With brazen attempts to diminish the power of communities of color through gerrymandering and voter suppression across the country, little progress to reauthorize the federal Voting Rights Act in Congress, and an erosion of federal voting rights protections by the U.S. Supreme Court over the last decade, some states are taking the lead to enact state voting rights provisions protecting against discriminatory policies and practices.
Join FRR to hear from national experts and state advocates who are spearheading efforts to establish a racial equity-centered framework for state-level voting rights policy, pushing for bold reforms modeled after the federal Voting Rights Act to prevent local governments from implementing voting changes that harm voters of color, protect against voter intimidation, and expand language access, among other things.
You will learn more about the current landscape for state voting rights acts, including where reforms have already been enacted and how state policies are evolving, as well as the experiences of frontline advocates who are advancing these reform efforts in the states.
Invited program speakers include:
- Adam Lioz, Senior Policy Counsel, Legal Defense Fund
- Doris Dumas, President, Greater New Haven NAACP
- Fulvia Vargas-De León, Senior Counsel, LatinoJustice PRLDEF
- Henal Patel, Law & Policy Director, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice
- Micheal Davis, Executive Director, Promote the Vote Michigan
Leigh Chapman (Division Director, Pro-Democracy Alliance and Structural Reform, Open Society Foundations) and Joseph Jung (Program Officer at The JPB Foundation) will guide the discussion.