Unfinished Business

Progressives - liberals - call us whatever you want - but know that we have a great deal of unfinished business. 

Two pieces of business are fairly obvious.

1. The section of the Voting Rights Act that was struck down by the Supreme Court needs to be rewritten and enacted. I don't hold out a great deal of hope for this, given the intransigence of Republicans in the House, but not trying is not an open. Until a new section is signed into law, legal challenges need to be made to every attempt by states to deny people the vote. Challenges cost money and that means that all of us who care about the right to vote should be prepared to write checks.
2. The pathway to marriage equality continues to run through the state legislatures and the courts. We have had remarkable success in the past year, but those successes didn't happen without significant work. Those of us who live in places where marriage equality is already achieved need to support the work on other states.

Reducing gun violence is a more complicated piece of unfinished business. Passing new federal legislation is not the only challenge. As Attorney General Holder pointed out in his address to the NAACP, laws like Florida's "Stand Your Ground" have not made America any safer. Repealing those laws is a daunting task and it will take time, but the overly broad interpretation of self-defense in these laws cannot be allowed to stand.