PHREdom to Vote: Summer 2023

By Adam Lioz, Founding Board Member of PHRE 

PHRE is out on summer tour, tabling at each venue with an organizational partner. This summer’s theme is voting rights, and we’re partnering with a set of nonprofits on the front lines of protecting and promoting the freedom to vote, especially for people of color.

Summer tour kicked off in Alabama – where right now (in 2023, not in the 1960s), the state is defying a Supreme Court ruling by refusing to draw congressional districts that comply with the Voting Rights Act and allow Black voters a fair chance to elect candidates that represent their needs.

The state is about 28% Black, but only one out of their seven districts (14%) can elect a candidate Black voters prefer – so it’s like a one-person, half-a-vote scenario.

Alabama’s stubborn stance against fair voting opportunities for Black residents is just one reason we’ve chosen voting rights as our summer theme. And one of our table partners, Alabama Forward, has been on the front lines protecting Black voters, including by two of their leaders serving as plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case.

This is not just happening in Alabama, but across the country. Put simply, Black voters and other people of color are facing the greatest assault on their voting rights since the Jim Crow era.

We, as a PHRE community, have the opportunity to help support organizations who are driving change to protect voting rights for people of color within their respective communities. Read on to learn more about what is happening around voting rights and ways you can get involved to protect voting rights.

What’s Happening on Voting Rights?

There are the many ways that powerful politicians have weakened voters of colors’ voices through the “redistricting” process. Every decade after the U.S. Census states have to redraw district lines for Congress and state legislatures to account for changes in population. Population growth over the past decade has been driven by people of color; so Black and brown communities should be getting more and more representation in the halls of Congress and in state capitols across the country. Yet after the 2020 Census, several states have crafted their district maps specifically to curb that influence.

Alabama is just one egregious example. Racial justice organizations have also challenged congressional maps in Louisiana, South Carolina and several other states; and the U.S. government even challenged Texas’ plan.

There’s also been a rash of voter suppression laws proposed and enacted across the country since 2020. These laws target the ways in which people of color have successfully participated during and after the pandemic, including rollbacks to early voting, restrictions on vote by mail, and more.

The unfortunate result of all this has been troubling disparities in turnout between white voters and voters of color – one indicator that these discriminatory laws are working as intended.

Why is this Happening Now?

Why now, nearly 60 years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), are we seeing such sustained and effective attacks on the freedom to vote?

First, for a full decade we haven’t had the full protections of the VRA. In June of 2013, the Supreme Court gutted the heart of the VRA in its Shelby County v. Holder decision. The Court functionally ended what was perhaps the most successful provision in any civil rights law in American history: the “preclearance” protection that required states and localities with a history of discrimination to get pre-approval from federal officials before changing their voting rules or practices. This was based on the simple principle that when it comes to a matter as fundamental as the right to vote an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

The Shelby decision unleashed a wave of voter suppression in states that were formerly covered by the preclearance protection. That wave has accelerated and spread since 2020, for a very specific reason. In 2020, voters of color made their voices heard through robust turnout, leading to some historic results such as the first Black and Jewish senators elected in Georgia. What followed was a familiar echo of U.S. history’s cycle of progress and retrenchment: a backlash rooted in white supremacy. Similar to the January 6th insurrection, those who fear an inclusive democracy where power is equitably shared have mobilized to protect their position in the nation’s hierarchy.

What Can We Do About It?

To protect voting rights we need to move forward on several fronts – and PHRE’s summer partners are doing just that.

First we need to fight off voter suppression laws in legislatures across the country. Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda is on the front lines in a state that recently enacted one of the worst anti-voter bills in the country and whose leadership is constantly looking to go even further down this path.

Next, we need to fight back in the courts and in the streets. As noted, Alabama Forward’s leaders are doing that through their participation in the Allen v. Milligan case about Alabama’s congressional districts. And the organization is laying the groundwork for future wins by building a sustained place for partners to collaborate around civic engagement.

NC PHRE partner Southern Coalition for Social Justice was counsel in another key Supreme Court case this term called Moore v. Harper. In that case SCSJ helped defend against a radical legal theory that could have stripped state courts of their important role in protecting voting rights for federal elections.

We can also move the ball forward in the states. PA Youth Vote (PHRE’s Pennsylvania partner) is working to make sure young people in Pennsylvania get and stay engaged in the political process. One exciting state-based strategy is to pass state voting rights acts that build upon the best part of the federal VRA. PHRE’s YEMSG partner NYCLU is at the forefront of this fight–working successfully to enact the New York Voting Rights Act in 2022, the first state VRA to feature a robust preclearance program.

Finally, Congress must protect voting rights across the country by restoring and strengthening the Voting Rights Act, enacting minimum standards for voting access so voters in Mississippi and Maryland all have multiple pathways to casting their ballots, and finally guaranteeing fair voting opportunities for Native Americans.

Look for our table at Dicks where we’re featuring the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), which is leading the fight in Congress for the Native American Voting Rights Act!