The following article summarizes the original event which is listed below the summary.
'A project for all of us'
Now more than ever, protecting the right and access to vote is “a project for all of us,” John Gordon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, told those attending the UMRA A.M. forum on June 8.
The ACLU has long had a Voting Rights Project, but it was directed to limited areas of the country where voting rights were threatened. Today, efforts to limit voting are everywhere. And with the situation at the local, state, and federal levels changing daily and hourly, “We are in the thick of it,” Gordon said.
Voting is “one of the of the most basic rights in our democracy,” Gordon said, and many of us have taken access to the vote for granted. He described five current forms of voter suppression being pushed in legislatures all over the country. Many of these measures disproportionately affect citizens of color:
- Making voting more expensive and inconvenient
- Imposing voter I.D. requirements that don’t help voting integrity but disproportionately affect low income and disabled voters
- Limiting early voting and registration
- Purging names from the voting rolls of people who have not voted in recent elections
- Disenfranchising people with felonies on their records
- Partisan gerrymandering
Due to felony disenfranchisement alone (in 48 of 50 states), five to six million Americans do not have the right to vote. In Minnesota, an ACLU case on this issue headed to the Minnesota Supreme Court is Schroeder et al. v. Minnesota Secretary of State.
Proposed legislation in Congress to sustain and restore voting rights include the For the People Act (H.R. 1 and S. 1), a broad voter protection effort that also addresses gerrymandering, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act (H.R. 4), which is narrower but would effectively undo the Shelby County v. Holder decision that eviscerated the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Both bills were in play at the time of this writing.
A menu for change
The ACLU does its work related to voting rights through litigation, legislative advocacy, and volunteer activism. Gordon recommended a nine-point “Menu for Change” that included such basic steps as imposing minimum standards across the thousands of jurisdictions that supervise voting, registering citizens to vote automatically, and making Election Day registration available in every state (Minnesota and 20 others have this already).
Other recommendations, more complicated perhaps to accomplish, include fixing or eliminating the Electoral College; granting statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, where millions of citizens do not have full voting rights; and ending partisan gerrymandering, in which legislators of the party in power at the time of the decennial redistricting get to pick their voters instead of the other way around.
As for actions we can all take as citizens, “keep the fires lit under your elected representatives,” Gordon said. Even though things go relatively well here in Minnesota, make sure your elected officials know how important voting rights are to you.
—Jan Morlock, UMRA president-elect and Program Committee chair
Voter suppression—we need to talk
Tue, June 8 2021, 9am
John Gordon
Executive Director
ACLU of Minnesota
Event to be held via Zoom.
Access to absentee voting and to the polls on Election Day was much in the news during the pandemic, leading up to last November’s general election. Since the election, misinformation about the integrity of the vote has become a pretext for changes in numerous states that will limit access to the vote, in many cases eroding the protections of the Voting Rights Act that was hard-fought in 1965. What do we have to lose if we don’t preserve these rights? What tools do we have to protect them?
Under the leadership of John Gordon, the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota has brought its skills to bear to reduce voter intimidation, to make voting safer during the pandemic, to ensure those who need help at the polls will get it from the person of their choosing, and to protect the victories made since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The ACLU of Minnesota is also engaged with a campaign to restore the voting rights of 53,000 Minnesotans who are serving felony probation but are not in jail or prison.
UMRA Summer Programs 2021
Would you like to stay in touch over the summer? The UMRA Program Committee will offer an all-member program each month during June, July, and August. Watch for an email invitation for our program in July, and hold the date of Tuesday, August 17, 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., for an outdoor, in-person summer social. Details to follow.
As executive director of the ACLU of Minnesota, Gordon is responsible for achieving the organization’s mission to promote, protect, and extend the civil liberties of people in Minnesota.
Before joining the ACLU of Minnesota, Gordon practiced civil litigation with the law firm of Faegre Baker Daniels in Minneapolis, representing a variety of clients in trials and other contested matters. He has represented students harassed because of their sexual orientation, victims of domestic violence, and immigrants seeking asylum.
Gordon has also been a mediator and an adjunct professor of law at the University of Minnesota and the University of St. Thomas. He received a B.A. from Princeton University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Please register to join John Gordon for our June forum via Zoom. We look forward to seeing you at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, June 8.
—Jan Morlock, UMRA president-elect and Program Committee chair
Upcoming Events
We are fortunate to have UMRA member and former Minnesota Landscape Arboretum director Peter Moe to lead this approximately 3.7-mile hike at the Arboretum on Monday, May 6. Plan to have lunch together after the hike at the Eatery café inside the Oswald Visitor Center.
This session will continue the discussion begun in the May 8, 2023 session. See that article for details.
If you currently live in your own home or apartment, have you looked ahead to when you might want to consider a senior living option? Do you have any idea what those options might be? How much they cost? What they provide? UMRA’s May 14 workshop will provide an overview of the world of senior living and the basic information you need.
You’re invited to join the final Family History Interest Group meeting for 2023–24. This will be an opportunity to ask questions related to family history, share insights, talk about recent projects, and suggest topics for next year.
Stephanie Daily will lead the discussion of Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by best-selling author Mary Roach when the UMRA Book Club meets via Zoom at 2 p.m. on Friday, May 17.
The May 20 hike will start at the Historic Lift Bridge in Stillwater and go along the river to the new bridge, cross over and then back on the Wisconsin side, a total of approximately 5 miles. Most of the route is paved. We will eat lunch after at Brian's Bar and Grill in Stillwater. Car pooling will be available.
Climatologist and meteorologist Mark Seeley joined the U of M faculty in 1978 and has been a weekly commentator on Minnesota Public Radio since 1992. We are honored to welcome him as our guest speaker for UMRA’s May Luncheon Forum and 2024 Annual Meeting. He is always entertaining and informative.
UMRA’s Fourth Friday Book Club welcomes back, for the second time, author Julie Schumacher, U of M Regents professor of creative writing and English, for a conversation about her novel The Shakespeare Requirement.
We are in for a treat on June 3! Lynn Anderson, will lead us on trails at two parks near her Monticello home. Bring a bag lunch and we will gather in Lynn's yard along the Mississippi River for eating and socializing after the hike.
Get out to the ballpark with fellow UMRA members for the annual U of M Day at Target Field as the Minnesota Twins take on the Oakland Athletics on June 14 at 7:10 p.m.
Please join us at 9:30 on June 17, 2024 for a walk around Lake Como in St. Paul before attending the UMRA Summer Social and Picnic starting at 11 at the Como Pavilion. A perfect opportunity to get in a walk before we gather to celebrate summer.
Picnic under the covered, open-air Como pavilion, gaze at the water, spy some birds, catch up with friends and former colleagues, and meet new members. We’ll have lunch with plenty of time for visiting and then compete in teams as we are challenged by our Quiz master(s)!
Healthy aging, mindfulness, fighting ageism, and more will be the focus of the third annual Age-Friendly University Day to be held on the U of M Twin Cities campus.