Rep. Jamie Raskin reminded his white supremacist Republican colleagues hellbent on stripping Black and brown people of their constitutional right to vote that their objections to equal freedoms for all citizens are invalid. Cosmically so.
On the House floor, speaking in support of the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act, Raskin began, "Our colleagues object to guaranteeing the people the right to vote through the vehicle of a NASA bill, of all things. You know, a quarter century ago, Republicans changed Texas state law to permit astronauts to vote absentee from space. They wanna make it easier to vote from space, and they wanna make it harder to vote on earth."
Yeah, he threw their hypocrisy in their faces, too. Then, a little perspective:
"In the last election, tens of thousands of citizens in Texas waited in line for six hours to vote. An astronaut on the International Space Station could have orbited planet Earth four times in the six hours that Texas forced some of its citizens to wait in line to vote," Raskin continued.
I love a good science lesson! Especially if it's followed by a passionate shredding of racist Republican tactics employed to destroy democracy.
"Across the country, it's voter suppression, GOP gerrymandering of our districts, right-wing court-packing and judicial activism to destroy the Voting Rights Act in cases like Shelby County versus Holder and Brnovich, deployment of the filibuster to block voting rights legislation, the whole matrix of GOP democracy suppression today. It's time to protect the right to vote here on Earth."
Throwing in a Star Trek reference before he slams them for being light-years away from reality and reason was just the icing on the cake.
"If it takes a NASA bill to do it, then I invite my GOP colleagues to boldly go where none of them have ever gone before, to planet Earth on a mission to defend the voting rights of the people," he said, before he yielded back.
Buy that man a beer.
