NATIONAL
AFL-CIO hails voting rights bill, urges swift Senate action
WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 4, 2021) — Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives passed sweeping voting, campaign finance disclosure and ethics legislation Wednesday over unanimous Republican opposition, and advanced to the U.S. Senate what would be the biggest overhaul of the U.S. election law in decades.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka hailed the passage of H.R. 1, the For the People Act, as necessary to protect free and fair elections amid continuing right-wing efforts to undermine confidence in elections and erect barriers to voting.
He urged to Senate to quickly approve the landmark legislation.
“If we fail to take action, our most fundamental freedoms will continue to be eroded,” Trumka said. “Yesterday’s passage of the For the People Act is a critical step forward, and the labor movement calls on the Senate to quickly send this bill to President Biden’s desk.”
H.R. 1 would require states to automatically register eligible voters, offer same-day registration, require 15 days of early voting and allow no-excuse mail balloting. It would restrict states from purging registered voters from their rolls, restore former felons’ voting rights, and mandate that nonpartisan commissions handle the redistricting process rather than partisan state legislatures, among other provisions.
In addition, the legislation would force the disclosure of donors to “dark money” political groups, through which anonymous wealthy interests currently buy political influence.
Trumka said American democracy itself is at stake.
“The American people are in a desperate struggle to preserve our right to free and fair elections, and this landmark legislation will give us the tools we need to defeat those seeking to gain power through intimidation, coercion and suppression,” he said.
For more information about H.R. 1, see the policy fact sheet here.
Also, watch this Vox primer on voter suppression and the erosion of voting rights since passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
PREVIOUSLY at The Stand — Join the virtual Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee on March 5-7 — On “Bloody Sunday,” March 7, 1965, then-25-year-old activist John Lewis led more than 500 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. They faced brutal attacks by state troopers, and footage of the violence collectively shocked the nation. Two weeks later, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and 3,200 civil rights protesters marched the 49 miles from Selma to the state capital, Montgomery — an event that galvanized support for Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act.