“What hurts most is the message that it sends to Black communities,” said Shahidah Ali, Political Action Committee Chair, RI Coalition of Black Women. “We were told to engage our elected officials. We did. We were told that our voices mattered. We believed it. Then, when the moment arrived to act, the legislature let it die.”
“We are angry. We are disappointed,” said Catherine Tiley, President of this year’s cohort of the Women’s Policy Institute. “We have all worked so hard lobbying, advocating, and fighting for the Rhode Island Voting Rights Act, a bill whose sole aim is to benefit and protect all Rhode Islanders, and leadership thinks they can just throw it all away and kill the Rhode Island Voting Rights Act. It is unacceptable, and it shows Rhode Islanders who our legislators really are.”
Secretary of State Gregg Amore, President of the Senate Valarie Lawson, and Speaker of the House Christopher Blazejewski issued the following joint statement regarding the General Assembly’s abject failure to take the Rhode Island Voting Rights Act (S3143/H8334) seriously and failing to pass it:
“From the beginning, we have all understood the importance of passing a strong Rhode Island Voting Rights Act. But we also understand that as the federal administration continues to work to make it more difficult to access the ballot box, we have to do it right. This legislation is broad-ranging and complex, and requires feedback and input from many partners.
“Advocates and other parties raised several concerns.
“We want to be clear that no one's concern brought us to this point. In light of the concerns raised and the complexity of the bill, we sought the guidance of Attorney General Peter Neronha, whose office is charged with both enforcement of this bill’s obligations and defending it in a likely court challenge. It is imperative that we enact as strong, enforceable, and defensible a bill as possible. With those priorities in mind, we recognize there is more work to do.
“As drafted this year, the provisions of the Voting Rights Act would not take effect until the 2028 election cycle. Therefore, we will work over the course of the off-session to put forward as strong a bill as possible for consideration in 2027 and will continue to prioritize the Voting Rights Act in the upcoming session.”
In response, dozens took to the Rhode Island State House in protest and, at a rally/press conference, called into question the courage, honesty, and integrity of the elected officials who failed them. They openly doubted the General Assembly’s commitment to Democracy. Members of General Assembly leadership, in response, appear unmoved and unconcerned, confident in their positions of power and privilege.
Shahidah Ali, Political Action Committee Chair, RI Coalition of Black Women
I wrote an op-ed today, so I’m just going to read that.
“Today, after months of organizing, lobbying, testifying, collecting postcards, and showing up at the State House, we receive devastating news. The Rhode Island Voting Rights Act is dead for this legislative session. I am angry, but more than anything, I am disappointed. For months, grassroots organizations, community leaders, and we common folk worked to convince lawmakers that voting rights are worth protecting. Week after week, organizations like the Rhode Island Coalition of Black Women, Common Cause, and The Womxn Project walked the halls of the State House explaining why this legislation mattered. Postcards were mailed, meetings were held, and testimony was given. People took time away from work to go to the State House to speak with reps and senators about the necessity of this bill. We believed protecting democracy was important enough to show up.
“In March, the campaign launched with leaders Representative Gabe Amo and Seth Magaziner, and Secretary of State Gregg Amore. On that March afternoon after our elected officials spoke, I went to the podium to contribute my words to what I perceived as a historic moment in Rhode Island.
“Apparently, not enough lawmakers agreed. Maybe some thought I was being too dramatic when I spoke on the violent history of the 1965 bill. When history and race come into the conversation, it is always assumed that Black people are being hyperbolic. We aren’t, because shortly after my speech, the Supreme Court completely gutted the Federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, and within days, the southern states moved quickly to redraw maps.
“Now, through inaction and weakened protection, those states gerrymandered heavily Black districts, diluting their votes and representation. What happened in the southern states is exactly why Rhode Island needed its own Voting Rights Act, not because voter suppression only happened somewhere else or because democracy is guaranteed; we needed it because the rights that are not protected can be taken away. We needed it because history teaches us that progress can be reversed.
“Yet, after all the advocacy, we were told the bill was too complicated. A bill designed to protect voters from intimidation, prevent racial gerrymandering, stop the dilution of Black political power, and ensure that every Rhode Islander has a fair voice in our democracy was too complicated. The people who fought and died for the right to vote faced literacy tests, poll taxes, fire hoses, police dogs, beatings, bombings, and murder. They crossed bridges knowing they might not make it home. Yet we are expected to accept that a voting rights bill could not move forward because it was too difficult to understand?
“I cannot accept that. What hurts most is the message that it sends to Black communities. We were told to engage our elected officials. We did. We were told that our voices mattered. We believed it. Then, when the moment arrived to act, the legislature let it die.
“I am gutted. Gutted that we lost an opportunity for Rhode Island to declare that, regardless of what happens in Washington, this state will protect the voting rights of all its people. An opportunity to tell Black and brown voters that their representation matters. An opportunity to tell marginalized communities that their voices will not be diluted, ignored, or bargained away. An opportunity to lead. Instead, lawmakers chose to delay.
“When voting rights are under attack across the country, choosing not to act is a choice. Communities that are most vulnerable to voter suppression understand that better than anyone. The Rhode Island Voting Rights Act may be dead this session, but our commitment to protecting democracy is not. My ancestors fought this 61 years ago. They endured violence, humiliation, and hatred so future generations could exercise a fundamental right. I refuse to believe that their sacrifice should be met with excuses. This should not be dead. They should open up the session and have a vote on this ASAP.”
Angela Lima, former Newport City Councilmember, candidate for State Senate (District 13)
I find myself thinking of the Black women who, across generations, labored for a democracy that so often refused to see them as whole. I think about Fannie Lou Hamer, who risked everything to register Black voters in Mississippi and who carried a truth as steady as breath. Nobody is free until everyone is free. I think about Septima Poinsette Clark, a quiet architect of collective courage who taught thousands not only how to read and write, but how to move through systems designed to keep them from power. I also think about Ida B. Wells, who named violence when naming it was dangerous, who refused to treat silence as safety because she understood that democracy cannot survive what it refuses to confront. They do not fight for voting rights because it’s convenient. They fought because they understood what was at stake. That political power determines whose communities are invested in, whose schools are resourced, whose healthcare is protected, whose housing is secure, and whose voices shape the decisions that govern our lives.
The truth has not softened with time. It has only become more precise. In recent years, the federal voting rights protections have been weakened. Court decisions and shifting legal interpretations have narrowed the tools communities rely on to challenge discrimination at the ballot box. For Black voters and especially Black women, this is not an abstract legal landscape. It is the lived question of whether participation is protected in practice or merely permitted in theory. This is why the Rhode Island Voter Rights Act matters.
Alicia Pina, Director of R.I. Interfaith Coalition to Reduce Poverty
We are here because this is a godly right. Everybody has the right to vote and to be who they want to be. That is the godly way. That is supposed to be the United States way. But somewhere along the line, the leaders of this country, not my leaders, have said differently. And now we have leadership here in Rhode Island that is reactive rather than proactive.
We need people to move with some urgency. We need to reverse what’s happening in DC and protect Rhode Islanders. Lyndon Johnson, back in the ‘60s, said that the vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by human beings for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls that imprison people because they are different from others. Doesn’t that sound like right now? Everything should not be going backward. It should be moving forward.
Rhode Island needs to be a leader. We have leaders who lead and those who don’t, and we need more who do. You need to tell them every day, even when the session’s over, we need to keep fighting until this is passed, because this is our state. Not just millionaires, legislators, or the governor, but everyone, your neighbor, friend, teacher, and your grandkids.
That’s the pastor fighting for immigration, the senator standing to your left, the people at DARE who were rallying earlier today, and all of you. And we need all of you to keep fighting. Regardless of what they do, we fight because we know that we need to protect the vote.
Christine Stenning, co-President of the League of Women Voters of Rhode Island
I imagine many of you here today, like me, had your plans thwarted by the need for all of us to rally to protect voting rights for all Rhode Islanders.
The League appreciates the commitment expressed by the Senate President, Speaker of the House, and Secretary of State to passing a strong Rhode Island Voting Rights Act. We share the belief that any legislation protecting the constitutional or statutory right to vote in public elections should be enforceable, durable, and carefully crafted.
However, Rhode Islanders deserve a clear explanation for why this legislation cannot advance this year. The explanation given in yesterday’s statement was that more work is needed before the bill is ready. That does not align with what Rhode Islanders have heard for many months from individuals, most directly those involved in the process. The people of Rhode Island have done their work; they’ve contacted lawmakers, sent postcards, made phone calls, and shown up to testify. Most of us attended more than one presentation in the state on the Rhode Island Voting Rights Act.
The Attorney General, whose office we asked to review the legislation, publicly stated that the recommendations his office provided were neither extensive nor burdensome and should not be viewed as an impediment to passage. His office described its role as helping make a laudable piece of legislation even stronger. What is the work that still needs to be done? If the concerns were not substantial enough to prevent passage, then the question remains: Why should Rhode Islanders wait another year for protections that legislative leaders themselves have repeatedly described as important and necessary? This legislation was introduced in response to a real and growing concern about the future of voting rights protections, especially with the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 at the federal level.
The Rhode Island Voting Rights Act was supported by a broad coalition of civic organizations, voting rights advocates, and community leaders from across Rhode Island. Rhode Islanders have risen to the cause of protecting voting rights. Protecting the right to vote is a nonpartisan issue and a democratic imperative.
The League believes that Rhode Island has a proud tradition of expanding participation in our democracy. It was one of the first states to grant women the right to vote, and look at us now. Rhode Island has modernized voter registration, expanded early voting opportunities, and made it easier for eligible citizens to cast a ballot. The Rhode Island Voting Rights Act is a natural continuation of this work and this progress. We should not wait for a crisis, a lawsuit, or a federal mandate before acting. Rhode Island can lead by establishing clear state protections now. Delaying action until 2027 means delaying certainty, implementation, and putting at risk racial and economic minority voters, specifically Black, Latinos, and Native Americans, all of whom have already faced racial discrimination. The right to vote is too important to be postponed, and the path forward remains available. The League urges the legislature to continue the necessary work for as long as it takes to pass this legislation this legislative season.
Jocelyn Foye, Executive Director of The Womxn Project
Only a couple of days ago, our General Assembly members were prepared to pass this bill. They talked to us and said it’s queued up and ready to go. They made a lot of promises. We are ultimately in shock. A lot of us are stunned, but at the same time, we’re still here - we’re not going away. Whatever happens over the next couple of hours and days, know that this is just the beginning of a summer of elections when we can ask every single person running for office where they stand on the Voting Rights Act. We can show up in the fall and say, “We are here. We’re going to build a bill that doesn’t need amendments, that is strong and capable of passing.”
And on January 5th, we’re going to be here to say, “Get this bill passed now and get this bill passed without any games.” Because it’s all games. It’s not fair to anyone, especially the women who have worked the hardest with the powers against them. I want to thank the Black and brown women of Rhode Island, and I want to say thank you for the gender identity spectrum that is our family for taking it. I want to say thank you to the reporters who continue to call us and say, “Tell us what you’re thinking. We want to cover it.” And I want to say thank you to the General Assembly members who are calling us today, saying, “I’m shocked. What’s happening? I don’t understand.”
Keep talking to them, show them that you care, and tell them we are not going away. We’re going to keep at it.
Alyssa Fatal, with the Women’s Policy Institute.
I am here because I believe in the work that happens here. I believe in the power of government and what our legislators do when they do good work, and that is founded upon the voting rights that we have. The fact that they’re not working to protect and defend those rights is inconscionable. Everything we do is founded on the fact that we have these rights here. I didn’t prepare anything ahead of time, but I work every day in education, and I think of the kids that I work with, preparing them to go out into the world and be the next generation of citizens. They deserve to know that when they speak with their votes, that voice will be heard, that they’ll have a say in what’s happening here, and what is happening here is a reflection of what they have to say.
I think of the people talking about the women and the Black women who have worked so hard to make this happen, and I believe I’ve heard this somewhere, and somebody will tell me what the quote is, but if it weren’t so important, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to prevent us from doing it. This is something they should vote on as soon as possible.
Catherine Tiley, President of this year’s cohort of the Women’s Policy Institute
We are angry. We are disappointed. We have all worked so hard lobbying, advocating, and fighting for the Rhode Island Voting Rights Act, a bill whose sole aim is to benefit and protect all Rhode Islanders, and leadership thinks they can just throw it all away and kill the Rhode Island Voting Rights Act. It is unacceptable, and it shows Rhode Islanders who our legislators really are.
They will not get away with this. They forget their role in our democracy. They forget that they serve us, but most of all, they forget that we, their constituents, have power. Going through with the killing of the Rhode Island Voting Rights Act makes them vulnerable. We will not forget. We will continue to mobilize, educate each other, show up at the polls, and make them remember. I urge you all to keep fighting, working hard, and moving forward. And to remember.
A statement from Jeremy M. Langill, Executive Minister, Governing Board of the Rhode Island State Council of Churches
“In words offered at the signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson remarked:
This act flows from a clear and simple wrong. Its only purpose is to right that wrong. Millions of Americans are denied the right to vote because of their color. This law will ensure them the right to vote. The wrong is one which no American, in his heart, can justify. The right is one which no American, true to our principles, can deny.
“While the passage of the Federal Voting Rights Act was a watershed moment in the Civil Rights movement, it also catalyzed the opposition. Informal segregationist structures emerged, culminating in legal ideologies and political activities devoid of sound constitutional and philosophical reasoning.
“In light of these realities, and in the very real efforts underway to undermine American democracy, we are surprised to see such inaction on the part of Rhode Island’s political leadership.
“In his letter from Birmingham jail, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. noted:
I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate…the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice…who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”
“Justice delayed is justice denied, and we note the lack of diverse representation in the political decision-making process.
“The good news is that the deadline for the end of Rhode Island’s legislative session is at the discretion of the legislature. Since law and policy permit the legislature’s meeting beyond June 12th, we encourage leadership to reconsider their timeline and take up, with all urgency, this essential work.
“As people of faith, we are called into the paradox of prophetic risk-taking, to be people who seek justice and love mercy, to be people who live and work in the world while keeping our eyes set on the world yet to come.
“Grounded in love, we recommit ourselves to the work.”
The General Assembly has shot itself in the foot again . This should have sailed through and leadership dropped ther ball. pathetic.
Many thanks to ALL the folx that raised their voices & participated in our collective efforts to make RI a stronger community and pass legislation to protect us all. The failure of the GA to take action to move this bill forward NOW is an assault on democracy! The crisis is ALREADY HERE! Wake up !
ps: Alyssa Patel GREAT job!