Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

N.Y. shouldn't wait for Congress —  it can pass its own voting rights law

John Lewis, Voting Rights Act

New York should honor the late John Lewis by passing voting rights legislation in his memory, writes William Fowler.

Rick Diamond/Getty Images

Fowler is on the communications staff of the New York City Campaign Finance Board, but the views here are his own.


"Democracy is not a state. It is an act," John Lewis declared in his final address to the nation, published last month on the day of his funeral. "The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it."

Last week marked 55 years since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. Yet millions of Americans, including many New Yorkers, have still effectively lost their right to vote because of changes to local voting laws and administrative practices that disenfranchise people and are not subject to any state or federal oversight.

This is one important way that New Yorkers can honor the legacy of Lewis, the icon of the civil rights movement who went on to represent Atlanta in Congress for 34 years: Press their lawmakers in Albany to pass legislation reinstating a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, invalidated by the Supreme Court in 2013, that protected voters from many of these types of discriminatory actions.

The provision, known as "preclearance," required states and parts of states with a history of suppressing minority voting rights to obtain permission from the Justice Department or a federal court before changing anything to do with how their elections were administered. The court ruled the law's formula for deciding which places were subject to preclearance was out of date and did not account for voting rights improvements in some places.

That rationale, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in her dissent, was akin to "throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet." Discarding your protection against a persistent problem, in other words, will assure that problem's return.

And, to Ginsburg's point, voter suppression is raining down across the country, including New York.

Twenty-five states have introduced hundreds of measures that make it more difficult to vote in the past decade, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Examples include stricter voter ID laws, the purging of voter rolls, the closing of poll places and new challenges to eligibility.

"We may no longer have to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar in order to cast a ballot," former President Barack Obama remarked in eulogizing Lewis at his funeral. "But even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting — by closing polling locations, and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws, and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, even undermining the Postal Service in the run-up to an election that is going to be dependent on mailed-in ballots so people don't get sick."

While New York does not have a voter ID law, thousands of New York City voters saw their names purged from the voter rolls without notice in 2016, had their polling places changed without notice in 2017, and watched last year as a limited rollout of early voting poll sites was found to favor affluent white voters. As recently as this year's primary, in June, one in five voters in New York's 12th Congressional District had their ballots invalidated over postmarking issues out of the voters' control.

These are all issues that may have been prevented had there been preemptive oversight measures in place.

Nationally, lawmakers and advocates are calling for an overhaul of the Voting Rights Act. The House last year passed legislation, and has recently decided to name it after Lewis, that would create a new way to determine what places have violated minority voting rights so extensively that all their election laws should require federal approval.

States also have a role to play in protecting against voter suppression and increasing the pressure for this federal legislation, and New York should do its part. One path is to pass the legislation sponsored by state Rep. Latrice Walker and renamed the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of New York by a fellow Democrat from Brooklyn, state Sen. Zellnor Myrie. The bill would establish preclearance by requiring localities to seek approval from the state attorney general before changing any voting procedures.

"Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble," John Lewis famously and frequently said. We now have an opportunity to make some good trouble of our own, by calling on state legislators to pass this legislation and provide more oversight of New York elections and prevent voter suppression.

Read More

Why Doing Immigration the “White Way” Is Wrong

A close up of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement badge.

Getty Images, Tennessee Witney

Why Doing Immigration the “White Way” Is Wrong

The president is granting refugee status to white South Africans. Meanwhile, he is issuing travel bans, unsure about his duty to uphold due process, fighting birthright citizenship, and backing massive human rights breaches against people of color, including deporting citizens and people authorized to be here.

The administration’s escalating immigration enforcement—marked by “fast-track” deportations or disappearances without due process—signal a dangerous leveling-up of aggressive anti-immigration policies and authoritarian tactics. In the face of the immigration chaos that we are now in, we could—and should—turn our efforts toward making immigration policies less racist, more efficient, and more humane because America’s promise is built on freedom and democracy, not terror. As social scientists, we know that in America, thinking people can and should “just get documented” ignores the very real and large barriers embedded in our systems.

Keep ReadingShow less
Insider trading in Washington, DC

U.S. senators and representatives with access to non-public information are permitted to buy and sell individual stocks. It’s not just unethical; it sends the message that the game is rigged.

Getty Images, Greggory DiSalvo

Insider Trading: If CEOs Can’t Do It, Why Can Congress?

Ivan Boesky. Martha Stewart. Jeffrey Skilling.

Each became infamous for using privileged, non-public information to profit unfairly from the stock market. They were prosecuted. They served time. Because insider trading is a crime that threatens public trust and distorts free markets.

Keep ReadingShow less
Supreme Court Changes the Game on Federal Environmental Reviews

A pump jack seen in a southeast New Mexico oilfield.

Getty Images, Daniel A. Leifheit

Supreme Court Changes the Game on Federal Environmental Reviews

Getting federal approval for permits to build bridges, wind farms, highways and other major infrastructure projects has long been a complicated and time-consuming process. Despite growing calls from both parties for Congress and federal agencies to reform that process, there had been few significant revisions – until now.

In one fell swoop, the U.S. Supreme Court has changed a big part of the game.

Keep ReadingShow less