American democracy is hanging in the balance. Several political activities are chipping away at the foundation of democracy; however, voting might be the most urgent.
The right to vote is considered a fundamental expression of democracy. If that is the case, we had a semblance of democracy for less than 50 years—from 1965 when the Voting Rights Act was passed until 2013 when the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act.
Around the country, Republican legislators are using the opening created by the Supreme Court and rapidly enacting laws to limit our ability to have free elections.
Only Congress can enact laws to restore and protect the ballot and restore democracy. To accomplish that, Democrats in the House of Representatives have passed The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and The For the People Act. But the Senate is not following suit.
If the right to vote is considered a fundamental expression of democracy … we have had a semblance of democracy for less than 50 years — from 1965 when the Voting Rights Act was passed, until 2013 when the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act.
Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock gave an impassioned speech on the floor of the Senate on December 14, imploring his colleagues in the Senate to act–to change the rules and pass these bills to preserve democracy. Excerpts from that speech are reprinted here.
… Last week, we in this Chamber made a change in the Senate’s rules in order to push forward something that all of us think is important. We set the stage to raise the Nation’s debt ceiling.
Yet as we cast that vote to begin addressing the debt ceiling, this same Chamber is allowing the ceiling of our democracy to crash in around us.
I have been hearing from my constituents. . . They are deeply worried.
And I submit that they are worried for good reason. They know their history. They are witnessing what is happening to our democracy in real time, and they see the handwriting on the wall. . .
In the face of this crisis, the question is this: Has this Chamber risen to the occasion to take on the issue of voting rights, which I submit is the central moral issue confronting this Congress in this moment?
If Democrats alone must raise the debt ceiling, then Democrats alone must raise and repair the ceiling of our democracy. How do we in good conscience justify doing one and not the other?
. . .We could not imagine changing the rules—that is, until last week, because last week, we did exactly that. Be very clear. Last week, we changed the rules of the Senate to address another important issue: the economy. This is a step—a change in the Senate rules—we haven’t been willing to take to save our broken democracy but one that a bipartisan majority of this Chamber thought was necessary in order to keep our economy strong. We changed the rules to protect the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government. We have decided we must do it for the economy but not for the democracy. . .
I feel like I am being asked to take a road that is a point of moral dissonance for me because while I deeply believe that both our democracy and our economy are important, I believe that it is misplaced to change the Senate rules only for the benefit of the economy when the warning lights on our democracy are flashing at the same time. . .
I happen to believe that our democracy is at least as important as the economy . . .
I stand here today because we are in a place where we are dealing with the consequence of misaligned values and misplaced priorities, and that is, for me, a serious problem because I lead Ebenezer Baptist Church, where John Lewis worshipped and where Dr. Martin Luther King preached. I asked myself all weekend as I wrestled with how I would vote — I asked myself, what would Dr. King do? I thought this week about Dr. King’s speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial — no, not the 1963 ‘‘I Have a Dream’’ speech but the one he gave the first time he spoke in front of the Lincoln Memorial in 1957, where he addressed what he called ‘‘all types of conniving methods’’ that were getting in the way of the free exercise of the constitutional right to vote. His rallying cry that day in 1957 was ‘‘Give Us the Ballot.’’
If Democrats alone must raise the debt ceiling, then Democrats alone must raise and repair the ceiling of our democracy. How do we in good conscience justify doing one and not the other?
I have to tell you that the most important thing that we can do in this Congress is to get voting rights done.
Voting rights are preservative of all other rights.
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Wornie Reed is Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies and Director of the Race and Social Policy Research Center at Virginia Tech University. Previously he developed and directed the Urban Child Research Center in the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University (1991-2001), where he was also Professor of Sociology and Urban Studies (1991-2004). He was Adjunct Professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine (2003-4). Professor Reed served a three-year term (1990-92) as President of the National Congress of Black Faculty, and he is past president of the National Association of Black Sociologists (2000-01).
This column first appeared online at What the Data Say and is shared here by permission.
