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HOMEPAGE
Opinion


HERE’S HOW THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION CAN STILL MAKE PROGRESS ON VOTING RIGHTS

OVERCOME

Activists braved state-sanctioned violence when they marched on Selma 58 years
ago. The fight for equal access to the ballot is not yet over.

ROTIMI ADEOYE

Published Mar. 06, 2023 3:54AM ET 

opinion

JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS



March 7, 1965, was the apotheosis of the civil rights movement. The brutality of
slavery, the collective trauma of the Civil War, and the oppression of Blacks in
the South all met on the concrete of Edmund Pettus Bridge as activists marched
for the right to vote.

Though lacking guns and bullets, the young revolutionaries led by John Lewis and
the Rev. Hosea Williams marched, carrying with them the weapon of conviction. In
the face of the zeitgeist of the 1960s—which held that the federal government
shouldn’t enact legal protections for Black voters in the South—these civil
rights activists were undeterred and refused to back down.

They believed that the dream of a multi-racial democracy—proclaimed by a Baptist
pastor from Georgia on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial less than two years
earlier—could, and should, become reality.


 * MLK WAS NO MODERATE, HE WANTED A ‘RADICAL REVOLUTION’
   
   COGNIZANT CITIZENSHIP
   
   ROTIMI ADEOYE
   
   

The marchers on the bridge knew they would be met with whips, dogs, fire hoses,
and violence all sponsored by the state, but they were not going to be turned
around. As they bravely faced America’s demons they sang, “no matter what may be
the test, may God take care of you.” It’s been 58 years since the march in Selma
that became known as “Bloody Sunday,” where activists marched to pressure the
president and Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965.



Since then, America has made immense progress in protecting the right to vote,
but there’s still much more President Joe Biden and federal agencies can do to
expand voting access to millions of Americans.

On March 7, 2021, President Biden issued an executive order on “Promoting Access
to Voting,” a groundbreaking EO that has the potential to make registration and
voting more accessible for millions of Americans, including communities
historically excluded from the political process. In the Voting Access EO, the
president directed federal agencies to “consider ways to expand citizens’
opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and
participate in, the electoral process.”

President Biden’s Voting Access EO is visionary. It puts the executive branch in
the driver’s seat of promoting voter registration.

But a recent study from over 50 organizations and some of the nation’s leading
civil rights groups titled, Strengthening Democracy: A Progress Report on
Federal Agency Action to Promote Access to Voting, highlights how much of the
Voting Access EO still needs to be implemented. It also lays out what the Biden
administration still has to do to help ensure every eligible voter has robust,
easy, and equal access to the ballot box.


 * DEMS NEED TO WIN STATE ELECTIONS TO SAVE THE CONSTITUTION
   
   VOTE LOCAL, NOW
   
   ROTIMI ADEOYE
   
   

Laura Williamson, the Associate Director of Democracy at the progressive-leaning
think tank Demos, stated: “We decided to put out this report now because we are
halfway through the Biden administration and the right to vote continues to be
under assault. We need the federal government to do all they can to promote
access to the ballot.”

Since the current House of Representatives shows no interest in passing
meaningful federal legislation to restore the full power of the Voting Rights
Act of 1965—following the Supreme Court decisions of Shelby v. Holder and
Brnovich v. DNC which weakened the landmark voting rights law—it’s difficult to
see how the president can sign federal voting rights legislation into law. The
Voting Access EO is Biden’s way of showing voting rights are still a priority of
his administration. But this has come with successes and difficulties.

The 22-page report shows there’s been some progress in implementation of some of
the initial commitments required by the Voting Access EO.

For example, the Veterans Administration (VA) has begun working with state
election officials to secure National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA)
designations. This means VA facilities in a few states could have the ability to
become official voter registration locations through the NVRA—which implements
voter registration requirements for elections to federal offices. (Places like
the Department of Motor Vehicles also allow for voter registration under this
statute.)


 * AMERICAN STUDENTS BARELY KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT RECONSTRUCTION
   
   DON’T FEAR HISTORY
   
   ROTIMI ADEOYE
   
   

Still, opportunities of the Voting Access EO that would touch the most Americans
have yet to be seized.

The Department of Education (DOE) promised to provide a toolkit to institutions
of higher learning on ways they can assist with voter registration and voter
information. The department has still not issued this toolkit, nor has it
committed to integrating voter registration into the Free Application for
Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) process.

Almost 18 million students a year fill out a FAFSA application. According to the
most recent National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, 84 percent of Black
students, 74 percent of Hispanic students, and 75 percent of Native American
students complete the FAFSA. If the DOE fully implemented this FAFSA voter
registration plan, it would be a huge opportunity for the Biden administration
to bring young voters into our democracy.


 * DEMS NEED TO SHOW VOTERS A HEALTHY ECONOMY NEEDS DEMOCRACY
   
   HOW ABOUT BOTH?
   
   ROTIMI ADEOYE
   
   

“With any government-wide and even agency-wide action, implementation
understandably takes time,” Xavier Persad, a Senior Policy Counsel with the
ACLU, said. “But given the opportunity presented by this executive order, its
potential for significantly increasing participation in our democracy––agencies
must direct more resources toward achieving the recommendations of this report
as quickly as possible.”

Persad added, “We applaud the commitment to voting rights President Biden
demonstrated in issuing this vital executive order, and we look forward to
continuing to work with the administration to ensure a timely, robust
implementation.”

As we commemorate the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, it’s important to recognize
the progress that’s been made in the United States.

But if we want to continue to make our democracy stronger, the Biden
administration has to do all it can to promote voter registration. And that
starts with fully implementing the Voting Access Executive Order.




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Russia


RUSSIA BARS ITS OWN SHADOW ARMY REP IN EXPLOSIVE PUBLIC FEUD

‘BETRAYAL’

The spat between Putin’s military and shadow army has spiraled after accusations
that a representative of Yevgeny Prigozhin was denied access to a Russian war
base in Ukraine.

SHANNON VAVRA

National Security Reporter

Published Mar. 06, 2023 12:48PM ET 


SPUTNIK/PAVEL BEDNYAKOV/POOL VIA THIRD PARTY



A representative for Wagner Group boss Yevgeniy Prigozhin was reportedly denied
access to Russia’s military command in Ukraine Monday, in the latest sign that
Moscow is sidelining Prigozhin’s mercenary fighting group in the war in Ukraine.

The apparent snub comes as Prigozhin pleads with Moscow to provide Wagner Group
with ammunition it desperately needs in the war. The ammunition, though, has not
been delivered—an act Prigozhin said could either be “ordinary bureaucracy or
betrayal.”

“On March 5, I wrote a letter to the commander of the SMO grouping about the
urgent need to allocate ammunition. On March 6, at 8 a.m., my representative at
the headquarters had his pass cancelled and was denied access,” Prigozhin in a
Telegram post, according to a Reuters translation.

Wagner Group fighters asked Russia for more ammunition in February, noting that
Wagner Group mercenaries were dying unnecessarily in Ukraine as they try to
fight off a Ukrainian advance in Bakhmut.



The delays and the latest denial to the Wagner representative has raised
questions for Prigozhin about whether Russia—over a year into a war that has no
end in sight—is willing to use Wagner as scapegoat in case it loses the war.

“What if they [the Russian authorities] want to set us up, saying that we are
scoundrels—and that's why they are not giving us ammunition, not giving us
weapons, and not letting us replenish our personnel, including [recruiting]
prisoners,” Prigozhin said in a video, referencing recent measures Russia has
established to prevent Wagner Group from rounding up prisoners to run on
missions in Ukraine with little to no training.


 * WAGNER BOSS APPEARS TO ISSUE THREAT TO KREMLIN OVER BAKHMUT
   
   SHAKEDOWN?
   
   ALLISON QUINN
   
   

Prigozhin warned that if the supplies are not provided to Wagner, Russia may
lose Bakhmut—and more—to Ukraine.

“If Wagner retreats from Bakhmut now, the whole front will collapse,” he said.

Russia has been trying and failing to seize Bakhmut for months, with significant
losses, according to the National Security Council.

Although Prigozhin is questioning whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is
trying to blame losses on Wagner, Putin has been leaning on Wagner Group
fighting as a way to make up for failings of Russia’s more conventional armed
forces, according to a previous White House National Security Council
assessment.

Wagner Group fighting has been “a bit more effective” than Russia’s forces, U.S.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters Monday.

In recent days, the focus of Wagner’s fighting has pushed toward Bakhmut from
the east and north, as Ukrainian fighters have retreated west of the Bakhmutia
river, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Even so, if Russia does prove victorious in Bakhmut, it likely won’t change the
direction of the war, Austin said Monday.

“If the Ukrainians decide to reposition in some of the terrain that’s west of
Bakhmut, I would not view that as an operational or a strategic setback,” Austin
said, according to Fox News, which was traveling with the secretary of defense.
“The fall of Bakhmut won’t necessarily mean that…the Russians have changed the
tide of this fight.”




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ALEC KARAM


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LAURA BRADLEY


THE 18 MOST EXCITING COMEDIES COMING TO TV THIS SPRING

THE DAILY BEAST


AOC’S MET GALA DRESS FUROR IS REALLY ABOUT PUBLIC TRUST

MELISSA DEROSA








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