friday, January 14, the Ohio Supreme Court threw out the Republican legislature’s gerrymandered congressional maps. It may prove the model for achieving voting rights successes on the state level, and particularly competitive U.S. House seats.
What exactly did Democrats in Ohio do? “This happened because of five years of work by a lot of people,” former Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper, who helped orchestrate the effort, told Newsweek magazine. “Grassroots groups, good government groups, the party, we all worked together to fight back.”
Energizing a cadre of Democratic political activists, his group worked around the Ohio legislature by drafting a constitutional amendment. In six months, a volunteer army gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures and forced a measure onto the ballot. The new constitutional language, which voters ultimately approved in 2018 in a 75-25 landslide, required both parties to have equal say in the new maps, declaring that “the general assembly shall not pass a plan that unduly favors or disfavors a political party or its incumbents.”
Ohio is a state that elects its Supreme Court Justices. To help enforce the law, this coalition concentrated on those races to make sure the new law would have a fighting chance. In 2018 and 2020, Democratic-endorsed candidates for the Ohio Supreme Court won three out of four statewide elections, moving the court from 7-0 Republican-favored judges to 4-3, even as Ohio went for Donald Trump by eight points in 2020. Most importantly, it was the new cadre of Justices who upheld the ballot measure two weeks ago.
In addition to the Ohio constitutional amendment, ballot measures addressing issues like gerrymandering, voting rights, and campaign funding proved particularly successful in 2018, winning 14 out of 16 electoral attempts, even in heavily Republican states such as Utah and Missouri. Former Democratic congressional staffer Matt Robison noted that ten of the measures passed in states Donald Trump won in 2016, including Missouri (Trump + 17), Utah (Trump + 18), and even North Dakota (Trump + 35). In the four states (in addition to Ohio) that passed redistricting ballot measures, those referenda ran an average of 17 points ahead of the leading Democratic candidates, drawing substantial moderate and Republican support.
A similar grassroots effort three years ago, led by African-American voters in New Orleans, provided Democratic John Bel Edwards a second term as Governor of Louisiana, as well as blocked the GOP effort to gain 2/3 majorities in both the State House and Senate. As redistricting begins here in a legislative special session on February 1st, the Governor’s plan to increase the number of minority congressional seats from one to two has a fighting chance. Edwards’ argument that if 1/3 of Louisiana is Black, therefore two seats out of six should have African-American majorities, has drawn attention in the legislature. His proposal to increase minority seats faces a fight, but thanks to the local NAACP and other civil rights organizations, Edwards possess the political wherewithal to champion this new Black-majority congressional seat.
While further action on the federal level may be possible this year, if Cassidy and his fellow moderates step up to negotiate, advances on the state level in some parts of the nation are already ameliorating voter security restrictions which Democrats warn “disenfranchise the electorate” in many other GOP states. The Voting Rights battle did not end last Wednesday in the U.S. Senate, and it will not end on the state level anytime soon.
This article originally published in the January 24, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
