Today, by coincidence, two stories I’ve been working on about voting rights this summer went online. I hope you find the time to read them (found here and here) but in the interest of newsletter-ing, I wanted to share a little bit of what I learned while reporting.
The first story is a long-form piece in Talking Points Memo looking at the constellation of different advocacy groups—both nonpartisan and partisan—trying to making voting rights a more salient political issue. For a long time, things like voter suppression and gerrymandering have been wonky issues mostly left to lawyers and the courts. But now, in 2018, there’s far greater recognition that defending democracy requires a more all-hands-on-deck strategy.
The landscape around voting rights advocacy has changed a lot in just the past two years, and I tried to take a step back and pull out some of the biggest developments. Here are a few:
Oregon was the first state to pass Automatic Voter Registration in 2015 (the cool kids call it ‘AVR’) — which is where a state’s DMV will automatically register you to vote when you apply or renew your driver’s license. Since then, 12 other states and D.C. have passed AVR; it’s an easy-to-implement policy that’s shown to markedly increase voter turnout.
When Republicans soared to power after the 2010 midterms, many states gerrymandered their voting maps to tilt in the GOP’s favor. In the past two years there’s been some serious grassroots and national energy directed towards the issue of redistricting, the next round of which comes up in 2021. This is Obama’s main priority since leaving the White House, and in Michigan for example there’s an extremely exciting citizen-led ballot initiative to get an independent redistricting commission established. (That effort was launched by a 27-year-old recycling program coordinator named Katie Fahey, who is pretty amazing.)
There’s also been a push in the last few years among the get-money-out-of-politics folks to join forces with the voting rights folks, to mobilize together under a broader democracy reform agenda.
To quote a bit from my story on this point:
David Donnelly, president of Every Voice — a nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog group — says “linking money-in-politics to voting rights has been a very important strategic shift” for them over the last few years. “We’ve pivoted to frame the issue less about getting money out, and more around bringing people back in,” he explains. “Legally, the landscape has also changed and we’re thinking about money-in-politics now more in terms of participation than prohibition.”
It’s a symbiotic relationship for the voting rights world, too. New polling released this summer showed that millennials especially resonate with messages of ending corporate campaign donations and super PACs. “Since Citizens United there’s been increasing consciousness about things that are suppressing the influence of ordinary citizens, and voting rights has been part of that,” says pollster Stan Greenberg. “People are very upset about it, and very supportive of things that make it easier to participate.” He adds that while voters “resent” politicians who try and limit the right to vote, the issue appears more politically motivating when included in the “larger framework” of reducing corporate money in politics.
It’s not just Republicans who gerrymander or suppress the vote. Democrats have their own sordid history with these things too. The way that it’s explained is that if you’re an elected official, that means you’ve basically figured out how to get elected. You might not think the system is fair, but you’ve learned how to play the game, and you might not feel so great about having an influx of new voters come in that you don’t know very well, and that your consultants/strategists don’t know very well. You also might not be thrilled about passing laws that ban the kinds of corporate donors who helped you get into office.
But there are some encouraging signs that Democrats might face greater consequences for these types of things going forward. This past summer a New Mexico Democrat named Debbie Rodella, who has served in her state’s legislature for the past 25 years, was defeated in a primary by double-digits. She tried to block two bills last year that would have made it easier for New Mexicans to vote, and her opponent, Susan Herrera, highlighted that in her campaign.
Anyway that’s just a brief snapshot of the piece..
If you’re still with me, the second story I published is an Intercept deep-dive into felon disenfranchisement in Florida, a state that effectively bars one in 10 eligible voters from casting a ballot, and more than 20 percent of black voters. This is thanks to a constitutional provision passed in 1868. Florida voters have a chance to change that this November, potentially restoring the right to vote to *1.5 million* citizens who were convicted of a felony but have completed their criminal sentences. I explain more of the history behind felon disenfranchisement, and why Florida is the most notorious state in the country in this regard.
If it passes, Amendment 4 would restore the right to vote to all disenfranchised former felons, with the exception of those convicted of murder or a sex offense. I also talked to the president of the Florida state affiliate of the National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws about what it means to exclude the more than 70,000 registered sex offenders from this historic ballot initiative.
Thanks for reading. Grateful to learn, report, and share with all of you.