Recently, conservative judges on a federal court further gutted the Voting Rights Act, ruling that "only the federal government — not private citizens or civil rights groups — is allowed to sue under a key section of the landmark civil rights law." This ruling comes a decade after the Supreme Court initially stripped a central component of the Voting Rights Act, allowing many GOP-led states to pounce on the opportunity and pass laws restricting voting rights. Further, many Republican-run states continue to draw redistricting maps motivated by race, a practice which the courts are making harder to reverse.

Our federal lawmakers must challenge the continued wave of restrictive state election laws immediately to ensure our freedom to vote.

There are two voter protection bills that have been introduced in Congress that can be passed and enacted right now: the Freedom to Vote Act (FTVA) and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA). These are two transformative pieces of legislation that together would restore and modernize the full protections of the VRA, set national standards to increase access to the ballot box, neutralize partisan and racial gerrymandering, protect our elections from interference, increase transparency in campaign finance to prevent dark money from buying our politicians, and more.