Warnock Unveils Comprehensive Plan to Protect and Expand Voting Rights in America

In a new framework released today, Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock called for Congress to investigate state politicians who rushed to gerrymander maps and eliminate Black majority districts following the Supreme Court's Callais decision

The investigations would seek to determine if lawmakers illegally discriminated based on race when drawing Congressional maps

The Senator's plan also includes a nationwide ban on partisan gerrymandering, stopping billionaires from buying our elections, and guaranteeing the right to vote for all Americans

ICYMI from ABC News: Sen. Warnock urges Democrats to investigate officials who redrew maps

Senator Reverend Warnock: "Voting rights are preservative of all other rights. They are the context in which all other debates take place. Democracy is the very house we live in. It is the whole game."

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA), one of the Senate's leading advocates for voting rights, today unveiled a comprehensive policy agenda to repair and strengthen American democracy in the wake of escalating attacks on the right to vote.

In this new policy paper, Senator Warnock argues that Congress must launch investigations into state politicians who redrew the maps after the Supreme Court decision to gut the Voting Rights Act earlier this year.

"Across the Deep South, partisan actors have manipulated their maps to silence the voices of Black voters. Their names and stories are virtually unknown across the country, and that is one way they escape accountability," said Senator Reverend Warnock.

"Even this Supreme Court has made clear that intentional racial discrimination remains illegal. We owe it to voters to root out whether any illegal actions or discrimination occurred," added the Senator.

Senator Warnock's plan outlines actions Congress should take in the short, medium, and long term. The plan includes:

• Launch Congressional investigations into state politicians who have manipulated maps to silence voters' voices after the Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v Callais. Determine if there is any evidence that these officials broke any laws in their race to gerrymander and silence Black voices.
• Ban partisan gerrymandering nationwide. If some partisan Republicans refuse to ban this egregious practice, we should put them on record, and we must make them explain why on the floor of Congress and to the American people.
• Stop billionaires from buying our elections. We need billionaires to spend less on elections and more in taxes.
• Expand American democracy. Grant statehood to the District of Columbia and self-determination for U.S. territories.
• Amend the Constitution. Enshrine the fundamental right to vote once and for all.

Senator Warnock also framed the push as a call to action for his colleagues in Congress and in the Democratic Party to urgently prioritize the issue of voting rights saying, "No more excuses: As soon as Democrats hold a trifecta, protecting voting rights must be at the top of the agenda."

He also argues that fixing voting rights is a critical step towards addressing affordability and the cost of living saying, "Voting rights are preservative of all other rights. So even as we talk about affordability, as we talk about growing wealth inequality, billionaires getting tax cuts while everyday people can barely afford their lives, all of that brokenness reflects the brokenness of the democracy itself. We have to repair it, and we have to do so with urgency."

Read the full plan HERE.

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