Voting Rights

Our guest is Dorothy Wickenden, an author and editor at The New Yorker Magazine. She tells us about her fascinating new book, which explores various interlinked facets of American history, including abolition, the Underground Railroad, the early women's rights movement, and the Civil War. As the noted Yale historian David W. Blight has written of this book: "As a revolutionary, Harriet Tubman made many allies, none more important than her Auburn, New York, neighbors Martha Wright and Frances Seward.

The Oklahoma Senate passed a resolution on Monday objecting to federal legislation on elections, voting and ethics.

H.R. 1, the For the People Act of 2021, could greatly expand voting access in some states, including Oklahoma. The bill includes requirements for states to set up automatic voter registration, offer same-day registration and hold two weeks of early voting.

On this episode of ST, we revisit a discussion that first aired back in October. At that time, we spoke with Eric Foner, the DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University.

In the wake of the US Supreme Court's Common Cause v. Rucho case which ruled that gerrymandering cases are a non-justiciable issue, citizen grassroots efforts have emerged to use other means to prevent partisan gerrymandering and other voter suppression efforts. These locally organized efforts have led to initiative petition victories to create non-partisan redistricting commissions in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Utah, expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act in Idaho, and restored voting rights for former felons in Florida and Alabama.

Our guest on ST is Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner, one of America's leading experts on women's history, who is on the faculty at Syracuse University (among other schools) and has been teaching college-level women's studies courses for more than 45 years. She'll be speaking tomorrow, Friday the 21st, at 7pm in the Helmerich Center for American Research (on the campus of Gilcrease Museum). Dr. Wagner's talk, titled "Forgotten Champions of Women's Liberty," is free and open to the public. More info is posted here.