We Can Honor Our Founding Mothers By Voting (An Homage to the 19th Amendment)

[TexasTowelie]

By Carol Morgan

It was 94 years ago today that Congress passed the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote. This accomplishment didn’t happen overnight. After years of determined effort, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton drafted the amendment and introduced it in 1878, but it took forty-one years for Congress to submit the amendment to the states for ratification.

In between 1878 and 1919, hundreds of women in the Suffrage Movement endured arrest and imprisonment, gender indignities, force-feedings, and societal shaming to bring this Constitutional privilege to fruition.

Even after the 19th amendment was passed, women continued to be discouraged from voting in the Southern states by way of the poll tax. This obstacle for women wasn’t eliminated until 1964 with the ratification of the 24th amendment.

Even with the additional safeguard of the 24th amendment, women did not turn out to the polls in the same numbers as men until 1980. From 1980 until the present, women’s participation in the electoral process has grown and more recently, surpassed the male vote.

Fast forward to Texas 2014. Texas has the lowest voter turnout in the entire nation. In every area of civic engagement (voting, contacting their elected officials, donating, and volunteering), Texas is dead-last or near the bottom.

Our founding mothers would be devastated to know this.

While we no longer have laws or poll taxes that exclude women from voting, there are diabolical processes at work that make voting more confusing and a little more difficult.

The most recent example is Governor Perry’s hastily-called special election for SD 28. It has put a great financial and logistical burden on the smaller, less affluent counties of District 28. And it has nothing to do with ensuring District 28 has an early representative. In twelve years, I’ve never known Rick Perry to do anything that benefits the regular citizens of Texas.

Luckily, I was able to vote early and I cast my vote for Democrat Greg Wortham. He has more valuable experience as a mayor and he pledges to represent all Texans in District 28. He’s pragmatic, he supports public education, and he has a long list of mayoral accomplishments under his belt.

The other candidates’ rhetoric turned me off. How is it relevant to an election for a Senate candidate to declare, “I bleed red and black”? And if I hear the talking point “border security” one more time, I’m going to scream. These simplistic phrases are an insult to critical-thinking voters everywhere.

Voters want a prioritized "to do" list of Texas' problems alongside solutions posed by the candidate. Here's what needs to be done and here's how I am going to do it. We don't need tired worn-out phrases like family values, pro-gun, pro-life because in reality, those phrases mean something different to everyone.

And no pictures of your "darling" family either. I'm not voting for your wife or your kids. They won't be going to Austin.

I’m also wary of candidates who cultivate large political contributions of $10,000, $20,000 and $30,000. I’m pretty sure those contributors hope to gain something from that huge sum of money and I bet those candidates will deliver, lest the money cease to flow.

Over the past few years, we hear a lot about “voting the bums out”, but in all those years, I've yet to see it happen. People vote for the same type of politicians (or don’t vote at all) over and over and then expect a magically different result.

On the 94th anniversary of women's right to vote, we need to be reminded of long hard-fought battle that it took to gain the privilege to vote.

There will be many meetings and celebrations to recognize this anniversary, but there is no better way to pay homage to these female trailblazers than to engage in the activity they fought so hard to attain.

Shouldn't you honor these women who fought for this right for YOU by voting today?

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Carol Morgan is a career/college counselor, writer, speaker, former Democratic candidate for the Texas House and the award-winning author of Of Tapestry, Time and Tears, a historical fiction about the 1947 Partition of India. Read her work at the Houston Press and MetroLeader News Service. Email Carol at [e-mail] , follow her on Twitter and on Facebook or visit her writer’s blog at www.carolmorgan.org

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