Dear John,

Texas is the newest frontline in the battle over the most basic right of citizenship in a democracy – the right to vote. And Ms. is on the ground in Austin to bring you the latest as the Texas legislature’s special session unfolds over the next 30 days. The session also promises to see fights over access to medication abortion, the teaching of critical race theory in public schools and access for transgender students to school sports programs.

As Ms. digital editor Roxy Szal reports in our lead story, this year alone, 17 states have enacted 28 new laws that restrict voting access — making 2021 a record-setting year. And now in Texas, which already has some of the country’s most restrictive voting laws, the governor has called a special session of the legislature in an effort to impose even more restrictions. Republicans’ efforts to rewrite voting access laws were thwarted during the legislature’s regular session earlier this year when Democratic legislators walked out en masse with only hours left in the session, denying the Republicans a quorum. 

Declaring “nothing is off the table,” Democrats are determined to fight back against this latest attack. Voting rights advocates from across Texas and the country joined state legislators at the Capitol as the special session was set to begin, calling for an end to the Republican-led filibuster in the U.S. Senate preventing passage of the For the People Act. On the same day at the White House, civil rights leaders met with President Biden and Vice President Harris to urge more decisive action by the administration to protect voting rights – underscoring the national emergency we are in.

Texas state Rep. Gina Hinojosa summed it all up. “This is not a state fight; this is a national fight,” she said. “I know you’re tired. I know this last year, these last years, have been hard. I know we are tired. But this is our moment in history. This is the voting rights fight of our lifetimes. We need to put people over politics and let the people vote.”

As the battle for democracy is waged here in this country, our eyes are also on Afghanistan this week, as the withdrawal of NATO and U.S. troops accelerates and violence by the Taliban increases. We are especially focused on whether Afghan women can sustain their progress in the weeks and months ahead in this new democracy. 

Nazila Jamshidi, who has been involved in Afghanistan's development and democracy processes for more than a decade, writes in Ms. this week, “Now that Afghan women are aware of their rights and have been introduced to democracy and freedom, it is essential for the international community and Afghanistan’s international partners—the United States in particular—to stand with Afghan women.” 

There’s much more worth reading in Ms. this week, including about the all-out push to pass the Biden agenda to fund the country’s human infrastructure, as well as the drive to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, which will provide better tools to protect Indigenous women.

For equality,

Kathy Spillar
Executive Editor