Last Thursday — behind closed doors — Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed into law a cluster of flagrantly anti-democratic, racist voter suppression laws that were rammed through the state legislature by flailing Republicans who have given up on trying to win elections on the merits of any actual policy positions and have instead chosen to cling to power by opposing the very concept of democracy itself.

• These laws are so absurdly retrograde that one of them makes it a crime to offer water — water! — to anyone waiting in line to vote. (Which some voters will be doing more of, since these laws also limit access to drop boxes, make it harder to vote by mail, and more.)

• Georgia is not alone. Unless we act aggressively — including by winning passage of the For the People Act (a.k.a. H.R.1) — many other states are poised to institute far-reaching voter-suppression laws.

• Let’s remember that before he became governor, Kemp was the Secretary of State in Georgia, where he oversaw voter suppression and disenfranchisement tactics that disproportionately affected hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people of color. He then defeated Stacey Abrams by less than 55,000 votes. Senator Cory Booker (New Jersey) said “the election is being stolen.” Senator Sherrod Brown (Ohio) said Kemp “stole” it.

• Let’s also remember that the Republicans in Georgia’s state legislature would not have been able to rush through any of these anti-democratic laws if the United States Supreme Court in 2013 had not gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that prevented states with histories of blatant discrimination from unilaterally imposing Jim Crow-style voter suppression tactics.

• Roberts and the four other “conservative” justices who voted to overturn that landmark precedent argued, in an opinion written by Roberts himself, that such precautions were no longer needed — arguing, in effect, that racism was a thing of the past. Georgia Republicans including Kemp just showed how misguided that opinion was.

• While Kemp was hiding in his office signing away the voting rights of potentially millions of Americans, several large, white, male police officers were dragging away and arresting state Rep. Park Cannon, a Black woman, for the apparent “crime” of, uh, calmly knocking on his door so she could witness his signing of the bill.

We will have A LOT to say and plenty of actions you can take in the days and weeks ahead.

Let’s start today with a direct message to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp:

You wouldn’t even be governor without voter suppression and election manipulation. So you know first-hand what Senator Ted Cruz admitted during a hearing in Congress just this week: Today’s Republican Party can’t win elections if we have true democracy.

The Republican Party, nationwide and in Georgia, is trying to retain a grip on power by essentially opposing the very concept of democracy itself — by making it harder, not easier, for Americans to exercise their constitutional right to vote.

Your disgraceful actions have shoved our entire country a step closer to outright authoritarianism. We will not let this stand.

Add your name.

One other thing: Public Citizen is a nonpartisan organization. Throughout our 50-year history, we have worked on important issues with elected officials from both major parties. And we still do — when possible.

But being nonpartisan does not mean burying our head in the sand.

When one party engages in consistent, persistent efforts to deprive people of color of the right to vote — when it in fact makes voter suppression a core organizing principle — we have to speak out. We all do.

Thanks for taking action.

For democracy,

- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen

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