H.R. 1 – The For the People Act of 2021 (the “Act”) – cheapens the long-fought fight by blacks and women to attain the right to vote in the United States as codified in the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. H.R. 1, by proposing to give the right to vote to anybody, and to faceless names, at any time before or even after an election, spits in the faces of the suffragists and black civil rights warriors who paved the way for real equality in our nation. H.R. 1 is a statement by the Left to all Americans: We will maintain power at all costs. By doing so, they say to all Americans that our constitutional republic will soon whither if they have their way with the passage of the Act.
In the face of leftist activism, the pain and suffering that added to the value of the priceless privilege of American citizenship represented by the right to vote has been forgotten. The ashes of Jim Crow birthed the civil rights movement. Jim Crow was a government-backed system that robbed black men and women of dignity and even their own lives. Emmett Till is a symbol of the stain of the deep South’s racism that gave birth to the successes of the civil rights movement, including the right to vote.
“Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy, was murdered in August 1955 in a racist attack that shocked the nation and provided a catalyst for the emerging civil rights movement. A Chicago native, Till was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, when he was accused of harassing a local white woman. Several days later, relatives of the woman abducted Till, brutally beating and killing him before disposing of his body in a nearby river. Till’s devastated mother insisted on a public, open-casket funeral for her son to shed light on the violence inflicted on blacks in the South. Till’s murderers were acquitted, but his death galvanized civil rights activists nationwide," History.com explained.
The horrific tragedy of Emmett Till and many others is evidence of the blood that was shed to pay for the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965. The price cannot be forgotten as H.R. 1 is debated on the floors of the United States Congress. Who is paying the price for this takeover by the Left?
Notwithstanding the many attempts to overcome the United States Constitution in this bill (of which there are many), the Act passes out voting rights like cheap candy.
The Act literally removes all requirements for voting, like the requirement to be and to prove citizenship. No voter ID is required, and everyone gets a ballot mailed, no matter what. This undermines many states’ voter ID laws, which were enacted to combat impersonation fraud, voter registration fraud, duplicate voting, and voting by ineligible individuals, such as illegal aliens (Source: starting on page 43, line 21).
States will be required to automatically add to voter registration rolls every person—regardless of voter eligibility—who partakes in certain government programs, such as receiving welfare or obtaining a driver’s license. Other provisions of the Act then restrict the ability of states to verify eligible voters and remove ineligible voters from voter registration rolls. This provision will automatically enroll ineligible voters such as illegal aliens, says the Heritage Foundation (Source: starting on page 47, line 15). It is worth noting that under the Act a 16-year-old and a felon released from prison are also afforded voting rights.
We must honor the sacrifices of those who climbed out from under the ashes of Jim Crow and fought to be recognized as full citizens of this nation; we must not allow the privileges earned from those battles to be diminished by the Left’s insatiable appetite to rig elections for power. We must reject H.R. 1 on behalf of those who bled and died for civil rights in this country, including for the right to vote. (Where is the Congressional Black Caucus while Congress plots to rig elections by giving away voting rights we all fought for?)