On Monday, Hillary Clinton shared a Memorial Day message with Americans and discussed the importance of “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” providing a stark contrast to recent GOP-led voter suppression efforts that have been unfolding around the country. Partly under the cover of the lie from former President Donald Trump that there were serious security problems with last year’s election, Republicans have sought to implement — and in a few cases successfully enacted — tough new voting restrictions that pointlessly complicate the election process, potentially pushing disadvantaged voters out of the proceedings.
As Hillary pointedly put it:
‘On Memorial Day, we remember all those who gave the last full measure of devotion for our democracy. We can honor their legacy by defending government of the people, by the people, for the people—today and every day.’
On Memorial Day, we remember all those who gave the last full measure of devotion for our democracy. We can honor their legacy by defending government of the people, by the people, for the people—today and every day.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 31, 2021
President Joe Biden also pointed to the importance of the right to vote in his Memorial Day remarks. As Biden put it while speaking at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, “Democracy thrives when the infrastructure of democracy is strong — when people have the right to vote freely and fairly and conveniently.”
In Congress, Democrats have been pushing for the passage the For the People Act, which would enact ambitious new protections for the right to vote across the country. Unfortunately, current procedural rules in the Senate that require the agreement of 60 Senators in the 100-member chamber before moving to a final vote on most legislation have held up the bill. Although it faces similar hurdles, Democrats have also been pushing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would reinstate a requirement for federal review of many proposed changes to the local conducting of elections. The U.S. Supreme Court lifted that requirement, which was included in the original 1965 Voting Rights Act and helped stop the unsupervised implementation of suppressive voting restrictions, in 2013.
