What does the Voting Rights Act have to do with a real estate newsletter? Well, you know me, folks. I think voting rights are the core to everything we hold dear. Without full participation in our democracy, nothing works as it should or could –even the housing market. We know that from the shameful role that realtors played in red lining; a practice that only subsided when governments, pushed by voters, wrote laws to put an end to it.

I did a series of videos about the current attempts to update and reform the Voting Rights Act, in two bills: The John Lewis Voting Rights Restoration Act and the For the People Act.

The John Lewis Act updates the law that was undermined by a Supreme Court decision in 2013 called Shelby v. Holder. In that decision, the court decided that certain states could not be required to submit their laws to pre-clearance by the Justice Department, despite more than a century of voting rights abuses toward minority groups. The court said that the federal government could not treat some states differently from others. So, for instance, it could not require Georgia to submit to pre-clearance simply based on the fact that they were identified in the Voting Rights Act.

The John Lewis Act changed the law to comply with the Shelby decision by subjecting states to the pre-clearance if they have had either 15 or more voting rights violations within the last 25 years, or 10 voting rights violations and 1 violation of which that was committed by the state itself (as opposed to a jurisdiction within the state) within the last 25 years. Those violations are defined by whether they have been ruled against by a federal court in a standing decision.

Let me put that in laymen’s terms. If your state is out there restricting voting rights, then the Department of Justice gets to have a look at the laws you pass.

The For the People Act is a list of many important items that improve election security, guarantee greater access to the polls, addresses congressional ethics issues, reduces partisan influence on redistricting and even calls for statehood DC residents (you know, the people who embody the term “taxation without representation.”

I’m a fan of the analysis done by the Brennan Center for Justice, and I’ve worked with them on redistricting issues in the past. This is one of those groups I would like to support as well in our Charity Referral Network.