In The News
A panel of federal judges in San Antonio has ruled that the Republican-controlled Legislature used racial gerrymandering to discriminate against black and Hispanic voters when boundaries were drawn for congressional districts in 2011.
Unnerved by progressive voting policies and by the numbers of black, Latino, and young voters streaming into the electorate, Republican state lawmakers across the country have moved to suppress the franchise to maintain GOP political dominance. The strategy is simple: Turn voting into a bureaucratic nightmare by eliminating popular timesavers such as same-day registration and early voting.
WASHINGTON - Millions of voters around the country file absentee ballots via mail, paying small sums of money to send their completed forms to the local election office.
U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, a Democrat from Fort Worth, wants to make it free to cast an absentee ballot, likening the small amount of money to pay for a stamp to poll taxes that were once levied throughout the South.
A federal appeals court invalidated the Texas voter ID law this week. The controversial law is one of the strictest in the country, requiring voters to show one of seven forms of identification before casting their ballot. Despite the victory in court, the man who filed the lawsuit -- "Veasey v. Abbott" -- is cautious.
WASHINGTON -- Texas’ voter identification law violates federal laws prohibiting electoral discrimination and must be amended before the November election, an appeals court ruled Wednesday.
WASHINGTON — Democrats and civil rights groups are calling on Congress to act on legislation to restore a key provision of the Voting Rights Act the Supreme Court eliminated three years ago.
As a young civil rights activist, Congressman John Lewis was brutally beaten marching for the right to vote in Selma, Alabama. Lewis's heroism spurred the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the country's most important civil rights law.
'Give Us the Ballot' author says the gutting of the Voting Rights Act could affect the 2016 election
In a small press room on the fourth floor of the Cannon House building, an oversized crowd heard Revs.
Tuesday marked the launch of the first Congressional Voting Rights Caucus. The caucus held a press conference outside the Capitol, led by Co-Chairs Representative Marc Veasey (TX-33) and Representative Terri Sewell (AL-7) announcing the formation of the caucus and the policy goals it hopes to advance.
The stakes, no matter who's argument you believe, are incredibly high. If you take the state of Texas' side, argued Tuesday in front of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, requiring specific, high-security photo identification from every voter in the state is essential to preventing widespread chaos and voter fraud, to keep the entire state from turning into Richard J. Daley's Chicago.