Mary Potter
Friday, July 9, 2021 4:26 pm
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Four Rivers Indivisible showed up at 100 Fountain Avenue in Paducah on Tuesday, July 6th at the building housing Senator Mitch McConnell's Purchase office. The group was participating in a nationwide Indivisible action to move the US Senate to pass the For the People Voting Rights Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Indivisible is a progressive issues group not connected to any political party. While it is not connected to the Democratic Party, the founders were Democratic congressional staffers.
About ten hardy group members braved the scorching heat to hold up signs exhorting passing traffic to honk (quite a few did) and to give television and print media interviews. The group also delivered constituent letters to the Senator's door. The Senator and his staff weren't there to receive the letters. They weren't far. Senator McConnell addressed the Murray Calloway Chamber of Commerce at about the same time the protesters were at his office.
Indivisible Leader Leslie McColgin, shown at left, read aloud from the letters addressed to the Senator from constituents.
Judith wrote:
Dear Senator McConnell:
As your constituent, I have written you on numerous occasions regarding issues I feel are crucially important. I am writing to you again to express my support of S.B. 1, the For the People Act. I do so realizing that you have expressed opposition to even allowing this important piece of legislation to be considered by the members of your party. I respectfully ask you to reconsider.
If you maintain the obstructionist and anti-democratic path you are currently on, the destruction you are doing to our nation and its institutions will be unparalleled in modern history. You have to know, for I do not believe that you are unintelligent, that the overwhelming majority of the American people support the measures in S.B. 1. It is imperative that we ensure the integrity of our future elections against the kind of assault made by Former President Trump and his supporters . It is imperative that the right to vote be protected for every American. You see these imperatives intellectually. Please please, do the right thing for once in your long and nefarious career. History will not be kind to you.
Both pieces of legislation have passed the US House without Republican support. SB 1 has long been an Indivisible goal. Last fall, the Four Rivers group sponsored a billboard urging support of the legislation. In addition to addressing red state efforts to narrow access to the voting booth, gerrymandering and dark money political contributions are in SB 1.
Senator McConnell has already expressed his opposition.
Because neither bill is fiscal, 60 votes will be needed to overcome the virtual filibuster that the GOP will assert. (A virtual filibuster is a simple announcement that there is a filibuster. The practice of talking a bill to death is no longer in fashion.)