{"id":479243,"date":"2022-01-21T15:27:40","date_gmt":"2022-01-21T15:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radiofree.asia\/?guid=a78f8ef722d19e3541b8556a590104ed"},"modified":"2022-01-21T15:27:40","modified_gmt":"2022-01-21T15:27:40","slug":"gop-suppression-efforts-escalate-as-voting-rights-bill-fails-in-senate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/01\/21\/gop-suppression-efforts-escalate-as-voting-rights-bill-fails-in-senate\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP Suppression Efforts Escalate as Voting Rights Bill Fails in Senate"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Florida<\/a>

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis did not wait for fellow Republicans in the Senate to finish blockading federal voting rights legislation to start ramping up racist suppression efforts in his home state.<\/p>\n

In an unusual move on the eve of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, DeSantis proposed an alternative political map for Florida that experts said<\/a> would dilute the power of Latino voters and effectively eliminate two majority-Black voting districts out of only four in the state. DeSantis then asked Florida\u2019s Republican-controlled legislature for nearly $6 million<\/a> to fund a new police agency to enforce election laws, including sweeping new voting restrictions<\/a> he signed into law last year.<\/p>\n

DeSantis\u2019s proposed poll patrols would ultimately answer to the governor, raising fears of voter intimidation in a state where Republicans gutted a constitutional amendment<\/a> meant to restore voting rights for hundreds of thousands of formerly incarcerated people. Ash-Lee Henderson, the first Black woman to serve as co-executive director of the Highlander Research and Education Center, the legendary incubator for the southern civil rights movement where King and Rosa Parks trained<\/a>, said DeSantis\u2019s call for an Office of Election Crimes and Security targeting voters \u201cwasn\u2019t even a dog whistle, it was overtly racist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m disgusted, because literally residents across the state \u2014 and Florida is a huge state \u2014 said that formerly incarcerated people deserve the right to vote, said they wanted drive-through voting and mail-in ballots, and his response is, \u2018all this is voter fraud,\u2019\u201d Henderson said. \u201cBut there is no scientific evidence to show there is this intentional voter fraud happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeSantis is hungry<\/a> for right-wing media attention, and the proposals were a broad swipe at Democrats and civil rights groups, who spent the past year accusing Republican-controlled states of reviving Jim Crow with a wave of voter suppression laws<\/a>.<\/span> The laws passed in the wake of former President Trump\u2019s mendacious attempts at overthrowing the 2020 election with false claims of voter fraud.<\/p>\n

DeSantis is signaling that the GOP will take up every inch of ground abandoned by Democrats in the fight over ballot access, which has once again ignited mass civil rights protests.<\/a> While it\u2019s unclear whether DeSantis will ultimately implement new election police in Florida, he knew the federal legislation that could block such a proposal was likely to fail on Wednesday. And it did. <\/p>\n

After an intense day of debate over race and democracy in the U.S., the Senate rejected by a razor-thin margin the Democratic push to pass their landmark voting rights bill, the Freedom to Vote: John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which was championed by Black leaders as an important step toward addressing racist suppression. The Senate\u2019s 50 Republicans united against the bill, which they deride as a federal takeover of elections \u2014 a revival of segregationist arguments<\/a> against the original Voting Rights Act of 1965, according to voting rights groups.<\/p>\n

Henderson and other observers say DeSantis\u2019s timing is obvious as Republicans continue to push back on any progress made by Black people since the 2020 uprisings for racial justice. The governor rails against anti-racist education, and is pushing a bill designed to shield white people<\/a> from feeling \u201cdiscomfort\u201d from discussion about the nation\u2019s racist past at work and in public schools this week.<\/p>\n