***Click HERE to Watch the Full Hearing***
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, convened her first field hearing on voting rights in Montgomery, Alabama ahead of the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. The hearing, titled “Modern-Day Voting Discrimination in Alabama,” investigated some of the latest instances of voter suppression and highlighted the continued need to strengthen federal protections for voters of color.
“I’ve called this field hearing today to discuss the modern-day voting discrimination that has not just continued, but accelerated since the Supreme Court’s 2013 court decision in Shelby County v. Holder that gutted the teeth of the Voting Rights Act,” said Senator Butler. “Though state lawmakers and election officials may no longer make voters of color count the number of jelly beans in a jar or the number of bubbles on a bar of soap, we know that they continue to draw racially discriminatory Congressional districts in a way that prevents voters of color from electing the candidates of their choice. We need to restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to full strength to address these modern-day instances of voting discrimination.”
The hearing explored examples of modern-day racial discrimination in voting and illustrated the pressing need for Congress to pass John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA) which Senator Butler is co-leading. The VRAA would protect the right to vote for voters of color by restoring and modernizing the full protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 following Supreme Court decisions weakening the legislation.
During her questioning, Senator Butler spoke of the importance of the field hearing and the need to call attention to the current voter discrimination and disenfranchisement in Alabama and across the country. She also highlighted that voter disenfranchisement of Black people in Alabama is rooted in a deep history of racism and Jim Crow laws, and criticized former Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill’s remarks on Alabama’s voter ID requirements.
Senator Butler chaired the field hearing at the National Park Service’s Montgomery Interpretive Center on the campus of Alabama State University. The three witnesses in attendance were LaTosha Brown of Black Voters Matter, Laurel Hattix of the ACLU of Alabama, and Major Shalela Dowdy, President of Stand Up Mobile and Vice President of the Mobile Alabama NAACP.
“Congress must restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act,” said Major Dowdy. “Alabama has shown that it is shameless in consistently enacting discriminatory voting laws, which then must be challenged in court and which can take years to play out and it can negatively affect individuals like myself, who are working to assist Black voters in Alabama.”
“To fully understand our current moment requires us to understand our history. I often use the analogy if you go to a doctor, and they do not perform the adequate tests to understand the depths of the problem, then they cannot prescribe you the remedy to be able to address that problem,” said Hattix. “Today in our legislature, there is an emphasis – not on building up the lives of Alabamians, but continuing to hold them in our carceral institutions so they can then be disenfranchised at the polls by not being allowed to participate in our civic processes. This is a pattern, this is a practice, it is a reimagination of a narrative that has existed in Alabama since people were first kidnapped and trafficked, and brought to this country against their will. It’s one that we see persist in the percentage of bills that are focused on criminalizing Alabamians to this day.”
“…[W]e need to make sure that we are going to be true to the principles of this nation,” said Brown. “If we’re saying that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator, then we have to ensure that. That this is a moment in time that we’re actually being called to our highest and our best selves. And we’re going to ask that the Senate also hold itself at that standard, that what you have sworn to uphold, the Constitution, that in fact you will do that by making sure that every single American in this country’s rights are not infringed because of who they are, the color of their skin or where they live.”
Butler co-led the reintroduction of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in the Senate this week, which would bolster voting rights by preventing racial gerrymandering, allowing same-day registration, and forbidding practices such as closing or moving voting sites the same day of an election. She has also championed other pieces of important voting rights legislation, such as the Redistricting Reform Act of 2024, which sets specific criteria that districts comply with the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, are drawn to represent communities that share common interests, and are not drawn to favor or disfavor political parties.
Additionally, Butler is co-sponsoring the Youth Voting Rights Act which would allow minors from 16 years of age to pre-register for when they turn of age to vote. The Senator is also signed onto the Same Day Registration Act which ensure same-day voter registration at polling facilities and the Freedom To Vote Act which would expand voting access through mail-in-voting, and strengthen election integrity and security.
Senator Butler’s opening remarks, as prepared, are below:
“Today, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution is holding its first hearing of the year on protecting the right to vote—at the Montgomery Interpretive Center on the campus of the historic Alabama State University. This Center exists to memorialize the people, events, and the literal path of the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches, when the late, great Congressman John Lewis and hundreds of foot soldiers in this state marched to secure voting rights for African Americans nationwide. Our country is forever indebted to the sacrifice of the Alabamians who put their lives on the line to ensure that all Americans, regardless of their race, could access the ballot and have a say in our democracy. The Selma to Montgomery marches moved this body into action and later that summer, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“Though we have come a long way since 1965, we unfortunately still have a long way to go. In 2013, when the Supreme Court of the United States gutted the teeth of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder, it eliminated necessary federal protections for voters of color in jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination like Alabama. The Court moved to weaken the Voting Rights Act again in 2021 with its decision in Brnovich v. DNC, which made it harder for plaintiffs to prove that restrictive voting laws are racially discriminatory by adopting ‘guideposts’ that contradict the text of the VRA and the intent of Congress.
“I’ve called this field hearing today to discuss the modern-day voting discrimination that has not just continued, but accelerated since that 2013 court decision. In 2024, nearly 60 years after Bloody Sunday, we know that though some things may have changed in the South, discrimination against voters of color is not one of them. The testimony we will hear today will clearly show that Congress needs to pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to restore the original Voting Rights Act, undo the damage done by the Supreme Court, and protect voters of color as soon as possible.
“Though state lawmakers and election officials may no longer make voters of color count the number of jelly beans in a jar or the number of bubbles on a bar of soap, we know that they continue to draw racially discriminatory Congressional districts in a way that prevents voters of color from electing the candidates of their choice. One need only to look to the Alabama State Capitol just a short walk away from where we sit today and the state legislature’s attempt to defy the Supreme Court’s order in Allen v. Milligan last summer to draw an additional majority-Black congressional district to understand that some things have not changed.
“And though Black voters in Alabama may now be able to cast their ballots in local elections, all one has to do is look at the city council of Newbern, Alabama’s refusal to seat Mayor Patrick Braxton to realize that though voting discrimination in 2024 may look differently than it looked in 1965, it has not stopped.
“The degradation of our democracy that began with the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County and has noticeably accelerated since 2020 should shock the conscience of all Americans regardless of their race.
“That’s why yesterday, I stood with my colleagues for the formal introduction of the Senate version of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would reverse the damage caused by the Supreme Court’s decisions in Shelby County and Brnovich and provide additional federal protection for voters of color across the country. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her dissent in Shelby County, ‘Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.’ Since she wrote those words, voters in jurisdictions that were previously subject to federal preclearance have faced a torrential downpour of voter suppression.
“Let me be clear that we are not here to single out Alabama or other Southern states exclusively for voting discrimination. Even my own state of California had three counties whose election changes were subject to federal preclearance due to their own history of discrimination before 2013. The Voting Rights Act must be restored to ensure that voters of color all across our great nation are able to access the ballot and have the power to elect politicians who will speak for and legislate for them.”
###