Yesterday, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), along with other legacy civil rights organizations issued a letter to the U.S. Senate vehemently objecting to a series of bills that work to disenfranchise voters by increasing barriers to the ballot box and demanding that Senators reject them. These bills include the SAVE America Actand the Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act.
In addition, LDF President and Director-Counsel Janai Nelson issued the following statement:
“The civil rights community stands together in our vigorous opposition to any piece of legislation that aims to return our elections to those of the Jim Crow era.”
“The SAVE America Act and the MEGA Act both attempt to place overwhelmingly burdensome requirements on voters at a time when our freedom to vote faces attacks on all sides. The U.S. Senate must see reason and focus its efforts on advancing proposals that put the freedoms of voters, and not the authoritarian whims of an administration, first. They must fulfill their sworn responsibility to uphold the fundamental right of every eligible citizen to participate fully and equally in our democratic process.”
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Founded in 1940, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is the nation’s first civil rights legal organization. LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957, though it was founded under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall while he was at the NAACP. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute (TMI) is a division of LDF that undertakes innovative research and houses LDF’s archive. In all media attributions, please refer to us as the Legal Defense Fund or LDF (do not include NAACP) and refer to the Institute as LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute or TMI.
