{"id":24371,"date":"2021-12-01T11:04:10","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T16:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uusj.net\/wp1\/?p=24371"},"modified":"2021-12-01T19:48:47","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T00:48:47","slug":"voting-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uusj.net\/wp1\/voting-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Voting Rights and Senate Staffers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Defending Our Democracy Action Team last month stepped up its advocacy for the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act by focusing on moderate Republican senators.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The team met with staff from\u00a0 senators\u00a0 in Alabama, Alaska, Maine, Louisiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. All the senators agreed that voting is a fundamental right. The main argument DAT heard was about \u201cfederal overreach\u201d —\u00a0 the new regulations are too restrictive and states should have more flexibility in their implementation.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Freedom to Vote Act will make it easier for all citizens to vote; end gerrymandering so that electoral districts are fairly drawn; and reduce the impact of big money in politics. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act will restore the full protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act against discriminatory voting laws.\u00a0 Both measures have been stymied in the Senate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Senator Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)\u00a0 has been the lone Republican supporting the John Lewis Act. Staff in her office said she wants\u00a0 to gain additional partisan support. Her concern with the Freedom to Vote Act is that it is too prescriptive. Smaller towns in Alaska don\u2019t need or want 15 ten-hour days of early voting.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Staff from Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) said the senator agrees with making it easier to vote but does not want undue burdens placed on the states. Sen. Collins\u00a0 supports campaign finance disclosure, disclosure of foreign contacts, and resources for election security. She is also concerned about federal mandates such as having polling places at each college campus, and the new John Lewis pre-clearance formula.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sen. Collins has worked on coming up with bi-partisan compromises on the John Lewis bill. DAT also heard from Sen. Rob Portman\u2019s office, that\u00a0 the Ohio Republican also supports coming up with a bi-partisan bill, and making it easier to vote.<\/span><\/p>\n

DAT had good success in combining its visits with members of the Immigration ActionTeam since some\u00a0 offices have the same staffer for both issues, and many constituents are interested in both areas. Last month, DAT was also successful in recruiting constituents to join in the meetings. The team finds adding constituents makes the meetings more powerful and effective. If you are interested in participating in future meetings, please email <\/span>Anna@uusj.org<\/span><\/a> for information on upcoming meetings. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Defending Our Democracy Action Team last month stepped up its advocacy for the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act by focusing on moderate Republican senators.\u00a0 The team met with staff from\u00a0 senators\u00a0 in Alabama, Alaska, Maine, Louisiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. All the senators agreed that voting is a … Continue reading Voting Rights and Senate Staffers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uusj.net\/wp1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uusj.net\/wp1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uusj.net\/wp1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uusj.net\/wp1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uusj.net\/wp1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24371"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/uusj.net\/wp1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24378,"href":"https:\/\/uusj.net\/wp1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24371\/revisions\/24378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uusj.net\/wp1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uusj.net\/wp1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uusj.net\/wp1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}