Voting & Elections

In a landmark move to expand voting rights and bolster democratic participation, Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Senator Peter Welch (VT) today introduced the Inclusive Democracy Act of 2023. This groundbreaking legislation seeks to eliminate the discriminatory practice of felony disenfranchisement for federal elections, ensuring that all Americans, regardless of a criminal conviction, have the fundamental right to vote.  

Today, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) introduced the Inclusive Democracy Act of 2023, a bill to end felony disenfranchisement. This groundbreaking legislation seeks to eliminate the discriminatory practice of felony disenfranchisement for federal elections, ensuring that all Americans, regardless of a criminal conviction, have the fundamental right to vote. 

Several law professors as well as Colorado Common Cause and the Constitutional Accountability Center, which advocates for a progressive reading of the founding document, urged the state’s justices to bar Trump from the state’s ballot. The filing from Common Cause, a government watchdog group, called it “a great credit to prior generations of American political leaders” that the disqualification clause of the Constitution had so rarely been invoked — but argued this case rose to that standard. “The fact that the Disqualification Clause is so clearly implicated at this hour, then, is a proportionally great discredit to Mr. Trump himself, who allowed a lust for power to supersede his own Oath of Office and over two centuries of American political precedent,” the filing reads.

Top Grassroots Lobbyists Aaron Scherb, Common Cause

Jay Heck, executive director of voting rights advocacy organization Common Cause Wisconsin, says the introduction of the proposal will only serve to confuse voters ahead of next year’s elections. Under the bill, the administrator of the WEC would need to work with the secretary of state to transition election responsibilities by June 30, 2024 —a little more than four months before the presidential election. “The thing that’s most disturbing about it is it’s creating, deliberately, a chaotic, confusing situation going into an election year,” Heck says. “It’s the worst type of legislation, it’s cynical and damaging to democracy.”

Common Cause Maryland and others see a troubling pattern. You make friends with party insiders and your path to the State House is far easier. You get the appointment and then special interest money steered your way keeps you in the job. Other vacancies from state attorney general to comptroller to U.S. Senate seats get a special election (under a 2016 state constitutional amendment ratified by voters).