The Wait is Over: Introducing the Freedom to Vote Act
Dispatches on the For The People Act (Edition #30)
Some breaking news.
Today, Senate Democrats released their revised version of the For The People Act, entitled the Freedom to Vote Act. This bill preserves the major pillars of the For The People Act, including protecting the freedom to vote (through same-day registration, automatic voter registration, and more), reducing the role of big money in politics (the DISCLOSE Act and a revised small-donor matching program), and banning partisan gerrymandering. It also includes a number of provisions that were not in the original For The People Act, such as standards for states that choose to have voter ID and provisions against election subversion.
It’s going to take us a few days to dig into all the weeds of the bill, but there’s no question that the Freedom to Vote Act would be a major step forward for American democracy.
Here’s more good news: Senator Schumer reiterated that the Senate could vote on the Freedom to Vote Act as early as next week. It is expected that GOP Senators will filibuster the bill, but their obstructionism will only increase the momentum to fix the filibuster.
The encouraging updates don’t stop there.
Over the weekend, Rolling Stone announced that President Biden is ready to pressure moderate Democrats to fix the filibuster.
“With a make-or-break vote looming in the Senate on a sweeping voting-rights and anti-corruption bill, President Joe Biden and his advisers have said in recent weeks that Biden will pressure wavering Democrats to support reforming the filibuster if necessary to pass the voting bill.”
We’ve been waiting for Biden to take a more active role in this fight for months — so this is an extremely positive development. That said, intentions are only as good as the actions that follow them. Let’s keep the pressure up.
Please share this Substack as widely as you can. We are at an inflection point and we need everyone to be informed and to raise their voices.
We will write to you later this week with more on the Freedom to Vote Act, the state of the filibuster fight, and the path forward. For now, you can read more about the bill here and here. The full text of the bill is here. And you can find advocacy events to attend here.
Also, here is Senator Schumer announcing the revised bill:
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