On Saturday, civil rights leaders will hold a March on Washington on Voting Rights.
The march marks the 58th anniversary of the historic March on Washington led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963. More than 250,000 people attended the event where King delivered the famous “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial, where he called on Americans to fight against racial discrimination.
Spearheaded by the National Action Network, groups are expected to gather this Saturday on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and hold smaller marches across the country to demonstrate against voter suppression.
The march is needed because voting rights are under attack.
Across the country, Republican-led states have introduced bills that would lead to voter suppression, including banning ballot drop boxes and mail-in voting, reducing early voting days and hours, restricting who can get a mail-in ballot, prohibiting officials from promoting the use of mail-in ballots and even criminalizing the distribution of water to voters waiting in the long lines these laws create.
The march will come just days after House Democrats passed legislation that would strengthen a landmark civil rights-era voting law weakened by the Supreme Court over the past decade.
The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would restore voting rights protections that have been dismantled by the Supreme Court. Under the proposal, the Justice Department would again regulate new changes to voting laws in states that have racked up a series of “violations,” drawing them into a mandatory review process known as “preclearance.”
The practice was first put in place under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But it was struck down by a conservative majority on the Supreme Court in 2013, which ruled the formula for determining which states needed their laws reviewed was outdated and unfairly punitive. The court did, however, say that Congress could come up with a new formula, which is what the bill does.
A second ruling from the court in July made it more difficult to challenge voting restrictions in court under another section of the law.
The Democratic-sponsored voting rights bill was approved Tuesday on a 219-212 vote, with no Republican support.
But the measure faces dim prospects in the Senate, where Democrats do not have enough votes to overcome opposition from Republicans, who have rejected the bill as “unnecessary” and a Democratic “power grab.”
Democrats have a slim chance of enacting any voting legislation before the 2022 midterm elections, when some in the party fear new GOP laws will make it harder for many Americans to vote.
The House bill is a step toward progress in the quest to resist voting restrictions advanced in Republican-led states. The March on Washington on Saturday and other actions are needed to pressure congress to pass legislation to protect voting rights.
(Reprinted from the Philadelphia Tribune)
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