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The history of Black voting rights in America
Until 1965, Black Americans who wanted to vote first faced faces unanswerable poll questions, and later equally tough literacy tests.
The Voting Rights Act banned these and other forms of overt voter suppression. But in 2013, the Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the law, requiring states to get prior federal approval to tweak their voting laws for racial discrimination.
The ruling has allowed dozens of states to pass increasingly restrictive voting laws targeting minority groups with measures like bolstering voter ID, eliminating polling places, and rolling back mail-in voting.
But things aren’t always so black and white, or blue and red, Ian Bremmer explains on GZERO World. Georgia is now ahead of New York on expanding early voting and no-excuse absentee ballots.
There are many reasons why Black voters turn out less than white Americans, and not all have to do with voter suppression. Still, progressive leaders worry restrictive laws will (further) widen the gap.
The upcoming 2022 midterm elections will be the first major test of these new voting laws. That is, unless Democrats pass new voting rights legislation — but the bill will die on the Senate floor.
Voting reform bill will likely be blocked, but still a key issue for Democrats
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, discusses the Democrats voting bill.
What is the status on the Democrats voting bill?
The Democrats are pushing a bill that would largely nationalize voting rules, which today are largely determined at the state level. The bill would make Election Day a national holiday. It would attempt to end partisan gerrymandering. It would create a uniform number of early voting days and make other reforms that are designed to standardize voting rules and increase access to voting across the country. This matters to Democrats because they think they face an existential risk to their party's political prospects. They're very likely to lose at least the House and probably the Senate this year. And they see voting changes that are being pushed by Republicans at the state level that they say are designed to make it harder to vote, particularly for minorities, a key Democratic constituency.
Republicans see this as a power grab. They argue that the changes happening at the state level are reverting back to the pre-pandemic baseline. And during the pandemic, voting laws were expanded nationally. And they argue that the laws in states like Georgia, which Democrats are calling Jim Crow 2.0, are actually no more restrictive than the voting laws in a state like Delaware or New York, where two of the nation's most prominent Democrats come from. Regardless, this voting legislation is going nowhere. Republicans are uniformly opposed. And while Democrats are united in support of the voting reform changes, there are not enough votes in order to change the Senate rules to overcome a Republican filibuster.
As long as the filibuster exists, it will be nearly impossible to pass any kind of electoral reforms that could help Democrats push back on the tide of a system that largely benefits Republicans today. The US political system is structured in favor to benefit the more rural areas, and Republicans largely dominate in rural areas.
So knowing this bill will be blocked, why hold the vote at all? Well, this is a hugely important issue for the Democratic base and for the Democratic Party who worried about being locked out of power for the next 10 years. By holding the vote, Majority Leader Schumer hopes to pressure two moderate democratic holdouts and draw a contrast between them and the rest of the party. And he wants to send a message to the activist base that they support them, even though the Democrats are not united. The end result will probably be a failure to act and also further alienation of the two moderate holdouts, who Biden also needs their support on his fiscal policy bill, the Build Back Better bill, which is currently stalled until least March and probably beyond that.
Voting reform bill stalls in Congress, frustrating Democrats
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, discusses the voting reform bill.
What is the outlook for a voting reform bill passing Congress?
Well, it's not great. Congress is adjourned for the year without pushing something that's been considered a big priority for Democrats all year, which is voting reform. Voting reform is considered a critical priority because a number of Republican states after the 2020 election have moved to roll back some of the law changes that made it easier for people to vote during the pandemic. Democrats think that these laws make it harder to vote and in particular, disenfranchise minority voters. So Democrats have been working on a compromise bill that would change how congressional districts are drawn, they expand opportunities to vote early, and generally make it easier for people to vote while also reinstating some restrictions on law changes in states where there's a history of discrimination against Black voters.
The problem is Republicans don't support it, and it takes 60 votes to pass anything in the US Senate. There was some hope the Democrats would be able to move this bill through an expedited process that would require only a simple majority in the Senate, 50 votes, but there's a handful of Democrats that still oppose changing the filibuster rules under almost any circumstances, including for voting reform.
The outlook isn't much better next year, which means that politicians at the state level will continue to have the ability to draw their own congressional districts and decide what the rules are for voting are going to be in those states. This will be a particularly sore point for Democratic leadership next year, as many Democrats are convinced that Republicans are going to take control of the House of Representatives in 2022 and make voting even more difficult going forward.
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- Voting reform bill will likely be blocked, but still a key issue for Democrats - GZERO Media ›
- The history of Black voting rights in America - GZERO Media ›