BUTTERFIELD WARNS
“THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES,
IN THE 2022 ELECTION”
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
One of North Carolina’s only two African-American congresspeople is warning the Black community that if it doesn’t rise to meet the challenge being poised by anti-democratic Republicans during the upcoming 2022 elections, “…we will feel the effects of voter discrimination for decades to come.”
“What’s happening right now is happening right before our eyes!”
Outgoing First District Congressman G. K. Butterfield issued the dire warning Sunday during an address titled “The Struggle Continues…” at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Rocky Mount. The address was streamed on Facebook and YouTube.
Butterfield, who announced several weeks ago that he will not be running for reelection after serving since 2004, couched his warning in a virtual history lesson about the African-American struggle for voting rights, starting at the turn of the century.
He then focused on how civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pressed Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson to push Congress for a voting rights bill for African-Americans, something Johnson, at first, was reluctant to do.
When the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) was finally passed, Rep. Butterfield said that it “…transformed the South,” meaning that Blacks now had the tools in hand, and law on their side when it came to voting.
Gone were the treacherous literacy tests. Section 2 of the VRA empowered communities to sue if they felt their voting rights were violated.
And Section 5 of the VRA required Southern states with a history of discrimination to pre-clear any changes to election laws or procedures with the U.S. Justice Dept. before implementation.
“We need Sect. 5 more than ever.,” Rep. Butterfield lamented, noting that in 2013, the U.S. Supreme Count did away with Section 5, thus, removing most of the enforcement teeth of the law.
Thus, one of the reasons why Democrats are pushing so hard to get the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act passed in the U.S. Senate (it has already passed in the U.S. House). Republican-led state legislatures across the nation have passed so-called “election integrity” laws that once in effect, could deny Black voters their rights.
On Monday, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced that a vote will be taken before the Jan. 17th MLK Jr. federal holiday in order to remove the Senate filibuster and pass needed voting rights legislation.
Rep. Butterfield noted why the Senate move is so important.
“A few weeks ago the North Carolina legislature handed us a [redistricting] map that is not only racially gerrymandered, but it is politically gerrymandered,” he said. Butterfield pointed out that in North Carolina, fifty percent of voters are Democrat, fifty percent are Republicans, so it would be expected during redistricting that half of the 14 congressional districts would be 7-7.
But the new maps drawn by Republican lawmakers would guarantee 11 Republicans and three Democrats being elected….thus the three lawsuits that have been filed in hopes of redrawing the maps prior to the 2022 elections.
“I have never before seen people be so mean spirited politically that you should not have representation, that you should not be able to participate in the way your government is run,” opined state Sen. Milton “Toby” Fitch earlier in the program, referencing the same concerns Rep. Butterfield later expressed.
“We must continue the struggle that we started decades ago,” Rep. Butterfield told those gathered at Ebenezer Baptist Church. “What we’re seeing now in North Carolina and across the country now is not new. It’s the same medicine in a different bottle. And if we don’t rise to meet this challenge, we will feel the effects of voter discrimination for decades to come. It’s not just about who is elected to represent you, but it’s about the policies that will be handed down to us [from] Washington and Raleigh.”
Further warning that whoever replaces him must share the viewpoint of African-Americans in the First Congressional District, Butterfield added that North Carolina must do it’s part to ensure that Democrats maintain majorities in the U.S. House and Senate, saying that they are both ‘hanging by a thread.”
Though not by name, Butterfield urged support for former NC Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley, who is running for the U.S. Senate in November..
“I’m requesting each and every one of you to become obsessed, obsessed with the 2022 election, Rep. Butterfield urged. “Become a committee of one and make sure we have 100% turnout in the 2022 election. “
“Our future depends on it.”
“What is it going to take for us to be equal partners in this election in 2022?,” Sen Fitch rhetorically asked. “What we’ve always done. Putting aside our petty differences, and putting our community first. All of our people have a stake in this thing called the government of the United States, and the government of North Carolina.”
Sen. Fitch concluded, “All white folks ain’t bad ,and all black folks ain’t good. We just have to identify who our enemies are.”
-30-
U.S. SUPREME COURT TO
DECIDE WHO REPS N.C.
IN VOTER I.D. CASE
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
We’ve been down this road before.
In 2013, the North Carolina General Assembly passed a massive omnibus bill that contained a variety of voter restrictions, including a voter photo ID law.
The NC NAACP challenged that measure all the way to the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which in 2016, ruled that the Republican-led NC General Assembly’s voter ID restrictions were so discriminatory, they targeted Black voters “…with almost surgical precision.”
Then -N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, appealed that less-than-laudatory decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, only to lose re-election, and have his successor, current Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, join with NC Atty. Gen. Josh Stein in withdrawing the High Court GOP appeal.
Republican legislative leaders were not pleased, so they petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to allow them to represent the legislature in the voter ID case, instead of Atty Gen. Stein, who is technically the state’s attorney.
But Chief Justice John Roberts, on behalf of the Supreme Court, declined, though he did add that the decision had nothing to do with the merits of the case.
Fast forward to last week, when the Supreme Court announced that it was delaying a federal trial involving a NC NAACP lawsuit against a 2018 voter ID law scheduled to commence Jan. 24th in Winston-Salem, in order for the High Court to decide whether or not NC Republican lawmakers have standing to intervene and represent the state in defending it.
At issue is Democratic state Atty. Gen. Josh Stein. GOP legislative leaders House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate Pro tem President Phil Berger don’t trust him to vigorously and aggressively defend the 2018 voter ID law because he is a Democrat. The voter ID case itself will not be taken up.
Once again the federal appeals court had ruled against the Republican legislative leaders, forcing them to appeal to the now conservative-majority Supreme Court, where they stand a better chance of succeeding with the 6-3 right-leaning court.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments in June or July.
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment