Democrats just launched a missile at the GOP’s fortress of minority rule
Opinion by Greg Sargent
Columnist
Today at 10:57 a.m. EDT
Behind all the messy maneuvering in Congress right now is a hidden story: To an underappreciated degree, Democrats just launched a broadside against the edifice of minority rule that Republicans are busy constructing, in every way they possibly can, as a bulwark against our democratic future.
After House Democrats passed the $3.5 trillion blueprint to move the ”human infrastructure” bill’s process forward on Tuesday, they also passed the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
Tucked inside that bill are provisions that take direct aim at minority rule, but not in an obvious way. We often talk about individual features of our system — voter suppression, extreme gerrymanders, the electoral college — as anti-majoritarian. But we don’t talk enough about how various features interlock to create anti-majoritarian structures that are more impregnable than the sum of their parts.
The John Lewis Act’s key provisions restore federal preclearance requirements for changes in voting rules, and make it easier to challenge discriminatory voter suppression measures, both responses to the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act, in 2013 and this year.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/25/democrats-just-launched-missile-gops-fortress-minority-rule/
