I could hardly contain myself when I read the 3/31/21 front page New Jersey Star-Ledger article Murphy just made it easier to vote in N.J. amid national voting rights debate. He’s backed by Stacey Abrams. Matt Arco, writing for NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, opens with
As a bitter debate over voting rights takes place on a national stage, Gov. Phil Murphy on Tuesday signed a law that will expand voting in New Jersey by allowing residents to cast their ballots in person up to 10 days before Election Day.
Arco doesn’t make direct reference to HR-1, the Democrats’ House of Representative bill dubbed the “For the People Act” (known as S-1 in the Senate). But that’s what is referred to when Arco speaks of “a bitter debate over voting rights takes place on a national stage.” In a section of the article drenched in disingenuousness, Arco reports:
[Voting rights activist Stacey] Abrams argued Republicans want to restrict the number of people who vote in an attempt to win elections.
“They don’t believe that quantity matters, that it’s about the quality of the vote. My question is how do you qualify the utility of a vote?” she said. “I believe that citizenship in the United States of America is a premise that we must stand on, and it says that we have the right to be heard. We are always, always as a nation stronger when every voice is included.”
The New Jersey bill passed the state Legislature the same day George’s governor signed the controversial voting package.
“Our democracy wins when we open the door to our polling places instead of slamming them shut,” Murphy said Tuesday.
“Dozens of other states are considering new ways to suppress one of the most fundamental rights of citizenship,” he added. “They claim to love our constitution but only if they get to define who the ‘we’ is in ‘we the people.’”
S-1 is hyped as a “Voting Rights Act.” But beneath that slogan are provisions that threaten more fundamental rights to freedom of speech, association, conscience, privacy, and petition. S-1 severely restricts independent political spending, the means of free speech, by groups of individuals like corporations, unions, and Super Pacs, violating free speech and association rights; provides for “public” funding of elections, violating freedom of conscience by forcing the taxpayer to fund politicians’ campaigns without the taxpayer’s consent and/or even if the politician’s policies violate the taxpayer’s conscientious beliefs; force disclosure of contributions to political action organizations, which violates the donors’ privacy rights by outlawing the confidentiality of donors; sharply increases requirements on lobbying, making it much harder for private citizens to peaceably assemble to petition the government.
Taken together, S-1 is a broad-based rollback of the First Amendment. It violates the very inalienable rights which gives substance, meaning, and effectiveness to elections, and substantially reduces the ability of voters to hold their elected political leaders accountable.
Abrams “argued Republicans want to restrict the number of people who vote” even as S-1 aims to restrict First Amendment freedoms to speak out and debate election issues. Abrams says “We are always, always as a nation stronger when every voice is included” even as our most important voice, our free speech, is being progressively excluded. Abrams says “I believe that citizenship in the United States of America is a premise that we must stand on, and it says that we have the right to be heard,” even as our ability to be heard, our First Amendment freedoms, are being suppressed.
Murphy says “Our democracy wins when we open the door to our polling places instead of slamming them shut,” even as S-1 imposes major provisions that slam the door on free expression and public debate. The only “winners” are the politicians, who don’t have to listen to those pesky big-mouth citizens’ criticizing, questioning, and holding then accountable. Democracy, in fact, loses. Murphy says “Dozens of other states [with new voter ID laws] are considering new ways to suppress one of the most fundamental rights of citizenship” even as the Federal Government advances a bill to suppress our much more fundamental inalienable individual rights to freedom of speech, association, conscience, privacy, and petition. Murphy claims Voter ID proponents “claim to love our constitution but only if they get to define who the ‘we’ is in ‘we the people,’” even as Democrats exclude from “we the people” people who engage in political activism through their First Amendment rights.
The popularly known “Voting Rights Act”—officially labeled, with a straight face, the “For the People Act”—is an insult to actual people who take their actual right to vote seriously. I believe voting should be as easy as possible consistent with laws that secure safe, fraud-free, trustworthy elections. But these alleged defenders of voting rights have a mountain of nerve complaining about Republican efforts to “suppress” the vote. Many of these GOP laws may make little sense. But Democrats Murphy, Abrams, et al should take a look at what their own party is doing to suppress people’s freedom to engage in electoral politics and campaigns.
With monumental disingenuousness, in response to new proposed voting laws, Abrams whines that “In 43 states across this country, we are seeing an onset and an attack on democracy.” I could sympathize if the issue of the democratic process was really just about voting. It’s not--not even close. Your most powerful voice is not your single, lonely one-among-millions vote. Your most powerful voice is your freedom of expression guaranteed by rights enumerated in the First Amendment and other unenumerated rights covered by the Ninth Amendment, such as privacy. Without intellectual freedom who needs a vote? Who is really attacking democracy? The answer is obvious to anyone who actually understands that American democracy starts with intellectual freedom, not the right to vote.
Related Reading:
HR-1 is An Assault on Free Speech, Property Rights, Freedom of Conscience, and Privacy
The Vote: Get Off Your Butt and Register—But Keep the Nanny State Out of It
Voting Rights are Not the ‘Most Fundamental Right’—or Even a Fundamental Right
Open Primaries Discourage 'Extremism': What's Good About That?
John Farmer's Understanding of Free Speech Rights as Non-Absolute is Dangerous and Wrong
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