For months, Democrats from Joe Biden on down have been calling for voting rights to be protected from the GOP’s relentless attacks. But despite commanding the White House and narrow majorities in Congress, they have so far failed to beat back the wave of disenfranchisement efforts, frustrating voting advocates and civil rights leaders who warn that time is running out to ensure all Americans have access to the ballot box. “The sense of urgency, along with priority, needs to escalate,” said Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP.
“We cannot out-organize voter suppression,” Johnson told me. “We organized in November to put people in office to address the issue of voter suppression. We did not organize in November to let elected officials off the hook to organize again and overcome a new hurdle. Voters did their job as citizens, and now they’re simply asking elected officials to do their job to protect our right to vote.”
Johnson isn’t alone, as several civil rights leaders made clear in interviews with Vanity Fair that Democrats need to seize this moment. Voter suppression has long been a key Republican electoral strategy, including in 2020. But Democratic gains that cycle, and the election lies Donald Trump told to save face after his loss to Biden, turbocharged the effort. Republican-held legislatures in states across the country, including battleground states of Georgia and Florida, have rushed through restrictive voting regulations. Arizona, where Biden edged out Trump, is conducting a hyper-partisan “audit” of the 2020 election results in its most populous county, seeking to further sow doubt in the democratic process; Republicans in several other states are trying to follow suit. Meanwhile, Trump allies are aiming to do away with the guardrails that stood in the way of his disgraceful attempts to overturn his decisive loss, working to exert more control over the voting process.
Democrats, including Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, have been highly critical of the GOP’s multi-pronged crusade, likening the threats to Black and other minority voters to Jim Crow. “There is an unfolding assault taking place in America today,” the president said in an impassioned July speech. “An attempt to suppress and subvert the right to vote in free and fair elections, an assault on democracy, an assault on liberty, an assault on who we are as Americans.”
But while Biden has spoken eloquently and urgently about the nature of the GOP’s assault, neither he nor his party has made any progress in preventing it—indeed, they have lost ground since then—thanks to the filibuster rule that would render pro-voting legislation like the For the People Act a non-starter in the evenly divided Senate. It’s not clear that any amount of pressure from the White House could get Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the Senate procedure’s two most vocal defenders in the Democratic caucus, to come around on abolishing or amending the filibuster, or creating a carve-out for voting rights legislation. But some in the party are frustrated that Biden—who does not support eliminating it but has indicated he he backs changes that would make it harder for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other obstructionists to wield it—has not done more to try to convince them. “There is a glaring gap between the rhetoric that the White House is pushing and the reality of their effort,” said Nsé Ufot, CEO of the New Georgia Project.
“It is extraordinarily frustrating to know, with absolute clarity, that the only reason we have a Biden-Harris administration is because of the efforts of Black organizers, activists, and Black voters,” Ufot continued, “and yet, when the most aggressive, well-funded, most targeted attack on the Black electorate that I’ve seen in my lifetime is afoot, we can’t even get the president of the United States to say the word ‘filibuster,’ let alone organize against it.”
Amid an impasse on the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act reauthorization, there has been pressure, including from Biden allies like South Carolina Democrat Jim Clyburn, the House whip, to make a voting carve-out in the filibuster if there isn’t enough backing to eliminate or change the procedure altogether. But there has been little indication that the Biden administration is pursuing such an exemption; instead, it is reportedly shifting its focus to turnout, seeking to “out-organize voter suppression,” according to voting rights advocates who have been in contact with the White House. Not only is that a dangerous gamble, civil rights leaders has warned, but it’s also fundamentally unjust to rely on Black Americans and others to overcome undue barriers in order to exercise their basic rights. “It is unconscionable to ask voters to overcome policy deficits,” Johnson said.
“You don’t adjust to unfairness,” Reverend Al Sharpton told me. “You confront it and make it go away. To say we’re going to out-organize is to adjust.”
Sharpton and others are hoping to increase the pressure on the White House and Senate Democrats later this month during the March On For Voting Rights, a multi-city demonstration led by Martin Luther King III on the 58th anniversary of the March on Washington. “It’s important for everyone to understand the stakes, and it’s not clear we are there yet,” King, the human rights advocate and son of the late civil rights icon, said. “We have to sound the alarm bells. They have to ring like never before. This is so critically important.”
Failure to act—and soon, with redistricting fights looming in September and Congress up for grabs in next year’s midterms—could have dramatic consequences, both for Democrats and the voters they rely on: Republican voter suppression efforts could cost Democrats Capitol Hill in 2022, activists warn, and the White House in 2024 if they aren’t countered. The attacks could also have a chilling effect on hard-fought civil rights. “Our democracy is at stake,” said Johnson.
Some leaders have expressed optimism that lawmakers will be able to get something through, despite the current filibuster stalemate. “Do I feel good about where we are? Absolutely not,” said King III. “I feel we have an uphill battle. But I also feel that we can be victorious.” Meanwhile, officials at the state level have already been working to act as a backstop against the Republican efforts. Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who has been a leading voice calling for the passage of the For the People Act, said she and other Democratic secretaries of state have been “doing everything we can” to protect the vote and push federal officials to do the same. “If they fail to act, we are the last line of defense,” said Griswold, who, like other election officials, has been targeted with death threats. “We take that incredibly seriously.”
But with the GOP’s campaign gaining steam, and the clock ticking to do something about it, voting rights advocates are demanding that the Biden administration and its allies in the Senate act with greater urgency. “You have to move now,” said Sharpton, who was with Biden when he gave his speech in Philadelphia last month and has urged him to make voting rights a “vital” priority. “We came out in unprecedented numbers last year and gave you the Senate, the House, and the White House, and you can’t even give us the vote?” he continued. “I’m determined that we’re gonna make this happen. Either we’re gonna make this happen, or we’re all gonna suffer together.”
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