Pictured is Ohio 11th Congressional District Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge (D-OH), a Warrensville Heights Democrat whose largely Black congressional district includes Cleveland
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief Coleman is an experienced Black political reporter who covered the 2008 presidential election for the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio and the presidential elections in 2012 and 2016 at and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com
Clevelandurbannews.com , CLEVELAND, Ohio-Ohio Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, one of two Blacks in congress from Ohio and whose largely Black congressional district includes Cleveland and several of its eastern suburbs, will chair a field hearing on voting rights in Ohio and the purging of voter rolls beginning at 10 am on Thursday, April 25 at the Jerry Sue Thornton Center at Cuyahoga County Community College (Tri-C) Metro-Campus in Cleveland at 2500 East 22nd Street.
The hearing is open-to-the public as are all congressional hearings.
A Warrensville Heights Democrat and former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Fudge, a congresswoman since 2008, chairs the Subcommittee on Elections of the Committee on House Administration, a House subcommittee appointment issued under Democratic U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi reclaimed the Speaker of the House position this year after the Democrats reclaimed control of the House via last year's midterm elections
“Throughout her 20 years of public service Congresswoman Marcia Fudge has been a relentless advocate for the right of every citizen to vote, and for all votes to be counted as cast," Pelosi said in a previous statement." During her time in congress, Congresswoman Fudge has been a driving force in our voter protection efforts, including in her leadership as chair of the Congressional Black Caucus."
U.S. Reps G.K Butterfield, a North Carolina Democrat and former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus like Fudge, Rodney Davis of Illinois, a ranking member of the subcommittee, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Terri Sewell of Alabama will also participate in the hearing.
Rep Marcy Kaptur, a Toledo Democrat whose 9th congressional district extends to Cleveland will attend also,organizers said.
Davis is Republican, and Raskin and Sewell are both Democrats.
The field hearing will also consist of two separate panels of witnesses, three witnesses on each panel in fact.
Daniel Ortiz, the outreach director for Policy Matters Ohio, Elaine Tso, interim co-chief executive officer for the Asian Services In Action, Inc. (ASIA) and Ohio Conference of the NAACP President Tom Roberts are witnesses on panel 1, and Attorney Naila Awan, Mike Brickner, who is the Ohio state director of All Voting is Local (AVL), and Attorney Inajo Davis Chappell, a local attorney and Democratic member of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, will give testimony for the hearing on the other panel.
The House Administration Subcommittee on Elections handles federal election-related issues, including oversight of the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) and the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC), and is responsible for contested elections under the Federal Contested Elections Act.
Jurisdiction of the subcommittee also extends to the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), the Federal Election Campaign Act, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, and the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA).
The Subcommittee on Elections was a subcommittee within the House Committee on House Administration, created in 2007 at the start of the 110th Congress.
It was eliminated in 2013, and Pelosi vowed to restore it when she became Speaker this year., which comes more than five years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned parts of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder.
In Holder the Supreme Court swept away key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, ruling that formula that determines which jurisdictions are subjected to pre-clearance based on their histories of discrimination in voting is unconstitutional, a landmark decision that opponents of the ruling says disproportionately impacts and further disenfranchises African-American voters.
A pivotal state for presidential elections, Ohio is among five other states where Fudge has or will hold field hearings on voter right, the others being Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and North Dakota.
Over the last two decades, Ohio has expanded and then drastically constricted voters’ access to the ballot through voter purges and restrictions on early voting.
A trained lawyer and former assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor who was mayor of Warrensville Heights, a largely Black Cleveland suburb, prior to becoming a member of congress, , Fudge said that the congressional hearing in Cleveland this week will look at voting rights and election administration issues, and will explore Ohio’s record of voter purges.
It will serve also, she said, to help determine how congress can work to better protect the franchise for Ohio voters.
Early voting changes, language access, and other barriers to accessing the ballot which have disproportionately affected voters of color are also at issue.
In 2018, the Ohio Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Advisory Memorandum reported that Ohio is one of the most aggressive states in the nation in purging voter registrations.
A Brennan Center study found that between 2014 and 2016, Ohio purged nearly 16 million individuals, which translates to a 33 percent increase in purged voters than were removed between 2006 and 2008.
Federal law prohibits purging voters based solely on inactivity.
Ohio laws manage to skirt this federal statute statute based, says Fudge, by citing change of address, and failure to respond to a mailed confirmation notices.
Last year, a divided U.S. Supreme Court upheld Ohio's controversial "use-it-or-lose-it" voting law by a 5-to-4 margin.
It permits the state to strike voters from the registration rolls if they fail to return a mailed address confirmation form, and don't vote for another four years, or two federal election cycles.
And the fight for voting rights in Ohio is ongoing.
During the 2004 election, Ohio voters faced especially long lines, impairing their ability to vote.
In response, the state legislature adopted a measure allowing 35 days of early in-person voting.
This created a “Golden Week” where voters could register to vote and cast their ballots on the same day.
Led by the Republican statewide political regime ,and former Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted , now the state's lieutenant governor, the state legislature, dominated by Republicans in both the House and Senate, eliminated Golden Week in 2014, supposedly to combat voter fraud despite there being no evidence of widespread fraud in the state.
In Ohio State Conference of N.A.A.C.P v. Husted, experts testified that African- Americans disproportionately use early voting and shortening or eliminating early voting options negatively impacts turnout among African Americans.
But a the federal 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld eliminating Golden Week and the U.S.Supreme Court, in 2016, rebuffed an appeal from the 6th Circuit.
Further restricting early voting access, Ohio only allows one early, in-person voting site per county.
This overly burdens voters in the most populous counties, Fudge and her pro-voting rights congressional colleagues argue. .
As part of Ohio’s voting system overhaul, Husted, who is succeeded by current Ohio Secretary of State Frank Larose, also a Republican, moved to prohibit counties from mailing unsolicited absentee-ballot applications, a practice used by three counties with the largest African American populations.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
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