Photo: Michael Reynolds / EFE
For: Publisher
Martin Luther King Jr. Day comes this year at a key time for the protection of voting rights. The legislative achievements obtained by the civil rights leader are slowly disappearing in the midst of a climate of conspiracy and racism.
The idea was that On this date, at least two bills have been approved that reinforce the rights of the voter. The unyielding Republican opposition in the Senate and the lack of support from two Democratic legislators have the measure on the verge of failure.
One reinstates federal surveillance established by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a clause annulled by the Supreme Court of Justice in 2013. The second establishes a federal guide to annul the measures that several states are taking to suppress the African-American vote, with the excuse of preventing the repetition of an alleged electoral fraud invented by former President Donald Trump.
The low popularity at this time of President Joe Biden does not help to put pressure on reticent senators. Chances are not good. There is a project circulating among moderates that protects the independence of electoral authorities, but leaves standing the main obstacles created at the state level to hinder the vote.
Biden aptly compared the opponents of the bills to the slavers of the past. It is a call to the Democratic bases to motivate them in the face of the lack of support in Congress in the face of a serious electoral emergency.On this date it would be fair to ask what Martin Luther King would do at today’s crossroads in the face of setbacks in the voter law for which he fought so hard.
The Supreme Court of Justice eliminated federal control over electoral laws in six southern states and dozens of counties with a history of discrimination. Someone said then that the presidency of the Afro-American in Barack Obama was proof that the context of electoral racism had changed.
As soon as the ruling came out, the states in question took the opportunity to do what they were forbidden. Electoral changes to disempower minority voters intensified after the false claim of fraud in 2020. The political climate became radicalized to the point of organizing pressure on schools to eliminate slavery and diversity from school education.
The majority of Americans back provisions of the laws that Republicans oppose, according to a Politico poll. It is time to act through lawsuits, marches, boycotts, voting campaigns and everything permitted by law to defend what has been obtained.
We believe that Martin Luther King Jr. today would answer that we must chain our arms and cross the Selma bridge again to defend democracy.