What Will Tuesday Mean for You?

If the polls are accurate and Democrats narrowly claim the majority in the House on November 6, President Trump and the Senate are in store for two long years and so is the country.

“You’re not going to see much legislation get passed overall,” says Dr. Sekou Franklin, a professor at Middle Tennessee State. “On the Senate side, you’ll probably still see the ability to confirm federal judges and appointees that are nominated by Trump. And, on the House side, there will be a handful of African Americans who will gain committee chairmanships.”

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A House Win Promotes Two African American Congressional Leaders

 A big win Tuesday for the Democrats will move Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings into the top post on the Committee for Oversight and Government Reform.

Franklin says, “The Oversight Committee will investigate everything from corruption to the Russia investigation. Outside of the intelligence community, you will literally have an African American from Baltimore with control of a key committee in Congress, investigating government corruption and with subpoena power.”

He predicts “heightened attacks because of that and probably on Black lawmakers.”

Franklin also points out that California Congresswoman Maxine Waters is poised to assume leadership of the House Financial Services Committee if Democrats flip the House. The committee oversees the housing, banking, insurance, and securities industries.

The upcoming election dominated the Sunday morning news shows. On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams said President Trump is “wrong” when he says she is “unqualified” for the job . Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp are in a hotly contested race for Governor.

Abrams and her supporters say Kemp has suppressed voter participation by employing the state’s “exact match” rule to some 53-thousand voter registrations, most of which are African American. A federal judge issued an injunction barring Kemp, who is the Secretary of State for Georgia, from rejecting absentee ballots whose signatures don’t directly match those on voters’ registration. An appeals court rejected Kemp’s request to lift the injunction.

In Florida, Andrew Gillum  is expected to win the race against Ron DeSantis . Franklin thinks the state’s Voter Restoration or Amendment 4 to restore convicted felons’ voting rights which required 800-thousand signatures before it was placed on the ballot explains part of the success Gillum’s campaign is experiencing, calling the signatures “transferable” votes.

“Abrams and Gillum are important because these are younger African Americans running for office,” says Franklin. “They have the ‘it’ factor…that charisma that galvanizes voters. And if they win and can survive for eight years, they could become something bigger…run for Senate or the Presidency.”

African American Voters Embrace Hard-Won Voting Rights

 African American voters around the country are apparently motivated in numbers not seen since former President Barack Obama first ran for office in 2008. Franklin offers several explanations.

“There’s an indigenous infrastructure of activists in the South that’s layered,” he says. “These are groups who have been working for years on environmental justice, economic justice, and criminal justice. A new cadre of activists came out of the ecosystem of Black Lives Matters, not necessarily members of BLM but shaped by it. And, there’s a third wave of young people who are laser-focused on electoral work. They are trained in electoral organizing schools, especially African American women. Those three sources of energy are driven by the race-baiting and what they see in the Trump administration.”

According to Franklin, the mission of the activists is aided by donors “who can fund this work much more deliberately and intentionally.” And, he adds technological developments involving voter mobilization activities and the transfer of campaign funds support the efforts.

The result is an infrastructure that is “more robust, more in alignment” and able to mobilize voters over an election cycle.

He says, “They [political groups] are putting together a pretty organized infrastructure that’s produced some essential benefits for African American candidates and issues that African Americans care about.”