In light of yesterday’s blatant attempt by Republicans to disenfranchise Black voters in Detroit—as well as some awful decisions & dissents from state & fed courts—it’s time we ask: Why doesn’t America treat voting rights the way it treats gun rights?

Consider these statements

Of course the second statement never happened. The first? Written by Trump & Reagan-appointed judges on the Fifth Circuit.

They deemed TX’s concern for voter fraud as reason enough to allow more burdens placed on voting rights.

Did they need to show voter fraud was REAL? Nope https://twitter.com/ssamcham/status/1318227124004835328

The Fifth Circuit gave great deference to TX in determining what constituted a valid state interest to permit burdening the right to vote.

Amy Coney Barrett wasn’t so willing to provide states w/that same deference when public safety & the gun rights of felons came before her.

Indeed, in her famous dissent in Kanter—Coney Barrett made clear she wanted more evidence proving that taking gun rights from felons leads to less violence—a higher threshold than TX faced in burdening voting rights—& part of a trend on the right where gun rights>voting rights. https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1316046933002252295

So here we are—it’s 2020 & rightwing judges use their powers to make sure gun rights are so fundamental that *any* gun safety measure is immediately suspect. Meanwhile, voting rights are under assault, blatant voter suppression allowed—& outright attempts to throw out votes—real.

At its founding America the vote to white men who owned property—expanding to most white men by the mid-1800s.

W/the 15th Amendment Black men gained the vote in 1870 (then came Jim Crow).

White women earned suffrage in 1920.

The 1960s saw a renewed push to protect Black votes.

But since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, the story of voting rights has been one of renewed efforts to disenfranchise voters.

It Republican get their way, voting may yet come to be seen as a privilege—not a right—in America.

We can’t let that to happen.

Democrats must put our energy into two moves to halt the rapid erosion of voting rights:

1) Pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act—& add jurisdictions subject to pre-clearance review—Republicans have given us plenty of new data for more places that need it. https://naacp.org/latest/john-r-lewis-voting-rights-act-2020/

2) Enshrine the Right to Vote in the Constitution. Make it a fundamental right of every American—so any attempt to infringe upon it is outright unconstitutional.

It’s past time that the right to vote in America is taken as seriously as the 2nd Amendment. https://www.fairvote.org/right_to_vote_amendment