Janine Jackson interviewed People For the American Way’s Svante Myrick about roadblocks to voting for the January 26, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: We can
argue that, with gerrymandering, Citizens United and the power of money—and
even the Electoral College—“one person, one vote” is not the simple recipe for
fully participatory democracy that we might wish. Still, voting—voting rights,
voting access—is the definition of a keystone issue that shapes many, many
other important issues. So how and why
have voting rights become a contested field in a country that, as I say, has
democratic aspirations, and what can we do, what are we doing about it?
We’re joined now by Svante Myrick, president of People For the American Way, and former mayor of Ithaca, New York. Welcome to CounterSpin, Svante Myrick.
Svante Myrick: Thank you so much for having me on. Really appreciate it, and all of us here at People For the American Way appreciate the chance to talk about this issue.
JJ: Wonderful. Well, let me just ask it simply: What are currently the chief impediments to voting rights that you see, that have led you to say, “It’s up to us to march again,” or that have led Sen. Raphael Warnock to talk about “democracy in reverse”? What are we up against?
SM: I wish I could tell you that, hey, there are simple, small fixes. There’s a challenge in a country of 360 million people making sure ballots arrive on time. I wish I could tell you that there was a bureaucratic or technocratic problem. But the truth is, it’s something more akin to a war, in which one half of the American political spectrum, that half that is beholden to extreme MAGA Republicans, is set out to intentionally disenfranchise people of voting. And they really have not been more plain-spoken about this at any time since the ’60s, since George Wallace and since the KKK.
There was a time where both sides agreed that voting is good, and everybody should have a right to vote. Especially after the 2020 election, led by Donald Trump, state legislators—people who are not household names, folks that you won’t often see on CNN or MSNBC—state legislators are taking their cues from Donald Trump and passing dozens and dozens…. I just came from Utah, where yet another law was passed that makes it harder to vote. Utah used to have very good voting laws. Everybody got a ballot in the mail. You could just fill it out, send it back in. You had weeks and weeks to do it. They just repealed that. Why? Is it because Donald Trump lost Utah? No, it’s because the state legislators are trying to curry favor with a president that just, frankly, does not want everyone’s vote to count.
And if it’s OK, if I just say what probably is obvious to many of your listeners, but I think it deserves to be said: They’re not trying to take away everyone’s right to vote. They’re trying to take away certain people’s right to vote. I’m a Black American, and I just know for a fact that this Trump-led faction of the Republican Party would love for Black Americans’ votes not to be counted. And I know that because they are moving with almost surgical precision to disenfranchise people like me and my family.
JJ: And then we see it also, you’re talking about a kind of top-down motivation, and then we see it also at the Supreme Court, and listeners will know about Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, but there were serious impacts from that as well.
SM: We here at People For the American Way, we are fighting really hard at every state legislature, at every level, to make sure people have a right to vote. Because we think if you can’t choose your own leaders, then nothing else matters. As they say, if you can’t choose from the menu, then you’re what’s for dinner, right?
And that is about voting rights. It’s about the voting laws. But, as you mentioned the Supreme Court, it’s also about money. It’s about money in politics. And if a few wealthy billionaires can throw their weight around, as we’re seeing now, and extort university presidents, and donate unlimited amounts of dark money to whatever shady person that they like because of whatever deal they’ve made behind closed doors, then we don’t live in a true democracy anyway.
And so when the Supreme Court made its Citizens United decision, it allowed that corporations were people, and money was speech, and that money and speech should be unlimited. They really put us on a dark path, one that we’re still living with today.
So we were also here, People For the American Way, fighting to get money out of politics, to overturn Citizens United, but also to pass things like matching funds for elections, and the stuff that would make it easier for people, frankly, like me—people who grew up without a lot of money, folks who are not the sons of senators, folks who are not in the pockets of big corporations—to run for office and to win.
JJ: Despite what we’ve just said, or in part because of it, I am surprised when people are surprised that people don’t vote. While I lament it, I see the fact that some people just don’t see a connection between this lever they pull, and the policies and laws governing their lives. I see that as an indictment of the system, and not of the people.
And so I wanted to ask you to talk about what we’ve seen labeled “low-propensity voters,” and different responses, like what People For is talking about, responses that are better than saying, “These people are so dumb, they don’t even know how to vote their own interests.”
SM: And that’s so well-said. Certainly our system has failed in many ways. But extreme right-wingers have also been waging an 80-year war, maybe longer, to convince Americans that government does nothing for them, that their representatives don’t improve their lives. And so when they do things like starve schools and school budgets, starve road budgets so that there are potholes in the street, and try to shrink government down to a size where you can drown it in a bathtub, they make sure it is dysfunctional, from Reagan to George W. Bush to Donald Trump, they break the system, and then say, “Hey, see, government, it can’t work at all. Why bother? Why bother to vote at all?”
And so I think it is good to remind yourself that, for the average American, who is not listening to CNN or MSNBC all day—first of all, they’re probably happier; their blood pressure’s lower—but that they’ve also been subject to generations of misinformation about the power of collective action and how much better their circumstances, their lives, the quality of their life, the health of their finances could be if we lived in a country that took more collective action, like we see, frankly, in some Scandinavian nations, where folks really trust that the power of their vote is going to lead to positive, progressive change.
JJ: Is there legislation, or are there moves afoot, that could be responsive or would be responsive to the suppressive efforts that we’re seeing? Are there things to pull for in terms of policy?
SM: Yes, absolutely. So if people go to PFAW.com, you could see all of the work that we’re doing at each state legislature. Now, of course, fighting state by state is an inefficient way to do this. The best way to reclaim our own democratic power is to pass federal legislation, what we call the For the People Act, that would make it easier for people to run for office, easier for people to vote, easier for people to have their voices heard.
We’re also fighting at the federal level to overturn Citizens United. This is a complicated and lengthy process, to overturn a Supreme Court decision, but you can do it. We are well on our way, and we encourage people to join us.
JJ: Finally, let me ask you about journalism. Certainly we see all kinds of problems with election coverage, from ignoring down-ballot races that we know can be critical, to focusing on horse race and heavy-handed polling, almost everything but candidates’ actual plans for what they would do and how that would affect us. Coverage of voting rights is not the same as election coverage, but certainly, election coverage gives an opening to talk about those issues. Are there things that you’d like to see more or less of from media?
SM: For sure, and you’ve just listed a whole host of them. Honestly, the constant coverage of polling does have a suppressive effect on the vote, because people, when they just listen and follow the polls, they feel like the vote already happened. At least they feel like they know what’s going to happen, why bother, we’re down two, we’re up four, they don’t need my vote. It’s already done. So that’s one problem.The media can help people understand that all this harping about elections and voter disenfranchisement is not dweeby and nerdy. It can seem it, a little bit. It’s like in my family, I was the one that always had the rule book for Monopoly, and I was like, “You can’t do that. The rules are important. Do not pass Go.” And other people are like: “I don’t want to talk about the rules for how we decide this stuff. I just want my streets to be better paved.”
I think if the media could help folks understand that he who makes the rules determines the outcome. Whatever it is you care about, whatever it is you’re voting for, if it’s for better healthcare, if it’s peace in the Middle East, if it’s for more money for you and your family, if it’s for a better quarterback for the New York Giants, finally—whoever sets up the rules of the game helps make sure that their outcome is more likely.
And Republicans know that, frankly, better than Democrats do. The Republicans have turned their entire apparatus, not into improving people’s lives, but into taking away their right to vote. So that as soon as they have total power, like they do in places like Tennessee, for example, they can start expelling lawmakers that they don’t like. They can cut corporate taxes basically to zero, and they can abandon the poor and the middle class. And they do all that by making it harder for people to vote first.
JJ: And we won’t know what we’ve got until it’s gone. Yeah.
We’ve been speaking with Svante Myrick. He’s president of People For the American Way. Svante Myrick, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
SM: Absolutely my pleasure. Thank you.
Take a look at my brief bio about my writing life and on social media:
Facebook page: The Brooks Blackboard
Twitter: @_charlesbrooks
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