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Senate Dems Reintroduce Bill to 'Restore Critical Safeguards' of Voting Rights Act
One advocate said the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is "critically important for Congress to pass at a moment in our history when the freedom to vote is under attack in our nation."
Feb 29, 2024
Civil and voting rights advocates on Thursday cheered the reintroduction of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, legislation its sponsors say will "update and restore critical safeguards of the original Voting Rights Act."
Introduced by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), S.B. 4—a companion to H.R. 14, introduced last September—is named in honor of John Lewis, a late civil rights icon and longtime Georgia congressman. Republicans filibustered the previous iteration of the bill.
"In our nation, there's no freedom more fundamental than the right to vote," said Durbin. "But over the past several years, there has been a sustained effort to chip away at the protections guaranteed to every American under the Voting Rights Act. That's why we've joined together today to reintroduce a bill that would not only restore the protections of the Voting Rights Act, but strengthen it."
We just re-introduced the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. I’m joined by @SenSchumer, @SenatorWarnock, and civil rights group leaders now.
Our message it’s clear: we must ensure that democracy works for all of us. https://t.co/SH7ujaLfjw
— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) February 29, 2024
Warnock said: "I was Congressman Lewis' pastor, but he was my mentor and hero because he believed voting is a sacred undertaking that's about more than a person's voice, it's about their humanity. That's why this legislation is more important than ever, because the fight to protect voting rights and voting access for every eligible American remains unfinished and even worse, so much of the progress Congressman Lewis fought for is being rolled back."
NAACP Legal Defense Fund president Janai Nelson called the bill "a vital piece of legislation that will safeguard the fundamental right to vote by strengthening and restoring the Voting Rights Act, one of the most impactful civil rights laws in our nation's history."
"It is fitting that this critical legislation is put forward as we approach the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when Black Americans—including civil rights hero John Lewis—endured brutal state-sponsored violence while marching for basic rights, which led to the enactment of the Voting Rights Act."
"The fight to protect voting rights and voting access for every eligible American remains unfinished and even worse, so much of the progress Congressman Lewis fought for is being rolled back."
The landmark VRA was meant to ensure that state and local governments could not "deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color."
However, the VRA has been eroded in recent decades by Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country, including with restrictions on voter registration, reduction in early voting options, and voter identification laws. These measures disproportionately disenfranchise minority voters, and some GOP officials have admitted that they are intended to give Republican candidates an electoral edge.
In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a major blow to the VRA in Shelby County v. Holder, which eviscerated a key section of the law that required jurisdictions with a history of racist disenfranchisement to obtain federal approval prior to altering voting rules. In 2021, the nation's high court voted 5-4 in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committeeto uphold Arizona's voting restrictions—even as Chief Justice John Roberts acknowledged that they disproportionately affect minorities.
"Since Shelby and more recently Brnovich v. DNC made it even harder to challenge discriminatory voting laws, states have continued to limit access to the ballot and use the redistricting process to dilute Black voters' voices," Nelson asserted. "States that were formerly protected—including Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas—are all places where LDF has been forced to bring recent litigation to challenge unlawful racial discrimination in voting."
Common Cause president Virginia Kase Solomón asserted that the protections proposed in the new bill "are critically important for Congress to pass at a moment in our history when the freedom to vote is under attack in our nation."
"A bedrock of our democracy, the freedom to vote has been under sustained assault since the 2020 election with dozens of anti-voter laws passed in states all across the country to make it harder for Americans—particularly in Black and brown communities—to have a say in choosing their elected leaders," she added.
Arturo Vargas, CEO of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, said in a statement that "in the Shelby decision, the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged that there is still discrimination in our nation's electoral process—and this bill would provide strong and robust safeguards to combat it."
"We urge Congress to work in a bipartisan manner to pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and help make our democracy more responsive to all of our nation's voices," he added.
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Supreme Court Rejects Alabama Bid to Impose Racially Rigged Congressional Map
As the Alabama ACLU noted, the state must now create a second district "where Black voters have an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice by the 2024 elections."
Sep 26, 2023
In a ruling hailed by civil rights defenders as a "win for Black voters," the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday
declined to intervene in a case in which Alabama Republicans are openly defying a federal court's order to redraw the state's racially gerrymandered congressional map.
Evan Milligan, the lead plaintiff in the case, applauded Tuesday's ruling—in which no justices publicly dissented—as a "victory for all Alabamians" and "definitely a really positive step."
The state's Republican policymakers "basically said if you were Black in Alabama, your vote would count for less," Milligan told The Associated Press. "It was our duty and honor to challenge that."
U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) described the decision as "another big win for Alabama's Black voters."
Sherrilyn Ifill, the former head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), called the ruling "huge."
"I am darned near tearful with pride," she wrote on social media. "It takes so much to litigate these cases—often before hostile courts, with opposition that is unprincipled, and with naysayers all around."
The Brennan Center for Justice's Michael Li said in a statement that "after a string of remarkable victories, Black voters in Alabama are closer than ever to winning relief from discriminatory maps."
A 2022 order by a federal district court ruled that a new congressional map approved by Alabama's GOP-controlled Legislature and Republican Gov. Kay Ivey after the 2020 census diluted Black voting power because it contained just one majority African-American district. The court—which found that the maps violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment—ordered the state to create a new plan with two Black "opportunity districts."
Alabama appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in June ruled 5-4 in Allen v. Milligan—with right-wing Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh surprising many observers by joining their three liberal colleagues in the majority—to affirm the lower court's decision.
In response to Allen v. Milligan, Ivey convened a special legislative session to make a new map, which she approved in July, declaring that state lawmakers know "our people and our districts better than the federal courts or activist groups."
Despite court orders, Alabama Republicans' new congressional map—the Livingston Congressional Plan 3—lacked a second majority Black district. The map's sponsor, state Sen. Steve Livingston (R-8), said U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told him that he was "interested in keeping my majority."
A federal three-judge panel consisting of two appointees of former President Donald Trump and one appointee of former President Ronald Reagan subsequently blocked the new map, writing that "we are deeply troubled that the state enacted a map that the state readily admits does not provide the remedy we said federal law requires."
Republican Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen then asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the case again. In a brief, Allen lamented that Alabama "has been maligned as engaging in 'open rebellion'" for defying multiple federal court orders.
The justices' denial on Tuesday allows an effort to replace the rigged map to continue.
On Monday, a special master appointed by the district court submitted three proposals for a new congressional map in Alabama. One of them will be chosen as the state's map for the 2024 elections. A three-judge panel has tentatively scheduled an October 3 hearing to consider the maps.
LDF president and director-counsel Janai Nelson said on social media that "all maps proposed by the special master would allow Black Alabamians the opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice in two congressional districts in the state."
Tuesday's ruling follows the Supreme Court's June decision to allow the redrawing of Louisiana's racially gerrymandered congressional map—a move that will add a second majority-Black district in the Southern state where 1 in 3 residents are African-American.
The ruling also comes amid a battle over Florida's congressional map, drawn by the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis—a 2024 presidential candidate—and approved last year by the state's GOP-controlled Legislature. Earlier this month, a state judge ruled that the redistricting plan is an unconstitutional dilution of Black voters' ability to vote for the legislator of their choice and ordered the map redrawn.
The case will now head to the Florida Supreme Court, where a majority of justices are DeSantis appointees.
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'Huge Surprise' as US Supreme Court Declines to Further Gut Voting Rights Act
The ACLU of Alabama's legal director said the key takeaway is the "acknowledgment that the Alabama Legislature knowingly continued its legacy of drawing illegal voting districts that disenfranchise Black voters."
Jun 08, 2023
In a Thursday move that shocked voting rights advocates and legal experts, two right-wing members of the U.S. Supreme Court joined the three liberal justices for a ruling that sided with Black voters challenging Alabama's latest congressional map that was racially gerrymandered by Republican legislators.
With the majority opinion—written mainly by Chief Justice John Roberts and backed by Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Sonia Sotomayor—the Voting Rights Act (VRA) dodges a bullet, as a pair of Politico reporters put it.
Slate's Mark Joseph Stern tweeted that "this is a HUGE surprise and a major voting rights victory," also noting that the high court's decision in Allen v. Milligan is "a boon to Democrats' chances" of retaking the U.S. House of Representatives in 2024.
"This fight was won through generations of Black leaders who refused to be silent, and while much work is left, today we can move forward with these reaffirmed protections civil rights leaders fought and died for."
Davin Rosborough, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, declared that "the Supreme Court rejected the Orwellian idea that it's inappropriate to consider race in determining whether racial discrimination led to the creation of illegal maps. This ruling is a huge victory for Black Alabamians."
The national ACLU, its Alabama arm, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), Hogan Lovells LLP, and Wiggins Childs LLC sued Alabama in November 2021 on behalf of four individual voters—Evan Milligan, Shalela Dowdy, Letetia Jackson, and Khadidah Stone—along with Greater Birmingham Ministries and the NAACP of Alabama, arguing that the state's new congressional map is racially discriminatory under Section 2 of the VRA and the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Although a three-judge panel granted a preliminary injunction in January 2022 and gave Alabama an opportunity to redraw the districts before last year's election, the state then obtained a stay from the Supreme Court and the contested map was used.
The high court's new ruling in the case—previously known as Merrill v. Milligan—was celebrated by the plaintiffs, who said in a joint statement:
In 2021, Alabama lawmakers targeted Black voters by packing and cracking us so we could not have a meaningful impact on the electoral process. They attempted to redefine Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and shirk their responsibility to ensure communities of color are given an equal opportunity to elect their preferred candidates. Today, the Supreme Court reminded them of that responsibility by ordering a new map be drawn that complies with federal law—one that recognizes the diversity in our state rather than erasing it. This fight was won through generations of Black leaders who refused to be silent, and while much work is left, today we can move forward with these reaffirmed protections civil rights leaders fought and died for.
LDF senior counsel Deuel Ross, who argued the case before the court in October, explained that "Alabama attempted to rewrite federal law by saying race had no place in redistricting. But because of the state's sordid and well-documented history of racial discrimination, race must be used to remedy that past and ensure communities of color are not boxed out of the electoral process."
"While the Voting Rights Act and other key protections against discriminatory voting laws have been weakened in recent years and states continue to pass provisions to disenfranchise Black voters, today's decision is a recognition of Section 2's purpose to prevent voting discrimination and the very basic right to a fair shot," Ross continued.
\u201cBREAKING: The US Supreme Court just rejected Alabama's gerrymandered congressional map, ruling the map violates the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting strength of Black voters. \n\nCongrats to @NAACP_LDF on this major win for voters!\u201d— Common Cause (@Common Cause) 1686236228
Tish Gotell Faulks, the ACLU of Alabama's legal director, said that "the key takeaway from today's decision is the court's acknowledgment that the Alabama Legislature knowingly continued its legacy of drawing illegal voting districts that disenfranchise Black voters."
"Though we were victorious today, history shows us that lawmakers will erect many more hurdles before every Alabamian, irrespective of their race, can vote for representatives that reflect their beliefs, values, and priorities," Jones warned. "Efforts remain underway from Montgomery to Jackson to Baton Rouge, and elsewhere across the country to minimize, marginalize, and eliminate the ability of Black and Brown people to have a voice in their communities. Our communities then—as now—understand that the fight to uphold our civil rights is a daily pursuit. We will persist."
The Campaign Legal Center (CLC), which has been involved in several lawsuits challenging rigged election maps and filed a friend-of-the-court brief for this case, also welcomed the Thursday decision while highlighting ongoing attacks on voting rights.
"When self-interested politicians draw maps that suit their own needs instead of the needs of their community, our democracy becomes less inclusive and accountable," said CLC senior vice president Paul Smith. "We are heartened that the Supreme Court upheld Section 2 of the VRA, one of the most important tools available to ensure every voter, particularly Black and Brown voters who have historically been denied the freedom to vote, has an equal voice in our democracy."
"While this ruling is a step in the right direction," Smith added, "we will continue to fight tirelessly alongside our local allies in Alabama and across the country to challenge racially discriminatory voting maps in court and develop innovative policy solutions that protect and expand the freedom to vote for every American."
Pointing to Shelby v. Holder, Kareem Crayton, senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice's Democracy Program, stressed that the new decision "still leaves us with a weakened tool of enforcement. Ten years ago, this court ended the most effective part of the legislation, preclearance, and in 2021, made it very hard to use Section 2 to challenge racially discriminatory voting rules."
"Congress can and should step in to protect fair access to voting and representation for all," according to Crayton. "Our legislators must pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act."
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