Voting Rights

Addressing Climate Change is important to the survival of life on this planet. Voting rights are essential to making that life worth living. Without a commitment to the right to vote for all Americans, democracy as we know it and wish it to be will be gone.

H.R. 1 (House Resolution 1) has been passed by the House of Representatives and its passage is in the hands of the United States Senate. The link in this paragraph has the text of the whole bill.

Here is a summary of H.R.1.

There is a plethora of legislation at the state level all across the United States to either expand voting rights or to restrict them. I found this piece by the Brennan Center to be useful in getting a big picture look at the issue.

I personally find the number of voter restriction measures in several states to be troubling. First and foremost, they fly against the winds of freedom and the constitutional guarantees of free speech and the right to vote.

The 14th Amendment clearly states that “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The 15th Amendment states in Section 1 that “The right of citizens in the United States to vote shall not be denied by the United States or any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

Georgia has been in the forefront of the effort to fully implement what what is fully codified in the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. The expressed reference in the 14th Amendment of not denying any American “equal protection of the law” applies to the 15th Amendment’s guarantee that “The right of citizens to vote shall not be denied or abridged…”

There are a number of state legislatures, including that same state of Georgia, that are actively attempting to subvert the intentions of the Constitution by limiting full voting rights to the people that those in power think will keep them in power. This is wrong and it is illegal. Any state that passes legislation infringing on the rights of any American to vote is acting outside the the Constitution and therefore is acting illegally. There is no debating this point. Those states acting to limit voting rights in any way are breaking the law. They are law breakers.

Georgia is the target of the upper caste of American power brokers because it has dared to implement the 14th and 15th Amendments and make them real. How dare you Georgians, how dare you Stacey Abrams, to try and abide by the law of the land. I have begun reading journalist Isabel Wilkerson’s book titled Castes: The Origins of Our Discontent. It is connecting a lot of loose ends for me on what is going on in this country right now. See more about the book using the link for the word cast in this paragraph.

I’m very fired up about climate change, but climate change is but a tiny ember of the raging fire that I feel about voting rights. Which gets me back to Georgia. What can I do, little old Bruce Halen from San Jose, California, to do something meaningful in the struggle to fully implement voting rights to all Americans?

Here’s how you do it. America’s political system (Democracy) is a thin layer laying atop the churning forces of our economic system (Capitalism). The metaphor of plate tectonics applies here. The molten core of the Earth churns, burns and melts rock turning it into magma. It only solidifies and hardens when it comes in contact with the cool atmosphere above. It is here where life happens.

This hard layer which we know as the crust of the Earth is where we live, where our institutions rise and fall. It is subject to a never-ending cycle of construction and destruction driven by the molten forces under our feet. Capitalism provides the power that drives our institutions of governing.

But, we are not powerless against these seemingly irresistible forces. If you want to make a point with Capitalists, you do it with money. Georgia is home to a few corporations that you might be familiar with: Aflac, Coca Cola, UPS, Home Depot, Delta Airlines.

These corporations have been targeted by voting rights organizations in Georgia to take a stand against the unconstitutional anti-voting legislation making its way through the hallowed halls of the Georgia state house. The corporate response to being asked to take a stand against this institutional racism has been tepid, at best. That’s not good enough. Do you want to make a point to Capitalists? Hit them where it matters. In the bottom line of their ledger sheets.

Do you have dealings with any of these corporations? Do you know anybody that does? Stop using them. Urge your family and friends to stop using them. I have had frequent dealings with the DOY store, Home Depot, for many years. I hold one of their credit cards.

As convenient as it is for me to find a ready inventory of gardening supplies and home repair items, I will not be setting foot or doing any online business with Home Depot until they grow some balls and stand up for Democracy. If they don’t respond, let them succumb to the tectonic forces under their feet. I’ll do business with someone who cares about what I care about. I will be going out of my way to find out who and what is behind the people that I do business with.

Do you care about Democracy? Do something about it. There is no better time than now.

And one last thing on my mind. The 2010 Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case. Briefly, Citizens United was a conservative no-profit group that had been denied the airing of an ad about Hillary Clinton too close to the presidential election.

The result of that decision has been that corporations have further solidified their influence over the voting process. Take a little of that influence back. Maybe we should also include the message to these corporations that they are only as powerful as we the people allow them to be.