Opinion

A year ago tonight, Georgia Representative John Lewis passed away from pancreatic cancer at 80 years old. As a young adult, Lewis was a “troublemaker,” breaking the laws of his state: the laws upholding racial segregation. He organized voting registration drives and in 1960 was one of the thirteen original Freedom Riders, white and Black students traveling together from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans to challenge segregation. “It was very violent. I thought I was going to die. I was left lying at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery unconscious,” Lewis later recalled.

Absent lawmakers stymie special session Nearly 60 Texas House Democrats left the state last Monday for Washington, D.C. in an effort to stop passage of a Republican-led elections bill.

“Are you on the side of truth or lies; fact or fiction; justice or injustice; democracy or autocracy?” In a speech at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia today, President Joe Biden asked his audience to take a stand as he called defending the right to vote in America, “a test of our time.” Biden explained that the 2020 election has been examined and reexamined and that “no other election has ever been held under such scrutiny and such high standards.” The Big Lie that Trump won is just that, he said: a big lie. Nonetheless, 17 Republican-dominated states have enacted 28 laws to make it harder to vote.

I FOLLOWED THE DISTINCT SOUND of hammers to Luz Flores’ new home on Giraud Street Wednesday evening. What I found was a swarm of enthusiastic workers—some probably pulling nails for the first time in their lives, and others obviously more familiar with the business end of a hammer. Regardless of experience, their mission was clear and their determination was infectious.

The Texas Legislature convened in special session last Thursday, and GOP legislators introduced a fresh set of voting bills after Democrats blocked an earlier attempt during the regular session by walking out in May, preventing a quorum.

LEAVING THE STATE to block restrictive voting legislation isn’t any more outrageous than requiring people to wait in line for 17 hours to testify on that same legislation at 3 o’clock on a Sunday morning.

IF YOU WERE SURPRISED by the recently completed legislative session’s focus on far-right social issues—permitless gun carry, fetal heartbeat abortion restrictions, curbs on teaching race in public schools, transgender athletes, and voting restrictions—and not on definitive solutions to the breakdown of our energy grid, be prepared for even more in July’s special session.

IN A DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC, it’s essential that voters have confidence in the system by which they, democratically with one vote each, choose their representatives. Without that trust, voter turnout will keep falling, the system won’t be truly representative, and elections can be more easily manipulated.

This morning, the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a series of emails and documents that show just how hard former president Trump worked to overturn the 2020 election and retain an illegal grip on power.

A YEAR OF PROTEST Through public protests, rallies and marches since the May 2020 death of George Floyd, we have seen a revived, frank—and yes, at times, confrontational—national conversation over racial injustice, policing and other issues. Most events were peaceful and many marked a continuation of the Black Lives Matter movement of recent years, calling society to account over the ongoing tragedy of the deaths of Black men and women at the hands of police.