March 27, 2021
On Thursday, barely one week after a gunman murdered 8 people in a racist rampage, Georgia Republicans responded by enacting the most sweeping package of voter suppression laws since the Jim Crow era. As has been widely reported, the laws now on the books in Georgia are clearly targeted to impact Black, Brown and AAPI voters, who delivered the state for Democrats in November and January.
The laws restrict voting by limiting drop boxes, curtailing who can vote by provisional ballot and cutting the period for runoff elections from nine weeks to four, (Source: “Georgia G.O.P. Passes Major Law to Limit Voting Amid Nationwide Push,” by Nick Corasanti, The New York Times, 3/25/21). The most notorious provision makes it a crime to offer food and water to voters waiting in criminally long lines to vote. Although that provision grabbed attention for its obvious sadism, the most pernicious feature of the new law is the one which strips the power to regulate elections from the Secretary of State and enables the state Board of Elections to overrule county election boards and to suspend their officials, (Source: ibid).
Despite Brian Kemp’s Orwellian claim that these laws would protect election integrity, their true purpose was revealed in the brazen arrest of Black state representative Park Cannon for knocking on Kemp’s office door in an effort to observe this miscarriage of justice in real time. The brutal images of a 5’2” Black woman being manhandled by burly white state troopers harkens back to the multiple arrests of Black protestors during the Jim Crow era for the “crime” of seeking their civil rights.
Rep. Cannon was arrested despite the fact that the state Constitution explicitly states that legislators “‘shall be free from arrest during sessions of the General Assembly except for treason, felony or breach of the peace,’” (Source: “Georgia Lawmaker As Governor Signs Law Overhauling Elections,” by Jaclyn Diaz, npr.org).
Republicans around the country are undeterred by accusations that these laws are racist and anti-Democratic. To them, that is precisely the point. These laws are designed to wrest control of governance from the majority and relegate people of color to permanent second class status.
What, you may ask, will Republicans do with this control once they have it? A clue can be found in the widespread bills that they have introduced targeting transgender people. The Republican zeal to persecute transgender people is a close second to their brutal determination to reimpose Jim Crow. In 2021 alone, 73 bills have been introduced targeting transgender people, with 65 of those focused on the ability of transgender youth to access healthcare or participate in sports, (Source: “More Anti-Trans Bills Have Been Introduced in 2021 Than Any Year in History,” by Nico Lang, Self.com, 3/9/21) .
In addition, the Republicans’ continued intransigence on gun control in the wake of back-to-back gun massacres is evidence that the America they envision is narrow minded, cruel and violent. There have always been two Americas. The question is, “how hard are you willing to fight for the one you want to live in?”