Former state legislator and voting rights activist Stacey Abrams spoke out this week on CNN to promote the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, two monumental pieces of legislation that would each help shore up protections for voting rights at the federal level. Both bills have been introduced in the Senate, where Democratic leaders are hoping to be able to make progress despite the filibuster rules demanding the agreement of at least 60 Senators in the 100-member chamber before moving forward on most legislation.
On CNN, Abrams also addressed recent comments from former President Donald Trump at a rally in Georgia, where he mockingly said that Abrams might be a better governor than Georgia’s current governor, Republican Brian Kemp, with whom Trump has been angry because of his perceived inaction on the imaginary election fraud that the ex-president claims is responsible for Biden’s win in the state last year. Abrams shut down Trump’s remarks as “irrelevant,” tellingly undercutting the former president’s desperate attempts to stay in the spotlight.
Asked about the impact on her work of Trump’s statements and behavior, Abrams commented as follows:
‘It’s irrelevant. His posture is not relevant to the work that I’m doing or to the positions I take. My responsibility is to do what I can to ensure that no matter who you are, and no matter who you choose, that you have the freedom to vote in the United States. And that is why we have to keep laser-focused on the assault on our democracy. An assault that not only happened on January 6th, but has happened again and again since that time in state Houses that have restricted access to the right to vote and constricted not only that but the ability of election workers to do their jobs. We are seeing election workers being put under direct assault. And that is something we have to push back against. We have to stop the subversion of our elections.’
Trump has placed himself at odds with what’s relevant to the fight to protect democracy in the United States. Check out Abrams’s on-point remarks below:
Meanwhile, the legislative initiatives which Abrams continues to promote include diverse mechanisms to support voting rights. The Freedom to Vote Act would, among other things, “make it easier to register to vote, make Election Day a public holiday, ensure states have early voting for federal elections and allow all voters to request mail-in ballots,” as explained by CNN. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, meanwhile, would re-establish provisions as were included in the 1965 Voting Rights Act that demand approval from federal authorities before the enactment of certain changes to the conducting of elections. The hope would be to stop at least certain instances of voter suppression before they begin.
