Reader urges South Carolinians to implore our senators to support Freedom to Vote Act

Support Freedom to Vote Act

No matter our background, Americans want fair elections in which we all have the freedom to vote and make our voices heard on important issues such as providing affordable health care, creating good jobs, and ensuring quality education.

For months, the American people have been calling for national standards to protect our freedom to vote, ensure fair representation, and get big money out of politics. The Freedom To Vote Act is proof that our voices have power in the halls of the U.S. Senate.

This act is essential for fair redistricting: it bans partisan gerrymandering for congressional maps and helps ensure that all communities get the representation they deserve.

We must demand that our senators pass this bill that sets national standards for us to safely and freely cast our ballots and ensures every vote is counted.

The U.S. Senate must do whatever it can to pass this important bill and that includes reforming the rules of the Senate if obstructionists won’t move the bill forward. There is no substitute or compromise for this full bill.

Join me in supporting The Freedom to Vote Act and in urging our state’s senators to do the same.

Robert Rindt, Bluffton

Network of mutuality

In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his “Open Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

King’s words seem to remind us how South Carolina’s economy has always been part of a larger inescapable network of mutuality, an historically painful truth we are still trying to unravel today.

The late former Gov. Fritz Hollings navigated through the network as he wove the threads of economic and workforce development together with those of racial integration. Harvey Gnatt entered Clemson University four months before King’s letter from a Birmingham jail.

I am not an economist or politician.

I am the president and CEO of the Urban League of the Upstate. The Nation Urban League, dedicated to economic empowerment and social justice, appointed Whitney M. Young Jr. executive director in 1961. Dr. King mobilized black churches as Young collaborated with policymakers, and corporate partners.

Young said, “Someone has to work within the system to change it.”

I envision King’s single garment of destiny, manufactured in South Carolina, stitched with one indigo thread.

Gail Wilson Awan, Ph.D., Greenville

Shame on them

Of course politicians can choose which party suits them and how they will truly represent the people who voted for them, but one would like to believe that politicians are humans capable of feeling compassion and gratitude.

All eight of South Carolina’s Republican representatives in our national government missed the opportunity to show South Carolina and the country that they have hearts and care about other people.

As a South Carolina citizen, I was shocked and embarrassed that not a single one of those Republicans attended any part of the Jan. 6 commemoration in Washington to pay tribute to and honor the very people who demonstrated courage and gave their lives to protect all members of Congress from an angry mob intent on causing harm, creating chaos and destruction to the very heart of our democracy.

Shame on them all. Shame.

Jim R. Rogers, Surfside Beach

Grateful for support

As a parent of a child diagnosed with autism, I want to thank Congressman Tom Rice for his support over the past few years.

The Autism Cares Act requires and supports: Autism prevalence monitoring, training of medical professionals to detect and diagnose autism, and so much more.

When the Congressman voted for this bill that was eventually signed into law by President Trump we had no idea how much we would learn.

As we suspected, the numbers are rising.

As a parent, I love my child, but I also understand that as a nation, we should do everything we can to find out more and continue to support effective therapies like Applied Behavior Analysis.

My goal is to see my child able to gain the independence he is capable of gaining.

After meeting Tom Rice myself and having that personal conversation, I knew Tom cared for my son. I was proud to see Congressman Tom Rice and President Donald Trump work together to see those with autism have a chance at a better future.

David Warner, Myrtle Beach