Kamala Harris, first Vice President of color, pays tribute to Martin Luther King, who championed voting rights

SCREEN CAPTURE

Vice President Kamala Harris invoked Martin Luther King to voting rights bills

ANALYSIS

The nation's first Black and Asian American Vice President paid tribute to  civil rights icon, Martin Luther King, and tied his "dream" to voting rights, which are under assault today.

King, whose Jan. 15 birthday is being celebrated this weekend,  "pushed for racial justice, for economic justice, and for the freedom that unlocks all others: the freedom to vote," said Vice President Kamala Harris, who spoke virtually this morning from Washington to an event hosted by King's church, the Ebenezer Baptist Church of Atlanta, Georgia.

 

"Today, our freedom to vote is under assault.  In Georgia and across our nation, anti-voter laws are being passed that could make it more difficult for as many as 55 million Americans to vote — 55 million Americans.  That is one out of six people in our country," Harris continued.

RELATED: MLK saw the linkage between Asian Americans and African Americans

Although she was addressing a Georgia audience, she was also talking to the U.S. Senate, which must muster enough votes to pass the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act, which would reinstall those portions of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court weakened in a ruling ten years ago and eliminated last year.

Since those decisions, states, mostly those controlled by Republican administrations, are "putting in place obstacles to the ballot box.  They are also working to interfere with our elections to get the outcomes they want and to discredit those they do not.  That is not how democracies work.

 
"We know the threat we face.  We know that this assault on our freedom to vote will be felt by every American, in every community, in every political party.," said Harris.

"A landmark bill, as we all know, sits before the United States Senate: 'The Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act,'  This bill represents the first real opportunity to secure the freedom to vote since the United States Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act nearly a decade ago.  And the Senate must pass this bill now," stressed Harris.

The legislation is named after Georgia's late Senator John Lewis, who marched with King during the 1960s civil rights rallies and demonstrations. 

Split at 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, the chances are poor to zero for the U.S. Senate to pass the bill. Why is the GOP vehemently against the bill? Basically, the act would provide voter access for millions of voters who -- for various reasons -- find it difficult to vote.

 

Included among the seemingly common-sense provisions in the John Lewis voting act but have turned into partisan issues, are:

• Make Election Day a federal holiday.
• Allow online, automatic, and same-day voter registration.
• A minimum of 15 days of early voting, including during at least two weekends.
• No-excuse mail voting with ample access to ballot drop boxes and online ballot tracking, in addition to streamlined election mail delivery by the US Postal Service.
• States would need to accept a wide range of forms of non-photographic identification in places where ID is required to vote.
• Would ban gerrymandering of districts that harm representation of communities of color.
• Counting eligible votes on provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct.
• Greater federal protections and oversight for voting in US territories.
• The bill also includes the Right to Vote Act, which creates an affirmative right to vote in federal law.
• Most significantly, it creates a new formula to restore the federal preclearance requirement mandating states with histories of discrimination to seek permission from the federal government before enacting new voting rules or redistricting plans.

"You know, it was more than 55 years ago that men, women, and children marched from Selma to Montgomery to demand the ballot," said Harris.

 
"When they arrived at the state capitol in Alabama, Dr. King decried what he called 'normalcy' — the normalcy, the complacency that was denying people the freedom to vote," said the Vice President.
 
"As Dr. King said, the only normalcy he would accept is “'he normalcy that recognizes the dignity and worth of all God’s children,'" she said.

"Today, we must not be complacent or complicit.  We must not give up, and we must not give in.
 
In conclusion, Harris said: "To truly honor the legacy of the man we celebrate today, we must continue to fight for the freedom to vote, for freedom for all." 

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AAPI perspsective, follow me on Twitter @DioknoEd. And yes, a word of caution, this news article is laced with my own unabashed opinion.