AAAFund Board Condemns Republican Defeat of Voting Rights Legislation
AAAFund Board Condemns Republican Defeat of Voting Rights Legislation
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: social@aaafund.org
JANUARY 20, 2022, WASHINGTON, DC – The Board of Asian American Action Fund (AAAFund) released the following statement in response to the defeat of vital voting rights legislation in the U.S. Senate.
For 20 years, the Asian American Action Fund has fought to ensure AAPI communities across the country could see themselves reflected in our government. Thanks to the efforts of so many, our community’s voice is stronger than ever. Today, AAPIs stand to lose every inch we gained over the last few decades because the Republican Party has forfeited all sense of duty to our country.
Our republic too often falls short of the grand ideals imperfectly espoused in our founding documents. Still, as a country we have slowly bent our moral arc towards justice. Yesterday’s defeat of critical voting rights legislation lays bare the efforts of Republicans working to dismantle our democratic institutions. Across local, state, and federal government, the GOP sows distrust in our electoral processes without justification and poisons our political discourse with misinformation and outright lies. We see the effects of this dangerous campaign everywhere, including in the AAPI community.
Throughout the AAAFund’s two decades of work, we have demanded that our government know, respect, and respond to AAPI voices. We want our government to protect the right to vote, fight discrimination in all arenas, embrace just climate policies, overhaul the immigration system and keep our families whole, expand small business opportunities in our communities, support reproductive freedom, and more. Free and fair elections would reveal that the majority of America wants this too. However, the future of these progressive priorities hangs in jeopardy with the unfair barriers imposed by the Republican Party’s insidious anti-democratic campaign.
The Democrats must defend the BIPOC communities that showed up in droves to put them into office. But make no mistake about which Party is to blame. The Republican Party is willing to block the most fundamental right to a democracy, the right to vote, in a desperate effort to retain power and appease its extremist base. We ask that you join our efforts to overcome their naked power grab.
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