Opinion
Mapping the War on the Right to Vote
A
t the Children’s Defense
Fund’s recent national
conference, Barbara Arn-
wine, the executive director of the
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil
Rights Under Law and a leader of
Election Protection, the nation’s
largest nonpartisan voter protec-
tion coalition, issued an urgent
call to action. Right now assaults
on voting rights across the coun-
try in advance of the 2012
elections are keeping her very
busy.
Arwine said 25 million Ameri-
cans who had voted in 2008 did
not vote in the 2010 midterm elec-
tions, and when new state
legislators came into power after
those elections, their first priority
was figuring out how to keep
those 25 million people from
returning to the polls. Legislators
in 35 states quickly drafted bills
making it harder for people to
vote: “everything from photo ID
laws, to laws restricting early vot-
ing, to laws making it harder for
third party registration groups to
register people to vote, to laws
making it harder for people to vote
on Sundays because in many
states that’s when Latinos and
African Americans voted the
heaviest, to laws restricting stu-
dent voting.” Arnwine said the
C HILD
W ATCH
Marian
Wright
Edelman
lawmakers behind these bills were
counting on the targeted voters not
noticing what was happening until
it was too late.
to fight back exactly where the
battlegrounds are.
Then we each need a plan. Arn-
wine and her colleagues are doing
their part by suing states whose
proposed laws violate the Voting
Rights Act. But Arnwine stressed
that every person can do some-
thing to fight in this war on the
right to vote, and we each need to
decide now how we will execute
our roles. Begin by using tradi-
tional networks and social
networks to make sure every sin-
gle person you know is a “V.I.P.”:
elections are what we call decep-
tive practices—people are going
to get robocalls, and they’re going
to get fliers that claim they’re
from the NAACP and everything,
telling people to go to the wrong
polling place . . . if they’re in the
wrong polling places, in most
states their vote will not count.”
Securing “V.I.P.” status is critical
to making sure people will not be
disenfranchised on Election Day.
Next, Arnwine said, we need to
counter the organized groups who
are already planning to send “poll
“…the biggest devilment that goes on in these elections
are what we call deceptive practices—people are going
to get robocalls, and they’re going to get fliers that claim
they’re from the NAACP and everything, telling people to
go to the wrong polling place”
— Barbara Arnwine, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Arnwine then shared her Map of
Shame: Voter Suppression Legis-
lation
by
state,
http://www.lawyerscommittee.org
/admin/voting_rights/documents/f
iles/7-6-11-Map-of-Shame.pdf
that shows all of us who are ready
they have verified their voter reg-
istration status; they have the right
identification for their state; and
they know their precinct.
The last is important, Arnwine
said, “because the biggest devil-
ment that goes on in these
watchers” to African American,
Latino, and student voting places
to intimidate and harass voters,
and we need to “get [our] friends
to become poll workers, official
poll workers, because that’s what
they’re doing—they’re putting
them inside of the polling places
also, so they can challenge people
on the inside and nobody will
know what they’re doing. So we
need good people sitting next to
them, making sure that people
have access to the ballot.” Now is
the time to sign up for these roles.
We can also volunteer at Elec-
tion
Protection
Coalition
Command Centers to help watch
out for local problems. Finally, on
Election Day every one of us must
do the basic job of helping other
people get to the polls—as Arn-
wine says even “if you’re
bedridden get up in the morning
and call everybody you know:
‘Are you going to vote today?’”
Arnwine summed up this way:
“There is a role for everybody.
Don’t forget. If you forget every-
thing that I said today, if you
remember nothing, just remember
this one thing: that we can only
win this fight if you fight.” We
cannot stand by and let the right to
vote be taken away again on our
watch. Every one of us must
decide what we can do in the fight
to protect voting rights today.
There’s no time to waste.
Marian Wright Edelman is pres-
ident of the Children’s Defense
Fund
You’re Fired: ‘Capital Punishment’ in the Workplace
I
n employment law, they speak
about a termination or firing as
being the “capital punishment”
of employment relations. This
may sound dramatic – unless you
have been fired. And, truth be
told, if you do not have a labor
union, you are really up the creek
if you are terminated.
I have a friend who is facing a
possible termination. My friend
spoke up about unprofessional
conduct by a supervisor and, from
that moment on, life has been hell.
Prior to this incident, the perform-
ance evaluations my friend
received were excellent. Subse-
quent to the incident, however, her
work came under question, which
then evolved into harassment. She
went to the human resources
department of their employer but
they could or would not do any-
thing. She attempted to transfer to
another department but each time
the transfer was blocked, good
reviews and interviews notwith-
standing. My friend was finally
put on a 60-day notice to
improve…or else.
Sounds familiar? It probably
does. Most of us have either been
fired or know people who have
been fired.
Contrary to the
assumptions that most of us make,
there are no laws that protect you
from an arbitrary or retaliatory fir-
ing except under very specific
circumstances. If you are fired for
something that represents a breach
of law, such as for race, gender,
national origin, religion or handi-
cap,
you
have
a
legal
recourse. But in most situations, if
your employer comes in one day
and simply decides that they do
not like you or that you are no
longer needed, you can be
fired. In fact, the law is clear that
T RANS
A FRICA
U.S.A., that is generally not the
case. A labor union is the only
means for most workers to gain
any
sort
of
workplace
justice. Through a grievance and
arbitration process, the worker has
a right to challenge an alleged
injustice such as a wrongful fir-
ing. Workers should not live in
fear of being presumed guilty for
an alleged infraction and then
have to prove their innocence.
Bill
Fletcher Jr.
you can be fired for any reason or
no reason…unless you have a
labor union representing you.
Firings are indeed a form of
capital punishment. Your world is
turned upside down. If you live
paycheck to paycheck, you know
what it means if that paycheck
stops. Depending on whether you
have any savings, you could, quite
literally, be out in the cold (or the
heat) with nowhere to go. On top
of that, firings do something to
your spirit. Even if you are com-
pletely certain that you did
nothing to deserve the termina-
tion, over time you can start
feeling isolated and start blaming
yourself.
In today’s economic climate a
firing takes on even greater impli-
cations. One, it may take you
longer to find a new job than it
might have 10 years ago. Two, if
you have healthcare insurance, it
is probably tied directly to your
job, meaning that the loss of the
job can have catastrophic conse-
quences.
And, three, our
identities are often tied in with our
jobs – how we see ourselves, our
accomplishments, and unfortu-
nately, our worth.
In many countries a termination
can be challenged in a court
where, should you win, you may
either get your job back or you get
a special severance.
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August 22, 2012 The Portland Skanner Page 5
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