A City Leader’s Plea: We Can’t Stop Voter Suppression Alone
As the mayor of Houston, I’ve seen how local attempts to protect voting rights are being eviscerated by state lawmakers. We need Washington on board.
Demonstrators rally at the Texas state Capitol demanding federal action on voting rights legislation. Both the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act are pending now in Congress, but have been blocked by the filibuster.
Photographer: Brandon Bell/Getty Images North AmericaOur nation is facing a horrifying onslaught of voter suppression efforts — from restrictions on early voting, to voter ID laws, to redistricting maps designed to limit the voting power of people of color.
As mayor of Houston and president of the African American Mayors Association, I am keenly aware of how voter restrictions will hurt constituents of color here in Texas and across the country. And it’s abundantly clear that leaders seeking to protect our democracy are almost powerless to stop this crusade in states dominated by conservative lawmakers. In fact, Democratic Texas lawmakers left the state for weeks to break quorum and stop the passage of a bill engineered to suppress the Black and Latinx vote. But sadly, that still wasn’t enough to stop the legislature from passing Senate Bill 1.