Voting rights advocates gather in front of U.S. Sen. Todd Young's office in downtown Indianapolis on Tuesday. CNHI News Indiana photo by Whitney Downard
Dozens of Hoosiers of various backgrounds gathered outside of U.S. Sen. Todd Young’s office in downtown Indianapolis on Tuesday with one goal: persuading him to push forward voting rights legislation known as the “For The People Act.”
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit law and policy institute, the bill comes as several states restrict voter access and attempt to navigate the redistricting process. The bill’s authors included a requirement for non-partisan redistricting committees, a public way to fund campaigns to dilute the influence of dark money and the super-rich, and increase voter participation.
The group of several organizations, including Common Cause Indiana, Indiana Vote By Mail, the Sierra Club, the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and the Hoosiers Organized People Energized, or HOPE, spoke outside Young’s office for half an hour before marching to U.S. Sen. Mike Braun’s office.
For Amanda Shepherd, with the environmental group Sierra Club, the gerrymandering of Indiana districts and opaqueness of campaign financing meant elected officials were more beholden to big money groups rather than average Hoosiers.
“There are politicians who sit in offices right here in Indiana who are passing bills that end rooftop solar initiatives, protections for wetlands and protect polluting industries all across the state,” Shepherd said. “These aren’t things that ‘We The People’ want — these are initiatives that were requested by industries and by those who benefit from a lack of regulation.”
The climate crisis — most recently embodied by the northwestern heat wave, increasingly active hurricane seasons and drought conditions fueling fires in the American West — compelled Shepherd to reexamine why legislators hadn’t acted.
“In order to fully confront the climate crisis, address environmental justice and move to 100% renewable clean energy, we require an accurate representation of the people,” Shepherd said. “Without a functional, fair and representative democracy — where the American people are the ones that hold the power, not corporate polluters and not the super-rich — we won’t be able to continue the fight.”
Barb Tully, the president of Indiana Vote By Mail, urged the senators to support provisions of the For The People Act, including an independent redistricting commission, campaign finance reform, same-day automatic voter registration and expanded mail-in voting.
To explain her organization’s goals, Tully referenced a popular meme showing three children — one tall, one medium and one short — trying to look over a fence. With equality, each child receives a box, even though the tall child doesn’t need it and the one box doesn’t help the short child see.
Under equity, Tully explained, the three boxes are distributed based on each child’s characteristics, with the tall child’s box going to the short child, who now has two boxes. Everyone can see over the fence after the “equity” distribution.
“That’s all we’re trying to accomplish with Senate Bill 1. We want people to be able to vote in the manner that meets the needs that they have as voters,” Tully said. “We want everybody to have equal access to the ballot.”
Senate Republicans blocked the act from passing on June 22 during a key test vote in which the act needed 60 votes, or 10 Republican votes, to succeed. Neither Braun nor Young voted for the bill.
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