April Ryan says Republican Party ‘does not like the browning of America’
'That’s why you are seeing all of these anti-voting rights efforts and restrictive efforts,' Ryan told Sunday's CNN audience.
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Members of the Republican Party are said to be losing sleep while working overtime to curb the “browning of America.”
April Ryan, theGrio White House correspondent and CNN political analyst, stressed this point while speaking to Jim Acosta on Sunday. She noted that former President Donald Trump is “rallying Democrats to go to the polls,” and as a result, “That’s why you are seeing all of these anti-voting rights efforts and restrictive efforts.”
One glaring example of this is Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp recently signing into law a sweeping Republican-sponsored overhaul of state elections that includes new restrictions on voting by mail and gives the legislature greater control over how elections are run, theGRIO reported.
Read More: April Ryan pays tribute to Black women in new book: ‘It’s a love letter’
Per the Associated Press, Democrats and voting rights groups say the law will disproportionately disenfranchise voters of color. It is part of a wave of GOP-backed election bills introduced in states around the nation after Trump stoked false claims that fraud led to his 2020 election defeat.
Republican changes to voting laws in Georgia follow record-breaking turnout that led to Democratic victories in the presidential contest and two U.S. Senate runoffs in the once reliably-red state. Kemp signed the bill less than two hours after it received final passage in the Georgia General Assembly. The bill passed the state House 100-75 last month, before the state Senate quickly agreed to House changes 34-20. Republicans in the legislature were in support, while Democrats were opposed.
Democratic Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler said the bill was filled with “voter suppression tactics.”
“We are witnessing right now a massive and unabashed assault on voting rights unlike anything we’ve seen since the Jim Crow era,” Butler added.
Read More: Georgia passes voting law amid outcry of voter suppression
Among its highlights, the law requires a photo ID in order to vote absentee by mail after more than 1.3 million Georgia voters used that option during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also cuts the time people have to request an absentee ballot and limits where ballot drop boxes can be placed and when they can be accessed.
One of the biggest changes gives the GOP-controlled legislature more control over election administration, a change that has raised concerns among voting rights groups that it could lead to greater partisan influence.
During her conversation with Acosta, Ryan touched on the GOP donor retreat and why Trump loyalists are donating to the party “illegally.” Also noting that while the current iteration of the GOP may still be the party of Ronald Reagan “to an extent,” she added, “This is a party that does not like the browning of America. This is a party that is cheating at the polls. This is a party that is doing anything, by any means necessary, to continue to try to win.”
Ryan then highlighted the efforts of prominent activists like Stacey Abrams “to fight this at the polls.”
You can hear more from Ryan about this issue via the Instagram clip above.
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