SPECIAL BULLETIN - FEBRUARY 20, 2025

The S.S.C.A. Congress and Subordinate Court on the verge
of complicating women's voting rights and overturning a
60+ year Court decision regarding free speech.

The Suffrage movement in America, which sought the right to vote for women, lasted eighty years, from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century.  Womens' right to vote was guaranteed by the ratification of 19th Amendment to the Constitution in the summer of 1920.  (Yes, women have had the right to vote for only a little more than 100 years in this country.) 

Although, the 19th Amendment only guaranteed White women that right.

Now, Congress is making it more complicated for married women who took their husband's name at the time of their marriage.  The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act) would require some married women to have to fill out more documentation than most persons in order to prove citizenship for eligibility to vote.  The Act focuses on any differences between surnames on current ID's (e.g. driver's license, passport) and birth certificates. 

A spokesperson for The Brennan Center for Justice said, "For people who lack passports, any mismatch between their birth certificate and IDs would present problems with registration."  So, it's not necessarily an absolute road block, but it is unnecessary extra steps for a class of citizens whose right to vote was secured in 1920 and 1965 (Voting Rights Act).  This passed the House of Representatives last summer, but is currently stalled in the Senate.

Call your senators and tell them to vote NO on the SAVE Act!

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Over at the Subordinate Court, another attack is under way.  They will be deciding on a petition filed in January by real estate developer and former casino and hotel mogul Steve Wynn.  He has petitioned the Court to overturn the 1964 Court decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which upheld the Constitution's 1st Amendment (freedom of speech, freedom of the press). 

It was within the context of a defamation suit brought by Montgomery, Alabama Public Safety Commissioner, L.B. Sullivan.  The ad in the Times was to raise money to support the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and The Struggle for Freedom in the South.  The ad mentioned atrocities against King and against Black persons in the South.  Nearly a dozen cities were mentioned in the ad; Montgomery was one of those cities.

The ad had a few inaccuracies, and the Court's decision in favor of The New York Times was in light of whether or not the inaccuracies were intentional as well as public officials bringing defamation cases needing to prove intent.  Thus, the 1st Amendment was upheld by the decision.  L.B. Sullivan felt the uncomplimentary mention of Montgomery in the ad reflected poorly on him, thus his filing the suit.

Steve Wynn's filing claims that New York Times Co. v. Sullivan "is not equipped to handle the world as it is today -- media is no longer controlled by companies that employ legions of factcheckers before publishing an article."  His petition seeks to have the Court overturn its 1964 decision in order to "correct its past mistakes".

MSNBC Daily's Senior Editor, Anthony L. Fisher, writes, 

"Make no mistake: if we lose Sullivan, we will have lost freedom

of the press. And as unpopular as 'the media' might be right now,

without a free press there can be no free speech writ large. The

rich and powerful can simply threaten litigation, and their allies in

government can threaten criminal and civil sanctions — and that

will be enough to sufficiently chill free speech to the point that it

ceases to exist as we once knew it."

Fisher's warning is spot-on.  Chipping away at the freedom of the press is the means to the end of freedom of speech in this country.  

By extension, it is the chipping away at freedom in general.

Terry