This week, all 50 Republicans in the U.S. Senate voted to block having a debate on the Freedom to Vote Act (S. 2747). After the vote, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke on the Senate floor, calling out Republicans for “implicit[ly] endors[ing] the horrid new voter suppression and election subversion laws pushed in conservative states across the country.”
After Republicans blocked the bill, President Biden said he would support reforming the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation. The Freedom to Vote Act has overwhelming support across the country including a bipartisan group of over 1,500 small business leaders who wrote to Congress this week encouraging their Senators to immediately pass the bill.
Meanwhile, state and local Republicans continued their assault on the freedom to vote and fair and equal representation, necessitating the need for the Senate to do whatever it takes to quickly pass this critical legislation.
In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott continued his attack on voting rights and implicitly endorsed election sabotage attempts by appointing Fort Worth attorney John Scott as the new Texas Secretary of State. Scott represented former President Trump in a lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania. At the same time, GOP state legislators approved redistricting maps that heavily favor Republican majorities and suppress minority voters’ influence, despite the fact that 95% of the population growth in Texas over the last decade was from communities of color.
In Wisconsin, Republican state legislators released new congressional maps to overrule the independent maps drawn by the non-partisan People’s Maps Commission created by Democratic Governor Tony Evers. The GOP gerrymandering would mean politicians would continue to get to pick their voters, not the other way around. Under the politician-drawn maps, two suburban Milwaukee Senate districts would be gerrymandered to become significantly safer for Republicans, misaligning the districts with the demographic makeup of the state.
In North Carolina, after two weeks of deliberation, Republican state Senators presented proposals to the public on how they plan to pick which voters they want to represent. The proposed maps heavily favor GOP candidates in at least 10 of the state’s 14 U.S. House seats and seek to deny fair and equal representation to Black voters in North Carolina.
These attacks on our democracy would be stopped with the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (S.4) and the Freedom to Vote Act (S.2747), which would prevent partisan gerrymandering and ensure voters have fair and equal representation, guarantee that every American has access to the ballot box, end dark money so billionaires can no longer buy our elections, and protect our elections from sabotage. With Senate Republicans placing their partisan politics over the majority voters and refusing to compromise on commonsense proposals, it is more crucial than ever that the Senate does whatever it takes to ensure Americans can make their voices heard in our democracy. Senate procedure can no longer be a barrier to protecting the fundamental freedom to vote.
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