SPEAKIN’ OUT NEWS
WASHINGTON — U.S. Representative Terri A. Sewell, Democrat from Alabama’s 7th Congressional District and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Elections for the Committee on House Administration, convened a shadow subcommittee hearing on April 27 titled “The State of Voting Rights and Elections” — a direct response to what she describes as a sustained, coordinated assault on the right to vote in America.
The hearing took place at 2 p.m. EDT in the Capitol Visitors Center South Meeting Room and was livestreamed for the public. It brought together a panel of legal and advocacy experts from some of the nation’s most prominent civil rights organizations, and launched what will become a national series of listening sessions hosted by the Southern Poverty Law Center in cities across the country.
“At a moment when voting rights are under sustained attack, we cannot afford to sit on the sidelines,” Sewell said in remarks tied to the hearing. “This shadow hearing and the events that follow will elevate the voices of those on the front lines and help us understand the real-world impact of the attacks on our right to vote for communities across America. Their testimony will be essential as we craft legislative solutions to push back on these attacks and safeguard access to the ballot box for every eligible American.”
Panelists included Representative Joe Morelle of New York, ranking member of the full Committee on House Administration; Rebekah Caruthers, president and CEO of the Fair Elections Center; Todd A. Cox, associate director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund; Sabrina Khan, senior supervising attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center; Andrea Senteno, regional counsel for MALDEF; and John C. Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-AAJC. The breadth of the panel — spanning Black, Latino, Asian American, and civil liberties legal organizations — reflected the coalition nature of the current voting rights fight.
The hearing is not happening in a vacuum. Republicans in the House have pushed a series of bills that voting rights advocates say would significantly restrict ballot access. The so-called SAVE America Act, which Sewell voted against, would impose new proof-of-citizenship requirements at voter registration — a burden that critics say would effectively disenfranchise millions of eligible voters, particularly seniors, low-income residents, and communities of color. Less than half of all Americans hold a valid passport, and most states’ driver’s licenses do not indicate citizenship status.
Sewell has also been the lead sponsor of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, reintroduced in March 2025 to restore protections gutted by the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision. That ruling dismantled the preclearance formula that once required states with a history of voting discrimination — including Alabama — to get federal approval before changing election laws. Alabama ranks 45th in the country for voting access, according to data cited in prior congressional testimony.
For Sewell, the fight is personal. A native of Huntsville who represents the Alabama 7th District — the Selma-to-Birmingham corridor where foot soldiers bled and died for the right to vote — she has framed voting rights as the foundation on which every other issue rests. Her website states simply: “The right to vote is the most fundamental non-violent tool we have in a democratic society.”
For Black communities across Alabama, the stakes of this hearing are immediate. Voter roll purges, new identification requirements, reduced polling locations, and restricted early voting periods are not abstract legal debates. They are practical barriers that determine whether a grandmother in Selma, a student at Alabama A&M University, or a working parent in North Huntsville can actually cast a ballot.
SPEAKIN’ OUT NEWS will continue to cover Rep. Sewell’s voting rights work and the SPLC listening sessions as they unfold. For more information, visit sewell.house.gov.