New York Democratic Lawyers Council

Minority Voting Rights Committee’s 1st virtual meeting of 2021 with Special Guests! Thursday evening, May 13th, 2021! Friends: Please join us at our first MVRC meeting for the year. We hope to have an in-depth discussion on the voting/election reforms that have passed this session, as well as potential bills we want to continue to advocate for for the rest of the year. We will host the meeting on Thursday May 13th @ 6:30pm via zoom conference.... We are honored to have the following guest speakers at the meeting: 1) Assemblywoman Latrice M. Walker- NYS Assembly Election Law Chair 2) Jarret Berg Esq.- Co-Founder and Voting Rights Counsel at VoteEarlyNY and our MVRC monthly voting rights organization spotlight on the Brooklyn Voter Alliance with their Co-Founder and member of their Executive Committee 3) Amanda Blair Esq. WHEN May 03, 2021 at 6pm - 9pm Please RSVP here:

Major League Baseball on Friday pulled this year's All-Star Game out of Atlanta in protest of Georgia's new restrictive voting law.

In 2020, the combination of mass incarceration and disenfranchisement policy excluded an estimated 5.2 million Americans from voting, three-quarters of whom have already completed their prison term and are living in our communities. The blunt application to all felonies makes the penalty indiscriminate and yet the impact is unjustly disproportionatenationally, one in 16 voting age African-Americans were reportedly disenfranchised, a rate 3.7 times greater than that of other... Americans. In Florida and six other states, more than one-in-seven African-Americans remain disenfranchised. Over 20% of Americans disenfranchised are women. When combined with other barriers to voter access (and gerrymandering), how dramatically does this contort political power? Disenfranchisement isn’t merely a vestige of Jim Crow in New York, but actually more of an enduring centerpiece of the backlash that also occurred in northern states with larger Black populations after the Fifteenth Amendment prohibited racial discrimination in voting. Sadly, much as delegates intended when they entrenched mandatory disenfranchisement for infamous crimes in the New York Constitution 150 years ago, its legacy operates with disparate racial impact to this day, stigmatizing individuals and perpetuating a ripple effect that marginalizes communities. The policy is part of a national stain. Course-correcting it requires more than incremental fixes. A rising generation of New York lawmakers are increasingly likely to agree but that’s yet to meaningfully shift the debate. Politicians called to public service to right historical wrongs and pursue social justice must reevaluate this serious punishment through a modern lens focused on fundamental rights and familiar rule-of-law principles like proportionality and judicial oversight.

NYDLC is proud to bring together leading academic and election law professionals to discuss how systemic racial inequalities are being confronted with voting rights legislation, and how much more we have to do! Get your ticket now! https://www.nydlc.org/confronting_inequalities... Our panel will examine our collective history of inequality in voting dating back to the Constitution itself, discuss felon disenfranchisement and the Voting Rights Act in detail, and examine how new legislation before the Senate right now (the For the People Act - HR 1 and the Voting Rights Advancement Act - HR 4) can help make a difference towards the impediments that prevent everyone from being able to vote freely and fairly. This event will also include a discussion of how far we have come and how far we have left to go and offer 3 total CLE Credits (including 1 hour of NYS Diversity and Inclusion Credit) to attorneys who attend. Panelists: Frederick Brewington Civil Rights Attorney, The Law Offices of Frederick K. Brewington Gloria Browne-Marshall Civil Rights Attorney and Professor of Constitutional Law at John Jay College Edgardo Cortés Voting Rights and Election Security Advisor Hon. John Sarbanes U.S. Representative, Maryland's 3rd Congressional District Jeff Wice Adjunct Professor/Senior Fellow, New York Law School & John Owens, Jr. Principal Law Clerk, New York State Supreme Court