Voting Rights

Stephen Spaulding, Common Cause Sr. Counsel for Policy & Government Affairs, discusses The For the People Act on ABC News Live the day before the bill was scheduled for markup in the Senate Rules Committee.

Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn reminds us, “ALEC has a long history of rigging the rules against everyday Americans while skirting ethics and tax laws.” And now, she adds, “ALEC…is working behind the scenes to restrict voting rights.” This week, more than 300 voting rights organizations and their allies, including Common Cause, Public Citizen, Fair Fight Action, Color of Change, the AFL-CIO, and the League of Women Voters, demanded that major corporations cut their financial ties with ALEC. 

“Having more voting rights lawyers at DOJ is extremely helpful, but as Attorney General Garland himself said, they also need Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the For the People Act to give DOJ the tools it needs,” said Aaron Scherb, director of legislative affairs for advocacy group Common Cause. ... Scherb, whose organization participates in the Deadline for Democracy effort, said the legislative process is inching ahead slowly, despite Manchin’s public rejection of the For the People Act. Advocates are hopeful grassroots pressure will convince lawmakers there is strong public support for reform. “There’s certainly a lot more activity happening behind the scenes, as well as a huge public push,” he said.

Previously, voter registration was halted 28 days before any election as a precaution against possible double-voting while county clerks updated registration rolls painstakingly by hand with paper and ink, said Mario Jimenez, a policy campaign manager with the progressive good-government group Common Cause New Mexico. That is no longer necessary with advances in electronic record keeping and technology that synchronizes voter registration records with state motor vehicle databases. Jimenez believes the switch to same-day registration, if adopted in future elections statewide, will expand voter access and participation in elections and improve the accuracy of voter registration rolls.

“Republican intransigence on voting rights is not an excuse for inaction and Senator Manchin must wake up to this fact,” said Karen Hobart Flynn, the president of Common Cause, a government watchdog group, which backs the bill. “If Senator Manchin thinks there should be more input from Republicans – as there was in last month’s Senate markup, when several Republican amendments were adopted by the committee – you do that by advancing the bill through the legislative process,” Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel for public policy and government affairs at Common Cause. “Senator Manchin should vote to advance the bill to a full floor debate, and not filibuster the bill with his Republican colleagues.”

The fight for voting rights does not end with an op-ed. The For the People Act (S. 1) has overwhelming bipartisan support nationwide and in West Virginia 79% of Senator Manchin’s constituents support the bill – including 76% of registered Republicans. Leader Schumer should advance the bill to a full Floor debate. If Senate Republicans try to filibuster such a motion to proceed to a full Floor debate, Senator Manchin should not join such a filibuster. He should vote to allow the debate to take place on the Floor and not just in the op-ed pages. The bill has already passed the House, had a Senate markup that adopted 5 Republican amendments, and is poised for Floor action.