By Ellie Sims
This past November’s election was, um, consuming for a lot of us, myself included. I recognized how high the stakes were for our democracy. But I’m 17, so I couldn’t cast a ballot. In next year’s election I’ll be able to vote for the first time and you can be sure I will. That’s thanks to the 26th amendment which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. It was ratified by Arizona’s legislature in May of 1971, in a step forward for voting rights and democracy.
Exactly 50 years later, Arizona’s legislature seems to feel a bit differently about these issues. Rather than building faith in our democracy, the legislature has obsessed over auditing the last election and several Arizona representatives in Congress voted to overturn it. Now Gov. Ducey has signed SB 1485 to make voting by mail harder in ways that may disproportionately impact people of color. And other state legislatures have created similar or more aggressive voting obstacles.
These anti-democracy bills contrast with the narrative taught in social studies classes in middle school and high school. I learned there that America was founded on the promise of democracy and equal representation, but it wasn’t granted to everyone. So our country’s history was one of extending that promise to more and more people: The 15th amendment let formerly enslaved men vote; the 19th amendment let women vote; the Voting Rights Act in 1965 guaranteed the right to vote for Black people who were often disenfranchised for a century after the 15th amendment was ratified. And Arizona residents only gained the right to vote and have representation when we were granted statehood in 1912 with a simple majority vote in congress. The pace of democratic gains wasn’t smooth or easy in our history, but it always moved in the direction of more enfranchisement and representation.
SB 1485 and other anti-voting bills being passed after the record turnout in this past election tell a different story. These bills show some politicians value their grip on power more than America’s principles of democracy. When segregationists were still using tactics to disenfranchise Black voters into the 1960s, the federal government stepped in and put the constitutional guarantees of equal protection and representation above deferring to state-level politicians who were abusing their power. Great Americans like John Lewis and our own Lincoln Ragsdale devoted their lives to making that happen.
Fittingly, the Voting Rights Act has been updated and renamed the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Congress should pass it, along with two other crucial pro-democracy reforms that Congressman Lewis supported: the For the People Act, and the Washington, D.C. Admission Act. Passing the updated Voting Rights Act would require states to receive Justice Department approval for changes to their voting procedures if they or counties within their state have a significant recent record of discrimination.
A key provision of the For the People Act (S.1) is that it would ban partisan gerrymandering in drawing districts, and instead would require election districts to be drawn in a fair, nonpartisan manner by an independent commission, as we do in Arizona because our state constitution requires it. Our policy lets voters choose their elected officials, but in too many states, it’s the other way around, so elections are not competitive, and the party that wins fewer votes can still ensure it holds the majority of seats. S.1 would bring other states that have employed aggressive, anti-democracy redistricting tactics in line with Arizona.
The Washington, D.C. Admission Act would grant equal voting rights and representation to the people living in D.C. There are 700,000 Americans there, more than in Vermont or Wyoming. Allowing D.C. households to have equal rights is a matter of simple justice. Just as people in Arizona lacked voting rights until statehood, those in D.C. still do today, over 100 years later. But they pay federal taxes, so they’re experiencing taxation without representation. D.C. would have the highest share of Black residents of any state, and white supremacists in congress in the 1800s and 1900s were explicit that this was the reason they did not want to allow people in D.C. to vote. The bill would leave a federal district covering federal buildings in D.C.’s core, as required by the constitution, and it would grant the people in D.C. equal protection under the law, as promised by the constitution.
Forty-six senators have backed D.C. statehood, but ours, Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly, haven’t yet. They should. D.C. statehood, the For the People Act, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act all should become law. Mitch McConnell will surely use the filibuster to try and block them, but Senators Sinema and Kelly can recognize that for the simple obstruction it is and prioritize our democracy and Arizonans’ voting rights by supporting a simple majority vote on these bills. Fifty years ago this month Arizona leaders acted to lower the voting from 21 to 18. It’s time for them to see that democracies are best when they are inclusive and support voting rights legislation once again.
Ellie Sims is an organizer with Arizona Jews for Justice, focusing on youth engagement in civic processes, as well as environmental justice, racial justice, and gender studies. She will be studying at Georgetown University in the fall with a major in Government. Sims finds passion within justice and representation for all, and uses her connection and love for the Jewish people and their history to fuel her justice work.
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