A proclamation of September as Voting Rights Month, so close to this day that commemorates MLK's "I have a dream" speech 54 years ago, will be issued soon, along with a calendar of relevant events for next month.
A mid-month (September 13) press conference at the National Press Club at 11 am will discuss the newly formed Commission for Voter Justice, whose purpose is, according to the Transformative Justice Coalition's executive director Barbara Arnwine, "to put out to the public the truth about voter suppression countering the narrative of Trump's 'Election Integrity Commission'" (EIC). EIC's charter goal is to prove that the nearly 3 million popular votes won by HRC in excess of Trump's score were fraudulent. Shades of Tammany Hall? Now it's Boss Trump calling the shots.
At the request of Rev. Jesse Jackson, Arnwine will co-chair the newer commission.
In addition to Rep. Terry Sewell (D-AL) and Sen. Patrick Leahy's (D-VT) bill to revive section 5 of the VRA (click here), gutted in 2013 by the killer SCOTUS decision Shelby County v Holder, Rep. Marc Veasey's (D-TX) newer bill, HR 3029, "Combating the President's Voter Suppression Commission Act" (see .congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/3029), will reverse Trump's holocaust of voting rights (Trump's cabal plans to establish a national proof-of-citizenship requirement, to be announced soon). The goal is to defund the "EIC" by "taking over the national media" next month.
"It will be ugly," said Arnwine; the worst talking points will be exposed for the deceptions they are attempting to plant as fake news/alt-reality in this county.
In other, more positive news, the governor of Illinois, Bruce Rauner, has signed legislation to establish automatic voter registration there, the tenth state to complete this action that Oregon pioneered last year with great success. Millions more voters will be registered, said Arnwine; the largest group of voters in this country are the unregistered and nonvoters. She plans to publish a fact sheet on voter suppression, detailing the 20+ forms it takes, along with a brochure that amplifies this discussion. In Oregon, the voter turnout is now 70 percent, she said.
It is unfortunate that the Democrats are so focused on Russian intervention in Election 2016 when in fact domestic skullduggery has so corrupted voting results at every level from municipality to federal for so long. A few federal legislators in high positions sympathize with the dirge we have been singing for decades. It is up to them to join in for everyone's sake--everyone's whether they know it or not.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is more sympathetic to this fact and is one of the federal legislators whose assistance will be enlisted this month to support Sewell's new bill. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has announced efforts to dismantle the EIC by designating the Anti-Vote Suppression Act as "must pass" by legislators in the Senate. Let's hope for a good outcome, for "election integrity" not to lose its original meaning in the hands of the present miasma, so well materialized by Hurricane Harvey.
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