A small hat and a cow

 

Mother's Day roses from the Burtons
Aren't they wonderful?

In Texas we talk derisively about people who are all hat and no cattle. Lest I be accused of that, I have taken a small step toward acting on the principles and politics I espouse so loud and long. I am part of a class action suit being brought by the Texas League of Women Voters against Senate Bill 1, the bill known as the voter suppression bill.

This came about almost by serendipity. When the local independent newspaper, Fort Worth Report, was collecting information about voters’ problems with mail-in ballots, I emailed them about my experience—had to apply three times for approval of my mail-in status and then, my ballot was rejected, as was my Correction of Information form. The result was that my voice was not counted in the March 1 primary election. I was one of nearly 23,000 mail-in voters whose ballots were rejected, just across Texas. Governor Abbott and the Republican-controlled legislature passed obscure new I.D. laws to ensure election integrity. (I have since voted twice, successfully, by mail—at least I assume it was successful.)

The problem with that? There was negligible evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 elections. Experts called it one of the cleanest elections this country has ever seen. Nonetheless Republicans did their usual: spurred by trump’s “big lie,” they created a problem where none existed. I am well-educated and a conscientious voter with some strong opinions, especially about Texas politics, so I pursued. Think how many folks in my position might have been discouraged and decided it wasn’t worth it. That was the whole point of this dishonest maneuver.

Maybe a couple of weeks ago, I received an email from a lawyer with ACLUTx, asking if I would tell her my story. I did, by phone, and she asked if I would be part of this suit. I did what any mother would do—I consulted my lawyer-daughter, who said, “Go for it!”

So today I had a Zoom interview with a young—oh so young!—legal fellow from ACLUTx. Bonus: daughter Megan sat in on the session. The young woman, Ashley, reviewed my declaration, asked a lot of questions, which I thought I handled truthfully and easily—at the time I never dreamed the information would be needed, so I made no record of the sequence or sometimes whether the voting office contacted me or I contacted them. But Ashley seemed satisfied, and Megan later said she thought it went well. According to Ashley, the state will depose me, probably the last two weeks in May, but it too can be remote. Apparently, ACLU will provide counsel for me, and Megan said if they would do that, she would prefer to remain unofficial.

I may have posted earlier about the time I spoke boldly to a friend, a retired political science professor no less, about my opinion that it was not fair to criticize current politics and a party without doing something to be part of the solution. Being part of this class action suit is my way of putting my words into action, and it feels good.

No, I am not satisfied, and I will still not be silenced. I hope I never get abrasive, but I feel compelled to speak out. I see a rigid minority taking control of this country, enforcing their beliefs on us, and I want to be among those who fight back. What, I wonder, happened to the separation of church and state. The three trump appointees to SCOTUS (rue the day that ever happened!) are said to be originalists—which means they interpret the constitution as it was originally written and without any acknowledgment of changing times.

This means they support the second amendment, written in the time of militias formed to defend against natives fighting encroachment on their lands, a time when men fought with muskets which had to be hand-loaded between shots, a time-consuming process. The amendment has no relevance in the age of automatic and military weapons in the hands of civilians, and the “organized militia” it calls for in no way means the vast number of yahoos wandering our streets with automatic weapons, both concealed and openly carried. It is an out-of-date concept. The separation of church and state, however, is not outdated, and we are seeing today the very thing the Founding Fathers feared—bold moves toward a theocracy which would put a perverted, right-wing Christianity (I can barely stand to call it that) in dominance over the country.

Voter suppression is but one small step toward their goal; so is the abolishment of Roe v. Wade. With their dirty little, puritanical minds fixated on what should be private between two individuals, they will next come after contraceptives, interracial marriage, gay marriage. And it will go from there. The Handmaid’s Tale was unfortunately prophetic.

A part of me wants to say, “I am old, and I only have a limited number of years on this planet,” but another, better part of me worries about my children and grandchildren and the world in general. There is so much good about America—yes, even Texas which, as a transplant, I love except for the politics—that I don’t want to see this great experiment in democracy fail.

I hope you’ll join me, whatever size your hat and however many cows you want to claim.