Category Archives: Voting and Democracy

Allen v. Milligan is a Surprise Win for Voting Rights

Supreme Court Term Impacts Our Freedoms – PART 1

Supreme Court Term Impacts Our Freedoms - PART 1

JoAnn Goedert, Ignatian Volunteer Corp Member
Government Relations Special Contributor
August 2, 2023

Welcome to Part 1 of our two-part series! We’re diving into how the 2023-2024 Supreme Court term affects our freedoms, as they’re framed in NETWORK Advocates nonpartisan Equally Sacred Checklist. This part focuses on key decisions impacting democracy and government accountability. Don’t forget to check out Part 2 for more insights.

The 118th Congress is often—and appropriately– referred to as the “do-nothing Congress.” Earlier initiatives that advanced NETWORK’s Equally Sacred freedoms through Biden Administration-led legislation came to an abrupt halt in the current Congress by the GOP House of Representatives majority.

This deadlock in our Congress’s progress toward the realization of NETWORK’s vision is cause enough for concern.  But even more troubling is the fact that—despite the stalemate in the branch of government that is charged with making new laws– law is being made in insidious ways, as the conservative majority of the Supreme Court has stepped in to advance an ideological agenda at a stunning pace.

Over the last two years, the Court has undermined our Equally Sacred freedoms over and again, sometimes with the potential for long-term harm to our democracy and to the common good.  As we think about those precious freedoms, here are some key Court actions and their potential impact on the national well-being.

FREEDOM TO PARTICIPATE IN A VIBRANT DEMOCRACY

Without a court system that protects our basic democratic institutions, all of our other Equally Sacred freedoms are at risk.  For this reason, recent Court decisions promise to disrupt the basic workings of those institutions and aggrandize power to itself and its ideological compatriots.

Presidential Immunity: The most prominent of those decisions is, of course, Trump v. U.S., the Court’s declaration that a President is largely immune from prosecution for actions during their presidency that may be deemed “official.”  This decision will almost surely shield the prior President from legal accountability for many of his most troubling around the 2020 election.  But it also raises grave concerns over the conduct of future presidents who may no longer fear liability for stark abuses of power and actual crimes while in office.

Conspiracy to Obstruct Government Proceedings: In Fischer v. U.S., the Court held that a federal statute criminalizing conduct that obstructs or impedes an official proceeding applies only to cases where the defendant tampered with physical evidence related to the proceeding.  This decision raises doubt as to some of the crimes under which many January 6 insurrection participants were charged, potentially including some of the charges against Trump in his January 6 trial.

Agency Authority: In a severe blow to our nation’s constitutional institutions, the Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo swept away 40 years of precedent to diminish the authority of federal agency civil servants to interpret and enforce laws, giving power instead to federal judges and, ultimately, themselves.  The Court used a narrow fishing industry dispute to discard, across the federal government, the long-standing “Chevron” doctrine that provided civil servants with expertise in complex health, safety, environmental, and other matters deference to make “reasonable” interpretations of general statutes—and instead allowed federal judges to usurp that authority, despite having no specialized knowledge and no accountability other than the Supreme Court itself.

To compound its efforts to weaken federal agencies, the Court issued two additional decisions, SEC v. Jarkesy and Corner Post v. Federal Reserve, that promise to increase the courts’ power over agency authority. NETWORK now envisions widespread litigation in which individual judges issue ill-advised and inconsistent decisions that will disrupt badly needed environmental protections, efforts to reduce health care costs, safeguards for workers, food and housing assistance programs, and other federal rules that have long advanced the public good.

Voting Rights: This year, the Court also struck a blow to the constitutional protection of voting rights from racial discrimination.  In Alexander v. South Carolina Conference of the NAACP, the Court held that a South Carolina gerrymander scheme that marginalized Black voters was constitutionally acceptable under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.  The dismal rationale for their decision was based on their earlier holding that flagrant gerrymandering is constitutional if those in power argue that it was done for “partisan political” reasons.  In Alexander, the Court went further to allow it, even when the redistricting damaged Black voting rights.

This decision contrasts with an Alabama case last year, Merrill v. Milligan, in which the Court created some voting rights optimism when it overturned a similar gerrymander scheme under the Voting Rights Act.  This year the Court also overturned an appeals court decision upholding the Arkansas legislature’s redistricting plan that plaintiffs challenged as impermissible dilution of the Black vote in two Congressional districts (Simpson v. Thurston).  In Robinson v. Ardoin, the Court also blocked a lower court order in Louisiana to allow the implementation of a new redistricting plan that added a Black majority district in the 2024 election.  While both of these decisions are temporary, pending further proceedings, it is positive that the Voting Rights Act has at least survived challenges even in the current Court.

Spread of Social Media Disinformation:   Two cases before the Court this term, Moody v. Netchoice and Netchoice v. Paxton, challenged Texas and Florida laws that limit the ability of social media platforms to regulate political and journalistic content posted on their sites as violations of First Amendment freedom of speech. While the Court returned both cases to the lower courts for further proceedings, they barred their enforcement for now and, most likely, through the 2024 elections. Accordingly, social media platforms remain able in both states to remove political disinformation as needed to support an informed electorate.

 

That’s it for Part 1 of our series on the Supreme Court’s 2023-2024 term. Click here to read Part 2, in which we cover decisions affecting economic security, public safety, immigration, and environmental health. Be sure to read both parts for the full picture.

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LGBTQIA+ Inclusion is a Christian Value

LGBTQIA+ Inclusion is a Christian Value  

Virginia Schilder, MDiv, ThM and Minister Christian S. Watkins, MDiv
July 28, 2024

Honor Pride Month by making a plan to vote for a future where everyone thrives—no exceptions!  https://networkadvocates.org/ 

No matter who we love, how we express ourselves, or what our family looks like, we all want and deserve to be safe, protected, and valued for who we are. This is one of our deepest human longings!  Accordingly, the Catholic Church insists that every single person has immeasurable worth and dignity, and therefore must be respected, protected, and cherished as children of God.  

However, some people in our politics assert the extremist position that only some people and families deserve rights and protection.  

In the past year alone, state legislatures introduced a record number of bills targeting LGBTQIA+ people, parents, and children. These bills are hostile and divisive, and are linked to the rising rates of violence against queer and trans people, including youth. These policies make our communities unsafe and hostile for everyone, not just for those targeted by the laws. They create a culture of condemnation, censorship, and forced conformity, rather than nurturing a culture of welcome, inclusivity, and compassion.  They defensively close the door to connection, inclusive community, and understanding.  

Our freedom to live in safety is threatened by political and religious leaders who paint us or our fellow community members—our siblings, friends, parents, children, neighbors, and coworkers — as “threats.” All too often, these political actors try to pit us against each other, hoping that we become too preoccupied with fear and hysteria to notice when they try to line their own pockets and force cuts to our health care, housing, and food assistance programs — as some right-wing members of Congress tried to do in 2023.  

But we know better than to fall for scapegoating. As Christians, we refuse to make God smaller! We know each other, and we know our actual Christian values: to love, protect, and be in solidarity with our neighbors. We know that God’s creation is diverse and beautiful, and that every single person is fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God – absolutely no exceptions!  

Today, public opinion in the U.S. overwhelmingly supports same-sex marriage.  Moreover, new research from PRRI shows that Americans perceive discrimination against transgender individuals as being the highest of any group right now.  We see the hatred that’s going on, and it does not reflect our values, nor our dreams for ourselves and our children. 

Our communities have protected one another and our families before, by rejecting hatred and division and supporting policies that promote true safety and freedom for all of us. For example, last year, the Biden administration launched a new LGBTQI+ Community Safety Partnership to provide safety trainings, support health care workers, promote the reporting of hate crimes, and build partnerships to address hate-fueled violence. These initiatives, and the spirit of solidarity they foster, make our communities better for everyone. 

We can continue to take action to reflect our true values: inclusivity, freedom, and love for our neighbors. Together, we have power to make sure no one in our communities is excluded, demonized, and stripped of their freedoms. We have the power to insist on our equal worth and equal rights to protection, including for our children. This election year and beyond, we can Vote Our Future to ensure that every single one of us has the freedom to live in safety, and to be who God made us to be.  

Honor Pride Month by making a plan to vote for a future where everyone thrives—no exceptions!  https://networkadvocates.org/ 

A Future for Freedom

A Future for Freedom

We Must Never Stop Dreaming of a Better World

Joan F. Neal
June 17, 2024
Joan F. Neal, Deputy Executive Director and Chief Equity Officer at NETWORK

Joan F. Neal, Deputy Executive Director and Chief Equity Officer at NETWORK

It’s usually dangerous to look back on previous eras of history as somehow better. Nostalgia too often masks racism and other egregious injustices more widely accepted in times past. However, one positive hallmark of some recent past decades is people’s capacity to dream.

Past generations had a lot to say about the American dream; they embraced the concept of all people having the ability within their grasp to make the life they wanted for themselves. In the fight against slavery, Jim Crow, and second-class citizenship, most Black Americans embraced Dr. King’s dream of the Beloved Community where all are free and equal. Dreams push us toward action, because they imbue the lives of those who have them with hope.

We all want to live lives of hope, lives oriented toward having what we need to flourish and find fulfillment. The word for that is freedom, true freedom.

Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond their control, today’s younger generations do not feel the hope to dream. Millennials and Gen Zers have had their adulthoods defined by financial crises, spiraling economic inequality, and an unrelenting experience of being priced out of American success and the freedoms that only democracy conveys, ones that their parents and grandparents took for granted. This is no accident. This is the result of 40 years of deliberate public policy choices that divested from families and communities and directed greater and greater wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer extremely rich individuals.

Pope Francis has described this phenomenon as young people feeling “crushed by the present,” unable to dream of a better future. Young people without hope should be a warning to us all that our ability to experience or exercise freedom is in danger. When people lose faith in a system’s ability to deliver for them, the system is in jeopardy. Is it any surprise then that the world has witnessed a global decline in democracy for the past 17 years?

We cannot afford for freedom to be relegated to the history books as a curious anomaly of the late second millennium. No, it is in the best interest of all people on the planet for there to be a future for freedom. For a picture of what the alternative offers, we can look to a country like Russia where the corrupt rule of a few oligarchs violently suppresses its opposition, leaves its own people without hope, and brutally attacks the freedom of its neighbor, Ukraine. But we can also look to the oppressive structures we permit in our own politics — such as inaction on immigration reform or refusing to make the tax code more equitable — that also robs people of freedom and their future.

See NETWORK’s 2024 Equally Sacred Checklist, to support you in educating yourself as a faithful voter on the “equally sacred” freedoms at stake in this election and beyond.

Catholic Social Teaching talks a great deal about freedom. It really matters. If a person lacks freedom, then they do not have what they need to make a true moral choice, including the choice to live into the potential and the dream that God has for every one of us to thrive, no exceptions!

At NETWORK, we see the brokenness of our public policies as structures of sin, that destroy people’s freedom and the common good. That is why, this year, NETWORK is focusing our election priorities on six freedoms:

  • Freedom to be Healthy
  • Freedom to Care for Ourselves and Our Families
  • Freedom to Live on a Healthy Planet
  • Freedom from Harm
  • Freedom to Participate in a Vibrant Democracy
  • and Freedom to Live in a Welcoming Country that Values Dignity and Human Rights.

You can read more about these later in this issue of Connection. Whether it’s health care, immigration, climate change, or one’s economic situation, we see this year in terms of the human freedoms at stake. We must ensure that these freedoms are reverenced and more deeply enshrined in our politics and our public policies, so that future generations experience the freedom to dream.

This story was published in the Quarter 2 2024 issue of Connection.

Dreams of Inclusion

Dreams of Inclusion

Inaction by Congress Costs DACA Recipients the Ability to Participate Fully in a Democracy They Help Make Flourish

Sydney Clark
June 11, 2024

Ivonne Ramirez speaks about her experiences as a child immigrant and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program participant during Mass at Mary Mother of the Church Parish in St. Louis. Photo: Sid Hastings

Ivonne Ramirez was 8 when her family migrated to the U.S. from Mexico City. They arrived in St. Louis, Missouri, where her father and a sibling had been living for about a year.

“It took seven days to get to St. Louis,” Ramirez says. “I was mostly walking to cross the border. It took a lot out of me.” Her father, a police officer, left Mexico due to safety concerns after raiding a money-laundering operation inside a bar. He was only able to bring one of his children. Ramirez journeyed with her mother and three other siblings.

“I was sleep-deprived, and people kept telling me, ‘If you keep going, you’re gonna see your dad’,” she says. “Not seeing my father for a year felt like a lifetime.”

A few years after the family reunited, Ramirez became eligible for the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program, which began in 2012 as an executive action by President Barack Obama. This year marks a decade for Ramirez as a recipient.

She and her family still resides in St. Louis. She works full-time doing quality control for a medical equipment company. On weekends, she serves as a catechist at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Ferguson, Missouri. “It feels like home. I’ve been here for most of my life,” Ramirez says.

Shut Out

While DACA has allowed Ramirez to attend school and get a driver’s license and a work permit, the realities of being a recipient remain at the forefront. She is one of roughly 580,000 active DACA recipients.

“Our permits and status allow us to be here for two years, and then we have to renew six months before,” she says. “This year, I’m OK, but next year, I have to start thinking about sending all the paperwork and the fee, which is $495. How will I get that extra income to pay for that?”

Recipients are ineligible to vote in federal elections, and Ramirez’s voting rights are nonexistent. Some states and municipalities allow noncitizens to vote in local elections like city councils, mayoral and school boards. Missouri is not one of them.

“If you pay your taxes, contribute to society, and show that you’re a model citizen, I don’t see why the efforts to put something permanent for [us] aren’t there,” Ramirez says.

In 2022, NETWORK honored Ramirez as one the organizations’ inaugural “Social Poets,” young justice-seekers whose lives and work define the challenges and possibilities of the coming decades. Unfortunately, permanent legal status for undocumented people in the U.S. remains an unaddressed challenge.

Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, deputy directory of federal advocacy at United We Dream and a DACA recipient. Photo: Diana Alvarez

At its height, DACA had around 840,000 recipients, says Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, deputy director of federal advocacy at United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth-led network in the country. A DACA recipient herself, she was 14 when her family migrated to the U.S. from Brazil. Macedo do Nascimento calls DACA the largest “victory of the immigration movement in decades.”

The program, however, has faced ongoing legal battles since its origin, leaving recipients in constant limbo.

“Many don’t know how much danger the policy is in,” Macedo do Nascimento says. The latest challenge happened on Sept. 13 of last year, when Texas federal judge Andrew Hanen ruled again that DACA is unlawful. Now, DACA will likely revisit the Supreme Court in 2025.

Although Hanen blocked new program applications, he left DACA unchanged for existing recipients during the anticipated appeals process. Recipients can continue to renew and apply for Advance Parole, which allows certain immigrants to leave the U.S. and return lawfully, said Macedo do Nascimento.

Bruna Bouhid, senior communications and political director at United We Dream, at a UWD Congress in Miami. Photo: United We Dream

“You feel like you’re on a roller coaster,” says Bruna Bouhid, senior communications and political director at United We Dream. “You never know if this will be your last chance to apply or if, in a year or six months, you will lose all those things you had planned for or worked hard to get.”

Bouhid, who became a recipient at 20, says the legal fights reveal that DACA will “not be our saving grace. We need something permanent. We need citizenship.”

Government Inaction

“It’s really up to Congress to find and support the solution,” says Christian Penichet-Paul, assistant vice president of policy and advocacy at the National Immigration Forum. “It’s the only branch of government that can ensure DACA recipients and other young DREAMers can stay in America long term and potentially become lawful permanent residents.”

Penichet-Paul says distrust among both parties and lack of courage helped derail legislative action and execution. He also predicts immigration reform talks in Congress will not advance during this election year.

“Democracy is such a precious thing, and it can take a long time to come up with a compromise,” Penichet-Paul says. “Sometimes, getting to the right place requires multiple little steps.”

As to when a policy window might open up, he notes, “It’s always said that Congress works best on a deadline. Unfortunately, that might be the next Supreme Court decision.”

Penichet-Paul stresses that there is bipartisan agreement and existing text that can serve as the bill that “finally provides permanence for young DREAMers who’ve been in America since they were little kids.”

One option could be a new version of the DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act, first introduced in 2001. A version introduced last year by Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) would permit noncitizens brought to the U.S. as children to earn permanent residence aft¬er meeting specific education or work requirements. Durbin and Graham introduced similar legislation in the last three sessions of Congress.

Ivonne Ramirez speaks to parishioners at Mary Mother of the Church Parish in St. Louis. Ramirez, one of NETWORK’s “Social Poets,” has been a DACA recipient for the past decade. Photo: Sid Hastings

Additionally, Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) introduced the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2023, which would tackle the sources of migration, reform the visa system, and “responsibly manage the southern border.”

“We can have a pragmatic system, looking at who needs and wants to migrate, but let’s create a system that is fair and humane for everyone,” Bouhid says.

Ramirez admits that she’s “a little scared” for the looming 2024 election but encourages those eligible in her community to vote.

“A lot of Americans know at least one, if not many, DACA recipients and immigrants,” she says. “If you get to know them and understand why they came to the U.S., you would happily vote in honor of them.”

Ramirez says her Catholic faith inspires her to be vocal about the challenges immigrants face.

“I never want to stop talking about us and why we need to become citizens,” she says.

Penichet-Paul says immigrants have grown up as “American as any U.S. citizen in many ways” and take civic participation and community service seriously.

“Immigrants are often some of our strongest allies in maintaining democracy and the institutions that allow our democracy to prosper,” Penichet-Paul adds. “Democracy can coexist with DACA and immigration. They’re about good governance and ensuring that people can reach their full potential, nothing more, nothing less.”

Sydney Clark is a New Orleans native and multimedia producer based in Washington, D.C.

This story was published in the Quarter 2 2024 issue of Connection.

Equally Sacred Multi-issue Voter Checklist

Equally Sacred Multi-issue Voter Checklist

Download and share the multi-issue voter Equally Sacred Checklist in English, large print English, and Spanish

Multi-issue Voters Vote Our Future, So Everyone Thrives. No Exceptions!

How can we know we are voting for candidates who promote the common good? Pope Francis makes it clear: Catholics and all people of good will are called to be multi-issue voters, not single-issue voters, in the 2024 elections and in our continued participation in public life. This resource can support you in educating yourself as a faithful voter on the issues and concerns that are “equally sacred.”

“We cannot uphold an ideal of holiness that would ignore injustice in the world.” —Pope Francis, Gaudete et exsultate, par. 101

Equally sacred checklist for multi-issue voters in English
English
English, large print

Multi-issue Voters Vote Our Future, so Everyone Thrives. No Exceptions!

¿Cómo podemos saber que estamos votando por candidatos que promueven el bien común? El Papa Francisco lo deja claro: los católicos y todas las personas de buena voluntad están llamados a ser votantes de múltiples temas, no votantes de un solo tema, en las elecciones de 2024 y en nuestra participación continua en la vida pública. Este recurso puede ayudarlo a educarse como un votante fiel sobre temas e inquietudes que son “igualmente sagrados”.

“No podemos defender un ideal de santidad que ignore la injusticia en el mundo.” —Papa Francisco, Gaudete et exsultate, párr. 101

Equally Sacred Checklist for Download
Lista de verificación para votantes de múltiples temas igualmente sagrados en Español
Network condemns voting righs EO and SAVE Act bill

NETWORK Lobby Condemns Trump’s Voting Rights Executive Order and the SAVE Act (H.R.22)

NETWORK Lobby Condemns Trump’s Illegal and Blatantly Authoritarian Voting Rights Executive Order

Min. Christian S. Watkins
March 28, 2025

President Trump issued an extreme executive order Tuesday, March 25, 2025 that threatens our freedom to vote with unconstitutional mandates, public and election administration confusion, and draconian restrictions for election officials and voters.

According to the White House, the Trump administration desires to require “government-issued proof of U.S. citizenship on its voter registration forms.” to ensure no non-citizens are voting in U.S. elections. Additionally, the Administration’s move preempts House Republicans’ attempts to pass H.R.22—the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, a bill that seeks to codify extreme voter suppression tactics into law.We know that these non-citizen voting claims are a false flag, as there is no evidence that noncitizen voter registration and voting is occurring at any meaningful scale. Not only is it practically infeasible for an undocumented immigrant to have the documents required to register to vote in the first place, it’s also difficult to imagine an undocumented immigrant would risk government scrutiny, arrest, and deportation — all to cast just one vote. President Trump and his enablers in Congress peddle the lie of noncitizen voting to try to justify their attempts to take away our freedom to vote. They know that their policies are unpopular, so they want to make it harder for our communities to vote and have a say in the decisions that affect us. This is yet another move in their effort to consolidate power for themselves.

The SAVE Act would mandate American citizens provide proof-of-citizenship documents that many can’t access – like a passport or certified birth certificate – to register to vote or update their registration, such as after a move. Federal courts have found it an impermissible violation of the Constitution. State Department data shows 43-49% of Americans, or 104-118M voting-age citizens, do not have current passports.

Moreover, research from the Center for American Progress finds that approximately 69 million women do not have a birth certificate with their legal married name on it. Nearly 80% of married women–more than 69 million American women–have adopted their partner’s surname, and they would be unable to register to vote if the name on their ID does not directly match their proof of citizenship.

In effect, millions of people would have to get a passport that has lists their current name. But obtaining a passport takes time (in recent years, it has taken 10-13 weeks to process a passport applications) and is costly. Current rates are a $130 application fee plus a $35 execution fee. The fees are the same for passport renewal. This is seemingly a reiteration of poll taxes levied against African Americans and other impoverished citizens that were commonplace before the 24th Amendment to the Constitution ratified on January 23, 1964.

Consumer research shows that citizens in rural, working class, farming, and evangelical communities are least likely to hold passports. The data show:
• 76% of citizens who have not attended college do NOT have a valid passport
• 70% of citizens with family income less than $50K do NOT have a valid passport
• 62% of “evangelical hub” citizens do NOT have a valid passport
• 58% of citizens in working-class communities do NOT have a valid passport
• 53% of rural and farmland citizens do NOT have a valid passport

The freedom to vote is a foundational American value. And it’s one that states deliver on in every election cycle. States have strong checks and balances in place to ensure their elections are secure and accurate, with layers of safeguards in place set by state and federal law. States do not need Elon Musk’s DOGE accessing our personal information or disrupting electoral systems that effectively delivered results just a few months ago. Additionally, withholding federal funds from states that do not cooperate with the order’s provisions is egregious and will be a detriment to the unity and stability of our nation and elections. President Trump’s order, the SAVE Act, and bills like it are meant to divide Americans at a time when we are united in what we want from our government leaders: solutions to fix our broken economy.

Read NETWORK’s March 28 statement condemning the Trump administration’s illegal effort to steal the voting rights of millions.

Additional resources

The Ripple of One Person’s Vote

The Ripple of One Person’s Vote

Contribute to the Love That Saves the World

Sr. Erin Zubal, OSU
March 5, 2024

Sr. Erin Zubal, OSU, NETWORK Chief of Staff

Waiting in line outside a school gymnasium in the early morning hours. Feeling the chill of November in the air. Greeting the poll workers. Making selections on an electronic menu screen. The experience of voting is many things, but not many people would probably think of it as helping us grow holiness. But listening closely to Pope Francis, it’s clear that this election year offers yet another opportunity for many people to journey closer to the God who loves and saves the world.

In his 2018 letter on the call to holiness, Gaudate Et Exsultate (“Rejoice and Be Glad”), Pope Francis waded into explicitly political waters when he cautioned against limiting one’s political concern and advocacy to just one or two issues, as so many Catholics tend to do in the U.S. “Equally sacred,” he affirmed, are the lives of people in poverty and all who are rejected and discarded by society. “We cannot uphold an ideal of holiness that would ignore injustice in the world,” he wrote.

That same year, the Vatican’s doctrine office also published a document on “certain aspects of Christian salvation.” This document rejects “individualistic and merely interior visions of salvation” as being against the “economy through which God willed to save the human person.” People must journey beyond themselves, out into the world, to participate in the grace of the salvation story that culminates when “each person will be judged on the concreteness of his or her love.” (Placuit Deo #13)

This, too, is political.

See NETWORK’s 2024 Equally Sacred Checklist to support you in educating yourself as a faithful voter on the issues and concerns that are “equally sacred.”

Voting is concrete. It is an act. It is a choice. It’s an imperfect choice because voters are often not faced with specific policy proposals but with individual office-seekers who may be better on particular issues than others and whose performance, once elected, can be unpredictable. Will they advocate for people on the margins? Are they able to be bought by wealthy corporate interests? Do they take the weight of responsibility of their office seriously? The answers to these questions can and do produce wildly different outcomes.

But what remains is this: In the act of voting, a person creates a small ripple in the social fabric, a ripple that may end up part of a more significant current or movement that impacts the lives of millions of other people– for good or ill.

Using one’s vote for ill often means voting as a means of lashing out against people or groups of people whom voters have been told to fear, such as migrants and other people struggling to survive on the peripheries of society.

Voting may take only an instant, but the harm inflicted by bad immigration policy compounds over the years. It is felt in the lives of families and children who might never recover from the devastation they experience.

Even more could be said about the pain intentionally inflicted on Black and Brown communities by the stoking of Christian nationalist and white supremacist narratives. What does it mean for this country that so many neighbors voted this way?

But the opposite is also possible. A person can use their vote to build up rather than tear down, show welcome rather than hostility, and contribute to love rather than hate. And in an election year that looks to be decided by a small number of people in a few states and localities, the choice of one person to choose solidarity, to make their vote an act of love, is as consequential as it’s ever been. It might just play a part in saving the world.

This story was published in the Quarter 1 2024 issue of Connection.