Indivisibles, 

We want to talk to you about racial justice and how we’re going to address these systemic issues head-on. Last week, we emailed you about how Senate Democrats introduced their versions of the D.C. statehood bill, S. 51, and the For the People Act, S. 1. These two bills are central to undoing many of the racist legacies of our founding institutions, giving us the chance to make our democracy more equitable and representative of the people. But we need you to help us make it happen: 

Call your senators now, and then click through to call your representative.

Demand your senators support D.C. statehood and the For the People Act, and then move swiftly to hold hearings and vote on these bills, without letting Mitch McConnell’s Jim Crow filibuster get in the way. Then, keep reading for a deeper dive on how D.C. statehood and the For the People Act will help us move towards racial justice.

Rigged from the start -- democracy reform and racial justice

Since our founding, our democracy has been rigged to benefit rich, white men. While we’ve made progress over time, these racist institutions and policies, and the people who uphold them, continue to exist and grow. America has a long history of robbing communities of color of the right to vote, and it continues today -- people of color delivered a resounding victory to Democrats in 2020, and Republicans are responding by attempting to implement even more restrictive, racist voting laws to deny them political power. In the last days of 2020, Trump challenged votes in the states that Biden won -- targeting major cities like Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Atlanta, all of which have significant Black populations. In the last month, Republican state legislators across the country filed more than 100 voter suppression bills aimed at making it more difficult to vote and reducing the electorate in areas that delivered wins for Democrats.   

Trump and the GOP brought into sharp focus our rigged democracy, and how it has disproportionately targeted (and excluded) Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), whether in the form of voter suppression, gerrymandering, overt systematic disenfranchisement, corruption, or big money in politics. Both intentional and foundational, these structures have maintained the white, male, wealthy power throughout our nation’s history, but we have a limited window to fundamentally change how our democracy functions.

D.C. statehood and the For the People Act are just two ways that we can begin to change our democracy, and they cut across these racial justice issues in a substantial way. In particular, D.C. statehood would enfranchise more than 700k residents, a plurality of whom are Black, giving equal representation to these residents and overturning hundreds of years of voter suppression and racism. 

This bill would also rectify the unique oppression that D.C. residents face as a result of their territory status. Most recently, the right-wing, white supremacist coup at the Capitol left the mayor of D.C. unable to respond to the violence in her city. The federal government (meaning Trump at the time) controls the D.C. National Guard, which Trump took full advantage of by declining support for hours. Contrast this with Trump’s militarized, violent response to D.C.’s peaceful Black Lives Matter protests over the summer, and you see how a lack of statehood can be weaponized against the residents of D.C. 

D.C. statehood would also add two new senators who would work to rebalance the Senate from entrenched minority control. The current makeup of the Senate is biased towards largely white, low population areas -- this was intentional, as the Senate was designed to give a disproportionate amount of power to a small contingent of Southern whites who wanted to maintain the institution of slavery. That racist legacy persists today and compounds the lack of representation in the modern Senate. By 2040, half of America’s population will live in just eight states, giving outsized political power to an ever-shrinking minority. This means that BIPOC and people living in more populous areas receive less representation in the Senate, and making D.C. a state would begin to counteract this bias.

Achieving a more racially equitable, inclusive democracy takes a lot of work, but these two bills will make significant headway in tackling some of the most racist institutions and policies that still exist today. Here’s how you can make a difference: Use our new peoples' whip count to see where your members of Congress land on these key bills. Then make sure to call your senators and demand they support S. 1 and S. 51, work swiftly to hold hearings on both bills, and send them to the floor for a vote -- without letting the filibuster stand in the way of passage. Then follow up by calling your representative too. 

In solidarity, 
Indivisible Team