Hillary Clinton spoke of the need to restore voting rights taken away by Supreme Court's Shelby ruling.
In what she later
announced would the first in a series of policy-oriented speeches she will deliver over the coming months on the "strains on our social contract,” former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a passionate and wide-ranging address to the attendees of the American Bar Association's annual convention in San Francisco Monday, telling them of the need to restore the protections of the Voting Rights Act. She
excoriated efforts in some states to deal with the "phantom epidemic of election fraud” as a means of keeping minority and younger voters away from the polls.
She pointed out that in 2013 so far, more than 80 bills restricting voting rights have been introduced in 31 states. She singled out four states in particular: North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Texas.
“Now, not every obstacle is related to race, but anyone who says that racial discrimination is no longer a problem in American elections must not be paying attention.
And despite the best efforts of many well-intentioned election officials, discrepancies in resources across precincts and polling stations still disproportionately impact African Americans, Latinos and young voters." [...]
"Unless the hole opened up by the Supreme Court's ruling is fixed […] citizens will be disenfranchised, victimized by the law instead of served by it, and that progress, that historical progress toward a more perfect union, will go backwards instead of forward," Clinton said.
The ABA's House of Delegates approved a resolution Monday urging Congress to take quick action to restore provisions of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court gutted in its
Shelby County v. Holder ruling.
Clinton will receive the prestigious 2013 Liberty Medal in September in Philadelphia at the National Constitution Center. Her speech there will focus on “balance and transparency necessary in our national security policies as we move beyond a decade of wars to face new threats.” Then, in the fall, in Florida, she “will address implications on these issues for [U.S.] global leadership and moral standing around the world.”
Voting rights weren't Clinton's only topic at the lawyers' confab, where she received the organization's highest award, the ABA Medal:
“One of the observations I’ve made traveling the world over is how rare trust is, yet trust is the thread that weaves together the social fabric that enables democracy to exist,” Clinton said. “When citizens are alienated from their government, democracy suffers. And around the world in recent years, we’ve seen what can happen when trust unravels and societies pull apart.”
As a survey by the Pew Research Center for People & the Press
indicated earlier this year, you don't have to go around the world to find such alienation.
Please join Daily Kos by urging Congress to save the Voting Rights Act by creating a new preclearance formula.
