Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

In this impassioned and carefully researched account, former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Abrams (Lead from the Outside) examines the methods and consequences of voter suppression in America and explains why she won’t officially concede her 2018 race against Republican Brian Kemp. Abrams sketches the history of minority disenfranchisement from the 1857 Supreme Court decision barring African-Americans from citizenship to the 2013 voiding of federal preclearance requirements for electoral changes in districts covered under the 1965 Voting Rights Act. She also documents how the “exact match” system Kemp installed when he served as Georgia’s secretary of state “led to 53,000 voter registrations being held hostage in 2018, 80 percent of whom were people of color.” Voter suppression has helped fuel the recent proliferation of laws targeting abortion providers, she contends, despite a “national consensus” in favor of the right to an abortion. Abrams’s reform proposals include federal laws mandating automatic registration for eligible voters, outreach to marginalized communities about the importance of the census, and national staffing and equipment standards for polling places. Blending personal history, statistical analysis, and detailed policy proposals, Abrams presents a persuasive, if wonkish, argument that any progressive legislative agenda must begin with voting reform. Liberals will be inspired.[em] (June) [/em]