By: Miriam Edelman
On July 17, 2024, the John Lewis National Day of Commemoration and Action will occur across the United States. Honoring voting rights icon John Lewis on the fourth anniversary of his death, the day supports four critical voting rights and democracy bills. One of the featured pieces of legislation is the Washington, D.C., Admission Act that would grant statehood to our nation’s capital. A major event will occur at the John A. Wilson Building in Washington, D.C.
Voting is fundamental to the nation’s government and democracy. On the U.S. House Floor in 2018, Lewis said, “In a democracy, the right to vote is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have.” As our system is based on U.S. citizens voting for their preferred candidates and ballot measures in elections, ensuring that all eligible people can vote is essential.
Born on February 21, 1940, in Troy, Alabama, Lewis dedicated his life to civil rights. He was the Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and one of the “Big Six” leaders during the Civil Rights Movement. He assisted in the planning of and was the youngest speaker at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, most famous for Dr. Martin Luther King , Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. After the March, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 became law, but the law but did not help Southern African-Americans vote. On March 7, 1965, Lewis co-led a march intended to go from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to protest the blocking of voting by African-Americans. At the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Alabama law enforcement employees attacked the marchers, injuring more than 60 of them. 25-year old Lewis sustained a skull fracture and thought he would die that day. The day became known as “Bloody Sunday.” Two weeks later, Lewis was near Dr. King at the front of 3,000 marchers when they left Selma for Montgomery.
The “Bloody Sunday” march from Selma, which is commemorated every year, led to the introduction of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), which is considered to be one of U.S. history’s most important civil rights pieces of legislation. This monumental law ensured that voting could not be denied due to race and ended discriminatory voting practices. On August 5, 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed it into law. By the end of 1965, 250,000 African-Americans registered to vote. In later years, the VRA was expanded and extended.
However, in recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the VRA. On June 25, 2013, through its decision in Shelby County v. Holder, the Court ruled the coverage formula was unconstitutional. VRA’s crucial Section five, which mandated that specific areas with a history of discrimination undergo preclearance of proposed voting changes so that minority voters would not be harmed, used that formula. As described in DCNOW’s “Never Too Old for Public Service” blog piece, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent in this case helped her become a pop-culture icon. Lewis decried the decision, writing that “The Supreme Court has stuck a dagger into the heart of the Voting Rights Act. Although the court did not deny that voter discrimination still exists, it gutted the most powerful tool this nation has ever had to stop discriminatory voting practices from becoming law.” In 2021, in Brnovich v. DNC, the Court weakened the VRA even further, making it harder to challenge discriminatory voting laws in Section two. That section prohibited states and local areas from creating a “qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure…in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color[.]”
Shelby’s importance is shown by the enactment of 94 (as of June 2023) new restrictive voting laws in 29 states since the decision. Eleven states (Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas) that had been subject to preclearance were the site of at least 29 laws. If preclearance had stood, the Justice Department or federal judges could have considered and perhaps barred around one-third of the new laws. Only a few of these 94 new laws have been stopped by courts or repealed.
After the Selma voting march, Lewis continued his public service-oriented career. After working for ACTION and then the National Consumer Co-op Bank, he served on the Atlanta, Georgia, city council from 1982 through 1986. Then, he was a U.S. Representative from Georgia from 1987 until he died in 2020. In 2011, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the U.S.’s highest civilian honor. Lewis became the first African-American legislator to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.
The John Lewis National Day of Commemoration and Action’s four bills are the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, Freedom to Vote Act, Native Americans Voting Rights Act and Washington DC Admission Act:
- The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, introduced by Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) (S. 4 – John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2024) and Representative Terri Sewell (H.R. 14 – John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2023), would restore the VRA’s pre-clearance and section two.
- The Freedom to Vote Act, introduced by Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) (S.1) and Representative John Sarbanes (D-MD) (H.R. 11), would increase voter registration, decrease removal of voters from voter rolls, create Election Day as a federal holiday, state that U.S. citizens have a right to vote regardless of criminal offense conviction (unless they serve a felony sentence), create some federal criminal offenses about voting, have stipulations regarding election security, set guidelines for Congressional redistricting, and address campaign finances.
- The Native Americans Voting Rights Act, which was introduced in the prior 117th Congress [as the Frank Harrison, Elizabeth Peratrovich, and Miguel Trujillo Native American Voting Rights Act of 2021 – introduced by Senator Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) (S. 2702) and Representative Sharice Davids (D-KS) (H.R. 5008)] but not the 118th Congress, would address voting of Native Americans and Alaska Native voters and voting on tribal areas.
- The Washington DC Admission Act, which was introduced by Senator Thomas Carper (D-DE) (S. 51) and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) (H. 51), would grant statehood to Washington, D.C., as Washington, Douglas Commonwealth.
Transformative Justice Coalition, Declaration for American Democracy, Black Voters Matter, Public Citizen, and other organizations organize the John Lewis National Day of Commemoration and Action on July 17, 2024. There will be events around the United States on this historic day.
What can you do to help protect democracy in the United States?
- Attend a John Lewis National Day of Commemoration and Action event in your area on June 17th. Come to the D.C. event in person or virtually on the first floor of the John A. Wilson Building (1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.) (Follow signs to the right entrance.) from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on July 17, 2024. Hear from major speakers there.
- Write your Members of Congress supporting these four bills.
- Write op-eds and Letters to the Editor regarding these four bills.
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