Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

by Stacey Abrams

While we are tackling the infrastructure of democracy, we also have to return to who is considered an eligible citizen with the right to meaningful political representation at the federal level. Taxation without representation led to the Revolutionary War, yet it has become acceptable to treat the citizens of Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico as less than citizens. Both areas enjoy qualified citizenship rights, despite having populations that meet or exceed ten states with full citizenship. At a little over 700,000 residents, D.C. is more densely populated than Wyoming and Vermont. Puerto Rico has more than three million residents, placing its population above twenty other states. However, no resident in either of those areas has a voting member of the House of Representatives or a U.S. senator, and only D.C. has a vote in the Electoral College. As two areas with high concentrations of Black and Latino citizens, the granting of statehood to both would recognize the historic injustices and offer a pathway for full inclusion. The key to creating permanent voting rights lies in major federal change. When the right to vote is left to the states, implementation is fragmented, racist, and plain suppressive. Still, short of major federal action, I firmly adhere to a code of citizen action. In 2017, the New Georgia Project spun off into a stand-alone organization still committed to voter registration and education, adding tens of thousands of people of color to Georgia’s rolls eac...