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A4 U.S. NEWS
Friday 8 March 2019

Battling over voting rights, Dems, GOP have 2020 in sight

By ERRIN HAINES WHACK to the passage of the fed-
AP National Writer eral Voting Rights Act of
WASHINGTON (AP) — Every 1965. That law in turn led to
election year, there’s heat- millions of black Americans
ed talk about voter access gaining access to the vote
and suppression. This year — increasing their political
congressional Democrats power with the election
are hoping to make it a of more black local, state
top-tier political fight. and federal leaders.
The Democrats are call- Schumer said he would sign
ing for new legislation and on to the current Voting
increasingly pressuring Rights Advancement Act
Republicans in both the introduced by Sen. Patrick
House and Senate, aiming Leahy. The Vermont Dem-
to highlight enduring re- ocrat’s bill would require
strictions that prevent some new election laws in some
voters from casting ballots states to be approved by
— and hoping to also ener- the Justice Department.
gize key parts of the party’s The Supreme Court struck
base of supporters. down a federal preclear-
In the House, Democrats ance requirement in 2013,
flexing their new major- saying it unfairly punished
ity muscles chose to make Southern states. Schumer
their first major piece of said Democrats would also
legislation — significantly In this pool image from video, Stacey Abrams delivers the Democratic party’s response to introduce automatic voter
numbered H.R. 1 — a bill President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019 from Atlanta. registration legislation in
that would make it easier Associated Press the Senate.
to register to vote. Senate make it an issue in the 2020 ey Abrams narrowly lost the state law to guard against “This new House Democrat
Democrats, who remain in campaigns. We Democrats governor’s race to Repub- voter fraud after an AP majority’s top priority is ap-
the minority, also intend to have to fight in this more lican Brian Kemp. Abrams analysis found 53,000 ap- parently assigning them-
make voting rights a top aggressive, stronger, fo- accused Kemp, as secre- plications of mostly black selves an unprecedented
priority. cused way.” tary of state, of improperly voters were held in pend- level of control over how
“We’re going to go on of- Voting access was a strong purging voters from the rolls ing status just before the they get elected to Wash-
fense on it,” Senate Dem- motivator for Democratic and limiting access to poll- midterm election. National ington D.C.,” McConnell
ocratic leader Chuck voters in the 2018 cam- ing places in rural parts of Republican leaders also in- said.
Schumer said in an inter- paign, including in Geor- the state. sist the issue is voter fraud, Unsurprisingly, that’s not
view. “We’re going to gia, where Democrat Stac- Kemp said he was following not suppression. how the Democrats see it.
Democratic leaders see Schumer contends that the
the Georgia results as evi- Republicans “don’t like it
dence that voters are con- when poor people, people
cerned and motivated to of color and students vote,
vote by the issue. Hoping and so they make it harder
to keep the momentum, for them to vote. ... That is
they’re eager to show not what our democracy is
their base, particularly the all about.”
African-Americans they’ll The Democratic leader ac-
need to win in next year’s knowledges the challenge
voting, that they’re com- for his party to actually pass
mitted to pushing hard for their voting-rights bills into
legislation. low. But he says his efforts
Schumer said he’ll be tar- are part of a long game,
geting three specific areas: focusing on where lever-
federal oversight of elec- age exists, such as in must-
tion laws in states with a pass legislation like the fed-
record of voter disenfran- eral budget.
chisement; automatic vot- Meanwhile, Democrats are
er registration and state- also busy working to docu-
hood for the District of Co- ment and investigate al-
lumbia. legations of voter suppres-
His comments coincide sion in the 2018 midterms.
with the 54th anniversary A House committee on
of Bloody Sunday, when Wednesday sent letters to
peaceful protesters were Georgia’s governor and
tear-gassed and beaten secretary of state asking
by Alabama state troop- for information on “recent
ers as they attempted to reports of serious problems
march across the Edmund with voter registration, vot-
Pettus Bridge in Selma on er access and other mat-
March 7, 1965. It was a ters affecting the ability of
major incident of the Civil people in Georgia to exer-
Rights movement, and led cise their right to vote.”q