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(Lace on Race and the Lace on Race Center for Racial Equity are firmly non-partisan; everything is measured against and aligned with our North Star: to lessen and mitigate the harm endured by Black and brown people, perpetuated by white people and white supremacy.)

From Lace:

This piece from Christina is a good example of how only seemingly neutral and unbiased and even-handed legislation and court rulings can have devastating effects on marginalized populations. The lack of press coverage is, I feel, no accident. The erosion of hard won rights and gains are real; it is important for us to see context and history as to how this is happening, so we can confront, challenge, and push back against this chipping away.

The queries below are meant to be considered and answered here. I will weigh in after a good number of comments are posted up. All norms apply. No reacts.

Why does this matter? Is it ‘only’ about voting?

Consider power dynamic, particularly considering states with ‘majority minority’ populations, and in other states where that fear is real for white people. How does this element inform this discussion?

Does your service to our North Star include voting rights for marginalized people?

How can you do more?

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On March 2, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a consolidated pair of cases that came out of Arizona, by which the dominant white caste seeks to further overturn the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA). In 2013, the Court in Shelby County v. Holder overturned the pre-clearance requirement of the VRA, which had required advance federal approval of new voting policies from states with a history of violating the rights of minority voters. The VRA was, over 50 years, successful enough at protecting minority voting rights that the Court judged the problem sufficiently cured, and ruled that a state’s right to act unrestrictedly within our federal system was now more significant than the national government’s right to protect minority voters.

Since Shelby, an alarming number of states have gone on a binge of restrictive voting legislation. Stacey Abrams and less well-known voting rights activists had to work nonstop in Georgia and other states to help mostly Black and brown voters surmount these barriers in the 2020 general election. Now Georgia and other states are working overtime to close the “loopholes” that allowed these activists to help minority voters access the ballot box.

There is little reason to believe that the Court will reverse course to protect minority voting rights in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (19-1257) and Arizona Republican Party v. Democratic National Committee (19-1258). Odds are the VRA will be further diminished, if not completely overturned.

Which brings us to the current 117th Congress. In this new Congress, a sweeping bill, H.R. 1, the “For the People Act”, has been submitted to various House committees. The Court has frequently disclaimed the right to rule on voting issues, as there is not much explicitly required or prohibited by the Constitution; they claim that only Congress can take action. Now Congress is doing that, with this massive bill encompassing voting, campaign finance, and government ethics.

H.R. 1 sets federal voting standards for registration, early voting, absentee (mail) voting, and more. It makes paper ballots and the verification trail they create mandatory. It makes a sworn affidavit of identity a legal alternative to various state voter identification requirements. H.R. 1 covers election integrity, with a critical section on redistricting, which will be done this year based on the 2020 Census and will affect elections for the next ten years. States would be required to have an independent redistricting commission, and the bill establishes an oversight role for the courts. H.R. 1 also mandates national standards for the purging of voter rolls, such as banning non-voting as a reason for removal, and requiring both public notice of the process and individual notice of any removal.

All of these provisions would have a significant and positive impact on voting equity for Black and brown citizens.

Gerrymandering — the redistricting tactic of drawing politically motivated boundaries — has been used to suppress the Black vote since Reconstruction. Rep. Robert Smalls of South Carolina, whom we researched during Black History Month, won his 1884 victory in a district which was 80% Black; in Texas, Congressional District 35 contains parts of both Austin and San Antonio, despite those cities being 80 miles apart! Voter ID compliance can cost $75-$175 in records fees, travel, lost time, and so these laws disenfranchise low-income voters, who are disproportionately Black and brown. Older Black and Indigenous voters may not have proper documentation of their birth because their records were often deliberately mismanaged by racist government agencies.

And so on, and so on… To this day, there has never been a voting law that has affected white and non-white people equally.

Voting rights protections — some new, others restoring powers to the VRA by adapting to Supreme Court decisions — are still critical for BIPOC voters. The judicial standard for discrimination elevates intent over impact; that is, it must be proven that there was deliberate discriminatory intent. It’s pretty easy to write laws that appear neutral, and for voting regulations there is now the perfect straw man of “voter fraud”. As we have learned here at Lace on Race, there is no such thing as ‘neutrality’ in issues regarding race.

The white electorate is in a frenzy about this completely false, entirely fabricated calamity, resulting in hundreds of current bills in more than forty states proposed to “protect the sanctity of” and “restore faith in” our elections. Laws written to soothe and assuage this manufactured white fear are nothing more than camouflage for the completely real — and completely racist — white fear that if Black and brown people are not stifled at the polls, they will access the power to change the nation and dismantle white supremacy for good.

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