Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it is suing Georgia over racist and illegal voting restrictions recently signed into law by that state’s Trumpist Governor, Brian Kemp.

Specifically, as noted by Attorney General Merrick Garland, “Georgia’s election laws were enacted with the purpose of denying or abridging the right of Black Georgians to vote on account of their race or color” — a clear violation of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Three quick asides:

1. Merrick Garland would be a Supreme Court Justice right now if not for the shameless and unprecedented maneuvering by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky that blocked former President Barack Obama from filling a vacancy on the high court despite having nearly a year remaining in his presidency.

2. Before he became governor, Brian 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 in the gubernatorial election by less than 55,000 votes.

3. Kemp signed Georgia’s sweeping voter suppression law behind closed doors, surrounded exclusively by other white men, in front of a painting of what appears to be an antebellum plantation.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming:

The DOJ is absolutely correct to take Georgia to court over the flagrantly racist and illegal voting restrictions enacted by the state’s Republican-dominated legislature.

Georgia’s anti-democratic new laws are plainly intended to make it more difficult for people of color, poor people, residents of large cities, and others to vote — and to allow the state’s Republican legislature to summarily overturn elections that don’t go their way.

Quite infamously, Georgia Republicans even made it a criminal act to give water to people standing in line to vote (even if they have to stand in line for hours and hours because those same Republicans also closed polling places and restricted mail-in voting).

So, an important message to the Department of Justice:

First, thank you for standing up for democracy by suing Georgia over its racist, illegal voting restrictions. Second, please investigate every other state — Arizona, Florida, Iowa, and Texas, to name a few possible examples — that has passed similar laws and sue them as well if you find that their new voting restrictions are also racist and illegal.

Add your name.

Thanks for taking action.

For progress and democracy,

- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen

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