{"id":1637,"date":"2021-03-13T07:29:23","date_gmt":"2021-03-13T07:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=1637"},"modified":"2021-03-13T07:29:23","modified_gmt":"2021-03-13T07:29:23","slug":"house-passes-the-for-the-people-act-brennan-center-reacts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=1637","title":{"rendered":"House Passes the For the People Act; Brennan Center Reacts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Waldman calls it \u201cthe most significant democracy reform legislation in at least half a century \u2026\u00a0the next great civil rights bill\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Tonight the House of Representatives passed the For the People Act (H.R. 1), which includes reforms to voting, redistricting, campaign finance, and government ethics. The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law helped develop many of the bill\u2019s policies \u2013 including automatic voter registration, the restoration of voting rights to people with past criminal convictions, redistricting reform, and small-donor public financing.<\/p>\n

Michael Waldman<\/a><\/strong>, president of the Brennan Center for Justice, had this reaction:<\/p>\n

\u201cTonight the House of Representatives passed the most significant democracy reform legislation in at least half a century. It is the next great civil rights bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know that across the country, Republican legislatures are racing to enact restrictions on voting rights, the biggest\u00a0wave of such restrictions since the Jim Crow era. With the For the People Act, Congress can supersede that wave of voter suppression. The Senate must now play its part, and quickly, to make the For the People Act into law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe spate of state bills meant to shrink the electorate comes after an election where we saw the highest turnout from American voters since 1900. The 2020 election broke these records despite the pandemic and despite Donald Trump\u2019s campaign of voter suppression aimed at Black and brown Americans and built on racist lies about voter fraud.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a civic achievement that involved Republicans and Democrats, civil rights groups and business, and election officials of both parties all across the country. The For the People Act would ensure that the nation can hold onto the progress we made in enabling more voters to cast their ballots safely.<\/p>\n

\u201cVoting legislation in the states is only one front the battle for fair representation in our democracy. The For the People Act would also bring an end to partisan gerrymandering. And at a time of continued public anger and disgust over the role of extreme wealth in politics, the For the People Act would enact small-donor public financing, the most significant response to Citizens United<\/em>\u00a0and the other damaging Supreme Court rulings on campaign finance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe For the People Act would ensure that the freedom to be heard in government \u2013 whether as a constituent, a voter, or a candidate \u2013 is the same for everyone, regardless of race or wealth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Brennan Center for Justice is grateful for the efforts of the sponsors of the For the People Act, particularly Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. John Sarbanes, and Chairperson Zoe Lofgren, and for the support of the Biden\/Harris administration. We look forward to continuing our work with the administration and the Senate to turn the for The People Act into law.\u201d<\/p>\n

This statement is available\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Contact:\u00a0<\/strong>Alexandra Ringe,\u00a0ringea@brennan.law.nyu.edu<\/a>, 917-207-2290<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Waldman calls it \u201cthe most significant democracy reform legislation in at least half a century \u2026\u00a0the next<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,1,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-general","category-zenger-zone"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1638,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1637\/revisions\/1638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}