In this episode we welcome back three prior guests. Mary Nelson, Glennon Threatt and Dr. Janice Herbert Carter to talk to us about Voting Challenges for Election 2022. Mary Nelson is a lawyer and worked in the administration of the last Democratic Governor in Missouri. She was on the election round table from 2020. Glennon, a lawyer and former Federal Public Defender, joined us previously to discuss the trials against police officers who kill. And Janice, a Professor of Medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine, appeared for our discussion on COVID’s impact on the Black community. But, today we have them on because each lives in a part of the country with disenfranchisement of black voters is problem. Those states are Missouri, Alabama, and Georgia respectively.
Modern voter suppression issues
In 2013 in a case called Shelby v. Holder, The U.S. Supreme Court ripped away the most significant protections against voter suppression. Almost immediately after the decision states, particularly the former slave holding states in the South, began campaigns to disenfranchise Black voters. No tactic has been left untried in the effort to prevent Black people and other Brown folks from voting. Each year studies document the increasing and successful efforts to disenfranchise voters. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) documented the rise in Southern voter suppression at year seven. The Quakers Friends Committee did a similar analysis after eight years.
When Biden was elected President and sworn in after the attempted insurrection, many Black people hoped he would be able to push through a federal bill protecting the voting rights of all Americans. House leader, Nancy Pelosi, reaffirmed the commitment towards working on enactment of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Unfortunately, as yet the Act cannot get through the Senate.
Black people are still fighting for our constitutional right to vote. Even if the current Supreme Court majority is not interested in helping protect us, we will still fight to vote. Join us for our discussion on Voting Challenges for Election 2022.
If you need help with questions about how or where to cast your vote call Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Hotline: 866-Our- Vote.