["It would be unconscionable for the Senate to break for recess
without addressing the ongoing assaults on our democratic systems
happening across the nation."] [[link removed]]

'RECESS CAN WAIT': 23 GROUPS DEMAND SENATE STAY IN DC TO PASS FOR THE
PEOPLE ACT  
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Jessica Corbett
July 27, 2021
Common Dreams
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_ "It would be unconscionable for the Senate to break for recess
without addressing the ongoing assaults on our democratic systems
happening across the nation." _

, Getty Images

 

THE DECLARATION FOR AMERICAN Democracy coalition and 22 member
organizations on Tuesday issued statements
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calling on the U.S. Senate to delay the August recess to pass the For
the People Act—sweeping voting rights legislation the House approved
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months ago.

Jana Morgan, director of the Declaration for American Democracy
(DFAD), said that President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck
Schumer (D-N.Y.) "know that time to pass the For the People Act (S. 1)
is quickly diminishing."

"It is critical that this legislation is enacted before the 2022
midterm elections," she explained, "and before partisan maps that
would disenfranchise voters for the next decade, especially voters of
color, are drawn."

"We call on Sen. Schumer to delay Senate recess until the bill is sent
to the president's desk," she continued. "We also call on President
Biden to use the full power of the Oval Office to ensure that the For
the People Act is signed into law before the end of summer and to not
let the Jim Crow filibuster stand in the way."

Morgan added that "one of the major tenets of a fully functioning
democracy is that the public interest, not special interests, guide
decision-making. More than 80% of Americans across party lines
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support the For the People Act, and it is time for the Senate and the
Biden administration to rise to the occasion and respond to the will
of the people: Recess can wait; our democracy can't."

The call comes after Republican senators last month blocked debate
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on the pro-democracy bill that would thwart some of the GOP's recently
enacted state-level voter-suppression laws, a move that elevated
demands from progressive activists and lawmakers to kill the
filibuster
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Abolishing the filibuster requires the support of every single
Democrat in the evenly split Senate. Not only are there some
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Democratic holdouts
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Biden—a former senator himself—has also stopped short of calling
for scrapping it, instead advocating
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for a return to the so-called talking filibuster and claiming that
Republicans "know better" than to suppress voting rights.

Progressive advocates behind Tuesday's demand for delaying
recess—which is scheduled
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Monday, August 9—disagree.

"Our democracy is on the line," warned Free Speech for People
president John Bonifaz. "The Senate must not go on recess in the midst
of this voting rights crisis. Senators have a duty to protect and
defend the constitutional right to vote, the bedrock of our democracy,
and they must cancel their recess to ensure that they end the
filibuster and pass now the For the People Act and the John Lewis
Voting Rights Advancement Act."

As Ben Jealous, president of People for the American Way, put it:

More than 50 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote poignantly
about how it feels to be told to "wait" for justice and equal rights,
in his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." For the Senate to go on August
recess without addressing the voting rights emergency in this country
would be to tell us to 'wait' once again. There is no more time to
wait. Every day that passes brings more efforts by
Republican-controlled states to suppress the votes of Black and brown
Americans. So we are saying to senators, your recess can "wait";
voting rights for all Americans can't. Do not leave Washington without
passing the For the People Act. This is a moment in history when all
Americans will be watching what you do, and we'll remember.

Noting that "this year alone, 18 states have already passed 30 new
laws to restrict access to the ballot," Tiffany Muller, president of
End Citizens United/Let America Vote Action Fund, argued the "only way
to protect the freedom to vote is for Congress to respond by passing
the For the People Act."

Multiple advocacy group leaders highlighted the dozens of Democratic
state lawmakers who left Texas
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for Washington, D.C. to block GOP voter suppression legislation. On
Monday, the Republican speaker of the Texas House of Representatives
signed
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an arrest warrant for a Democrat who returned to Austin briefly in an
attempt to engage in "good faith dialogue."

"State legislators in Texas have literally fled the state in a
last-ditch effort to protect Texans' freedom to vote—with the hope
that the Senate will act now to pass legislation that will stop the
rampant voter suppression efforts in Texas and elsewhere," said
Christina Harvey, executive director of Stand Up America.

"They, and we, are running out of time to protect our freedom to vote,
our elections, and the sanctity of our democratic process," Harvey
said. "The American people, especially those long left out of equal
participation in our democracy, cannot wait for the Senate to return
from a monthlong break before they pass urgently needed legislation
like the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act."

Clean Elections Texas executive director Liz Wally emphasized that the
Texas Democrats left their state to highlight that only the passage of
S. 1 "stands between Texans and some of the most extreme, far-right
policies in the country."

Pointing to the upcoming release of Census data for redistricting and
the need for election officials to prepare for primaries, Wally added
that "the Texas legislators are fighting not only for ALL Americans
but for our democratic form of government."

Other groups behind the call include the Campaign Legal Center,
Citizen Action of New York, Common Cause, DemCast USA, Democracy 21,
Face the Music Collective, Franciscan Action Network, Greenpeace USA,
League of Women Voters of the U.S., Missouri Voter Protection
Coalition, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, Network for
Responsible Public Policy, SiX Action, the Workers Circle, Un-PAC, and
Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice.

According to Sister Quincy Howard, coordinating director of the
Faithful Democracy Coalition, "It would be unconscionable for the
Senate to break for recess without addressing the ongoing assaults on
our democratic systems happening across the nation."

"S.1 would protect voting rights, prevent 10 more years of extreme
partisan gerrymandering, shed light on dark money, and strengthen
ethics rules for elected leaders," Howard said.

"The well-being of our democracy is a moral issue of the utmost
importance: It's about the dignity of voters and about the ability of
the people to choose their leaders and the future for next
generations," she added. "There is a path to passage and the power to
make it happen—what we need is the political will and the courage."

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel
free to republish and share widely.

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