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COVID-19 Has Exposed Inequities and a Broken Democracy

August 17, 2020

The COVID-19 outbreak and the country's long overdue reckoning with institutional racism have dramatically laid bare deep-rooted inequities in our society — inequities driven by our broken democracy. It's time to find solutions, and we believe many of them lie in ending the twin evils of voter suppression and money in politics…. Concrete solutions to these twin obstacles are available in three critically important bills passed by the House but now languishing in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's "graveyard": H.R. 1, known as the For the People Act; H.R. 4, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act; and H.R. 51, which would provide for D.C. statehood. We can take the energy of this moment and channel it toward the attainable goals of protecting the right to vote and reining in the influence of money in our politics. The reforms embodied in these bills will empower communities of color at the ballot box and in the halls of Congress. The House has done the hard work of passing these key pieces of legislation. If Mr. McConnell and Senate Republicans continue to stand in the way, they will be left to answer for their intransigence. The time has come to reset the rules of our democracy and build a more inclusive and racially just society.