Voting Rights Legislation of the 117th Congress: What You Need to Know

(This article first appeared in the January/February 2022 issue of the American Postal Worker magazine)

Ahead of important elections, Congress and the Biden Administration must strengthen and enshrine voting rights at the federal level. With many states across the country having passed or introduced voter suppression legislation, new federal voting rights laws are urgently needed. Congress must pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and either the For the People Act or the Freedom to Vote Act. Together, these bills would restore the promise and protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Below are some of the highlights of these bills.

John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (H.R. 4 / S. 4)

The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which passed the House in August and is awaiting a Senate vote, would restore the full power of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), weakened by two recent Supreme Court decisions. This bill would strengthen and modernize the VRA by:

• Protecting against racial voter discrimination
• Re-establishing “preclearance,” the federal oversight (dismantled by the 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder) that would prevent any states or localities with a recent history of voter discrimination from restricting the right to vote
• Protecting access to the ballot box for all voters, regardless of race or the language they speak
• Restoring the right of voters to challenge discriminatory laws, a process made more difficult by the Court’s 2019 decision in Brnovich v. DNC

For the People Act (H.R. 1 / S. 1)

The For the People Act (FTPA) passed the House of Representatives last March and has stalled in the Senate. FTPA would expand and strengthen voting rights. The bill would:

• Expand voter registration by allowing for automatic, same-day, and online registration
• Restrict the Postal Service from implementing any operational changes, such as the removal of mail collection boxes or mail sorting machines, in the 120 days prior to Election Day (this provision is included only in the House version of the bill)
• Create independent redistricting commissions and outlaw gerrymandering
• Expand voting access, reducing long lines for voters by allowing for no-excuse vote-by-mail and early voting
• Restore full voting rights to those who have completed felony sentences
• Reform our broken and corrupt campaign finance system
• Limit purging voters from voter rolls
• Prohibit the dissemination of election misinformation
• Create a voluntary small-donor matching system for all federal elections

Freedom to Vote Act (S. 2747)

The Freedom to Vote Act (FTVA) was introduced by Senate leadership last September as a compromise to the For the People Act. The bill has majority support in the Senate, but due to the antiquated filibuster rule, this much-needed piece of legislation does not have the required 60 votes to pass. In some ways, the FTVA is less expansive than the FTPA, dropping provisions that overhaul the Federal Election Commission and create independent redistricting commissions and limiting the scope of public campaign funding. However, the FTVA does indeed expand on voting rights protections and would mark a significant improvement to our current election laws. The bill includes the FTPA’s provisions on voter registration expansion and Postal Service operational change restrictions. The bill would also:

• Outlaw partisan gerrymandering
• Make Election Day a public holiday
• Expand voting access and reduce long lines and wait times for voters by allowing for no-excuse vote-by-mail and early voting
• Restore full voting rights to those who have completed felony sentences
• Require states that have a voter I.D. requirement to accept different forms of I.D., such as bank statements
• Reform our broken and corrupt campaign finance system
• Place limits on purging voters from voter rolls
• Prohibit the dissemination of election misinformation
• Create a voluntary small-donor matching system only for House elections

APWU’s Legislative and Political Department fervently supports the long-overdue passage of federal voting rights legislation.