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Every American deserves to have their votes counted and voices heard. But since the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision in Shelby County v. Holder gutted the Voting Rights Act seven years ago today, Americans have been systematically stripped of their ability to vote in numbers not seen since the Jim Crow era. Instead of poll taxes and literacy tests, modern day vote suppressors use poll closures, voter purges, and other devious tactics to silence Americans. Those abuses have continued even amidst the COVID-19 pandemic forcing too many citizens to choose whether to give up their right to vote or endanger their health by standing in long lines in order to cast their ballot.

Today, House Majority Whip Clyburn and the House Rural Broadband Task Force along with leadership in the House Energy and Commerce Committee introduced the “Accessible, Affordable, Internet for All Act.” The comprehensive legislation provides $80 billion of funding for broadband deployment while enabling affordable options for broadband adoption, creating digital equity programs, enhancing data collection regarding the price and quality of broadband networks, and protecting community broadband.

Today’s primary election went remarkably smoothly for most who made it to the polls but certainly not for all. And we don’t know how many never made it to the polls in the first place in an election where many counties – including those encompassing Louisville and Lexington – had only one polling location for voters. Too many Kentuckians never received the mail-in ballots they requested. As a result, many older voters and other citizens at higher risk of contracting COVID-19 had to choose between risking their safety or giving up their right to vote.

Last night Attorney General William Barr lied to the American people in an official Department of Justice (DOJ) press release announcing that Geoffrey Berman, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, was “stepping down” from his position. Berman responded quickly with a statement explaining that he had just “learned in a press release from the Attorney General tonight that I was ‘stepping down’ as United States Attorney. I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning, my position[.]” 

President Trump’s executive order on police reform is a small but woefully inadequate step toward addressing the huge problem of police brutality which has spurred national outrage in the wake of the ongoing violence against Black communities. The scope of the problem demands comprehensive reforms, not piecemeal gestures from a man who stoked the fires of civil unrest with his inflammatory rhetoric in response to nationwide protests. This is the same man whose administration ordered a violent police assault on peaceful protestors in Lafayette Square to accommodate a photo op for the President.

No American voter should have to choose between their health and their right to vote. In the first group of elections since the COVID-19 outbreak, the recent primaries showed the challenges and potential of expanding mail-in voting options. They also showed the immediate need for action by election officials and lawmakers to fix problems far too many voters faced in the last few weeks, from long lines at in-person voting centers, to voting machine failures, to mail-in ballot delays.