Georgia’s governor signed voting restrictions into law in front of a slave plantation painting
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday signed into law a series of controversial voting restrictions decried by Democrats as “Jim Crow 2.0” — and he did so alongside a group of white men and in front of a painting of a plantation where Black people were once enslaved.
In a Twitter thread Friday, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch pointed out that Kemp signed the bill under the image “of a notorious slave plantation in Wilkes County, GA.”
The painting appears to depict a brick house on the Callaway Plantation in Washington, Georgia, which was once a 3,000-acre plantation owned by a family of enslavers and is now open for public tours.
“In 2021, the irony of Kemp signing this bill — that makes it illegal to give water to voters waiting on the sometimes 10-hour lines that state policies create in mostly Black precincts — under the image of a brutal slave plantation is almost too much to bear,” Bunch tweeted. [Continue reading…]
President Joe Biden slammed Georgia’s new voting restrictions, calling them 21st-century “Jim Crow” and urging Congress to pass election reform bills.
“This law, like so many others being pursued by Republicans in statehouses across the country is a blatant attack on the Constitution and good conscience,” Biden said in a statement Friday afternoon. “This is Jim Crow in the 21st Century. It must end. We have a moral and Constitutional obligation to act.”
In the statement, Biden called on Congress to pass H.R. 1, or the “For the People Act,” which would reform ballot access and campaign finance. It would require states to offer same-day voting registration as well as two weeks of early voting, among other things. The House passed the bill earlier this month but it faces an uphill battle in the Senate amid heavy Republican criticism of the bill. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said the bill is about “rigging the system.”
Biden also urged Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would bring back Voting Rights Act protections that the Supreme Court took down. [Continue reading…]