Practical Politics

For every democracy in the world–past and present—the single most important issue in its growth, expansion and duration, has always been who gets to vote. Who is entitled to vote in the political entity’s decisions? Who is allowed to live within the polity but can only react to the decisions of others?
In America’s political system, the world’s longest-lasting democracy, the definition of who gets to vote has not only changed over time, it is still the most important of all other issues.
At its beginning in the 1700s, the U.S. restricted voting rights to white male landowners. Eventually, an age restriction—18 years old–and female suffrage, were added. With the ending of the American Civil War, amendments were also added to the U.S. Constitution which allowed African Americans and some Native Americans to vote-even with poll taxes and literacy tests allowed to reduce their numbers. Then, in 1965, as one of his most lasting achievements, the Reverend M.L. King, working with then-POTUS Lyndon Johnson, led a social movement that got the Voting Rights Act passed and signed into law. The contest to narrow the scope of that legislation has been at the forefront of national politics since then, culminating in the Supreme Court’s 2013 gutting of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby vs.Holder that is still being contested in today’s politics. Even as barriers to voting began receding in the ensuing decades, many Southern states erected new ones, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, aimed at keeping the vote out of the hands of African American men and women.
Today, one of the most important remaining battleground issues in America’s politics is how to again expand voting rights to more American citizens, or how to restrict the present rights even more. Whether there is a Republican or Democratic Party victory in the Presidential and Congressional races this year will greatly determine the fate of the modern voting rights issue. A Republican victory at both levels will see a further restriction of citizen voting rights, and a set of Democratic Party victories will see a great expansion in those rights. Nothing less than the fate of America’s democratic experiment is at stake.
The Republicans are offering Project 2025 as part of their platform to reduce federal employee voting rights ( and make federal employees political pawns—a political movement backwards) and political freedoms, and the Democrats are vying to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to restore the country’s forward movement to expansive citizenship access to voting. The survival of American democracy during at least this 21st century is at stake on that issue.
What does the John Lewis Voting Rights Act promise? Over time, voting rights has become a bipartisan priority as people have worked at all levels to enact constitutional amendments and laws which seek to reduce access to the vote based on race and ethnicity, gender, disability, age and other factors. The landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed by Congress took major steps to curtail such voter suppression. The JLVRA would restore that progress forward.
But since the 2020 presidential and congressional elections, no less than 19 states have passed voter suppression laws, including at least 400 similar suppression bills attempted in 49 states.
Legislation to protect the franchise, and democracy itself, is represented by the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act, and is the next—and maybe last—great battleground to save America’s democratic government. This bill would restore the vital protections of the Voting Rights Act and set minimum standards for federal elections.
Under this legislation, states, counties, and cities with a history of voting discrimination will once again have to submit new district maps for “preclearance” approval, which has shown itself to be the best defense against discriminatory schemes that pack Black voters into as few districts as possible or spread them too thin to make a difference anywhere.
The JRLA would outlaw partisan gerrymandering, which will help all voters get congressional delegations that fairly represent the political views in their states. Gerrymandering currently is the most effective means of voter suppression in the states.
Thus, the 2024 elections are much more than merely a contest between which individual leaders American citizens would like to be the “face” of the country on the international stage.
Vote, ya’ll. Vote like your life, and the lives of your children, depend on it. Because it does.
Professor David L. Horne is founder and executive director of PAPPEI, the Pan African Public Policy and Ethical Institute, which is a new 501(c)(3) pending community-based organization or non-governmental organization (NGO). It is the stepparent organization for the California Black Think Tank which still operates and which meets every fourth Friday.
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