Congresswoman Terri Sewell said that the voting rights struggle continues today. Sewell made her comments during a hearing of the Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Elections, where she is the Ranking member.
As Ranking Member, Sewell serves as the highest-ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over the administration of federal elections.
“Providing oversight over federal election administration and ensuring every American has free and equitable access to the ballot is vital to our democracy,” Sewell said. “I represent Alabama’s Seventh Congressional District, a district with a long, storied history in this country’s struggle for free and fair access to the ballot. I am excited to join this Committee and continue this critical work.”
“Last weekend, we marked the 58th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in my hometown of Selma with President [Joe] Biden, a bipartisan delegation of Members of Congress, civil rights leaders, and many of the surviving Foot Soldiers of the March from Selma to Montgomery,” Sewell said. “This annual pilgrimage serves as a reminder that the violent struggle for voting rights and equal access to the ballot is not one of the distant past. As we sit here today discussing the 2022 midterm elections, we must not lose sight of the fact that the struggle for equal voting rights that occurred on the Edmund Pettus Bridge 58 years ago continues today.”
Many Republicans and supporters of former President Donald Trump question the results of the election, a narrative that Sewell rejected.
“There were successes in the 2022 midterms, to be sure. Millions of Americans cast their ballots, those ballots were counted, and election workers across the country performed admirably despite the threats and harassment they have faced over the last two years,” Sewell said. “The election was secure, as it was in 2020. Those who continued perpetuating the Big Lie that the last presidential election was stolen and who traffic in falsehoods about the security of our elections lost many of their races for critical statewide offices.”
Many states have passed election laws to improve the integrity of future elections following the 2020 controversy. These include voter ID laws, bans on ballot harvesting, bans on curbside voting, paper ballot requirements, advance voter registration, etc. Sewell rejected efforts to make voting more difficult.
“Furthermore, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, in 2022, at least 12 states enacted laws that expand access to the vote,” Sewell continued. “On the opposite side of the spectrum, however, the Brennan Center found that another 12 states enacted restrictive or election interference legislation. We should applaud increases in voter turnout, not respond to them with new restrictions.”
Many on the left claim that tightening voter integrity laws adversely impact minority communities.
“Additionally, while many minority communities overcame barriers to cast their ballot – it does not make those barriers fair, and it certainly does not justify or validate their existence,” Sewell said. “In the years since the Supreme Court’s egregious decision in Shelby County v. Holder, states with a history of voter discrimination are no longer required to preclear their voting laws to ensure they are not discriminatory, allowing a wave of anti-voter laws to be adopted across the country. Today, the Supreme Court continues to dismantle the Voting Rights Act.”
“I am proud to be the lead sponsor of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a bill that would update and reinstate the full force of the Voting Rights Act, a law that protected voters from discrimination for more than 50 years. Additionally, House Democrats have repeatedly passed pro-democracy legislation that would protect voters’ access to the ballot,” Sewell concluded.
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