Skip to content Skip to search

Republish This Story

* Please read before republishing *

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit The 19th and retain our pixel. See our full guidelines for more information.

To republish, simply copy the HTML at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to The 19th. Have questions? Please email [email protected].

— The Editors

Loading...

Modal Gallery

/
Sign up for our newsletter

Menu

  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships
    • From the Collection

      Changing Child Care

      Illustration of a woman feeding a baby a bottle
      • 1 in 4 parents report being fired for work interruptions due to child care breakdowns

        Chabeli Carrazana · February 2
      • Washington, D.C., offers financial relief to local child care workers

        Orion Rummler · September 20
      • As climate change worsens hurricane season in Louisiana, doulas are ensuring parents can safely feed their babies

        Jessica Kutz · May 5
    • From the Collection

      Next-Gen GOP

      Illustration of a woman riding an elephant
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • A banner year for Republican women

        Amanda Becker · November 11
      • Republican women could double representation in the U.S. House

        Amanda Becker · November 4
    • From the Collection

      On The Rise

      Illustration of three women marching
      • Can Cheri Beasley build a winning coalition in North Carolina?

        Candice Norwood · October 11
      • Los Angeles has never elected a woman mayor. Karen Bass hopes to change that.

        Nadra Nittle · September 8
      • Judge J. Michelle Childs is confirmed to D.C. appeals court

        Candice Norwood · July 20
    • From the Collection

      Pandemic Within a Pandemic

      Illustration of four people marching for Black Lives Matter with coronavirus as the backdrop
      • Some LGBTQ+ people worry that the COVID-19 vaccine will affect HIV medication. It won’t.

        Orion Rummler · November 23
      • Why are more men dying from COVID? It’s a complicated story of nature vs. nurture, researchers say

        Mariel Padilla · September 22
      • Few incarcerated women were released during COVID. The ones who remain have struggled.

        Candice Norwood · August 17
    • From the Collection

      Portraits of a Pandemic

      Illustration of a woman wearing a mask and holding up the coronavirus
      • For family caregivers, COVID is a mental health crisis in the making

        Shefali Luthra · October 8
      • A new database tracks COVID-19’s effects on sex and gender

        Shefali Luthra · September 15
      • Pregnant in a pandemic: The 'perfect storm for a crisis'

        Shefali Luthra · August 25
    • From the Collection

      The 19th Explains

      People walking from many articles to one article where they can get the context they need on an issue.
      • The 19th Explains: What we know about Brittney Griner’s case and what it took to get her home

        Candice Norwood, Katherine Gilyard · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why the Respect for Marriage Act doesn’t codify same-sex marriage rights

        Kate Sosin · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why baby formula is still hard to find months after the shortage

        Mariel Padilla · December 1
    • From the Collection

      The Electability Myth

      Illustration of three women speaking at podiums
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • Stepping in after tragedy: How political wives became widow lawmakers

        Mariel Padilla · May 24
      • Do term limits help women candidates? New York could be a new testing ground

        Barbara Rodriguez · January 11
    • From the Collection

      The Impact of Aging

      A number of older people walking down a path of information.
      • From ballroom dancing to bloodshed, the older AAPI community grapples with gun control

        Nadra Nittle, Mariel Padilla · January 27
      • 'I'm planning on working until the day I die': Older women voters are worried about the future

        Mariel Padilla · June 3
      • Climate change is forcing care workers to act as first responders

        Jessica Kutz · May 31
    • From the Collection

      Voting Rights

      A series of hands reaching for ballots.
      • Connecticut voters approved early voting. Here’s how their new secretary of state wants to make it happen.

        Barbara Rodriguez · February 13
      • Women lawmakers in Minnesota are in the vanguard of the democracy movement

        Barbara Rodriguez · February 3
      • Election workers believe in our system — and want everyone else to, too

        Barbara Rodriguez, Jennifer Gerson · November 8

    View all collections

  • Explore by Topic

    • 19th Polling
    • Abortion
    • Business & Economy
    • Caregiving
    • Coronavirus
    • Education
    • Election 2020
    • Election 2022
    • Election 2024
    • Environment & Climate
    • Health
    • Immigration
    • Inside The 19th
    • Justice
    • LGBTQ+
    • Military
    • Politics
    • Press Release
    • Race
    • Sports
    • Technology

    View All Topics

Home
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

The 19th Represents Summit

Don’t miss our biggest event of 2023!

Register Today

Become a member

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

Emma Greenman greets a colleague at the Minnesota State Capitol.
Emma Greenman, is among several women in the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, who are tackling elections policy this year. (Courtesy of Minnesota House Media)

Politics

Women lawmakers in Minnesota are in the vanguard of the democracy movement

A new “democracy caucus” aims to expand access to voting, part of a movement in statehouses to counter election deniers.

Barbara Rodriguez

State Politics and Voting Reporter

Barbara Rodriguez portrait

Published

2023-02-03 09:49
9:49
February 3, 2023
am

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

Last month, on the second anniversary of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Minnesota state Rep. Emma Greenman stood alongside a group of her colleagues to announce the creation of a democracy caucus aimed at elections policy and ways to expand voting.

For Greenman, a voting rights attorney, the symbolism of announcing this specific caucus on this specific day was clear. She thought about everything that’s happened since the violence in early 2021 — including a congressional committee releasing evidence that showed the full scope of former President Donald Trump’s actions to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

But Greenman doesn’t want subsequent anniversaries to be just a reflection on Trump and the attempted coup. She also wants them to highlight the policy work that remains.

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

“It was really important that we recognize this not as a memorial of what happened, but as a day where we are recommitting and actually saying, ‘We are taking action to protect our democracy, to improve our democracy, and to strengthen our democracy,’” Greenman said. 

Greenman is among several women in the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor (DFL) Party, the state affiliate of the national Democratic Party, who are tackling elections policy this year, in part through an omnibus bill with a host of proposed changes aimed at expanding access to the ballot. She will co-chair the so-called Inclusive Democracy Caucus with Sen. Liz Boldon and Rep. Cedrick Frazier under a new Democratic trifecta in the legislature and state government. The trio plan to work on moving bills through two legislative chambers also led by women, House Speaker Melissa Hortman and Senate Majority Leader Kari Dziedzic.

Stories by experienced reporters you can trust and relate to.

Delivered directly to your inbox every weekday.

Please check your email to confirm your subscription!

Submitting…

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

Boldon noted that many — 19 of 34 — DFL members in the Senate are women, so it’s only natural that they would lead on improving policy like elections. (In the House, just over half of the party’s 70 members are women.) But she also said women see voting access as a link to other priorities. 

“We are stepping up to try to work on some of the issues that are affecting our lives,” she said. “This is an intersectional issue. We all have that recognition that there’s work we want to get done — whether it’s reproductive freedoms or health care or education or child care. All of those things require democracy to be strong and functional and participatory.”

Greenman's niece sits in her lap as she works.
Greenman’s niece sits in her lap as she works, at the Minnesota State Capitol. (Courtesy of Minnesota House Media)

The package of legislation spearheaded by the Inclusive Democracy Caucus is named the Democracy for the People Act, though some measures are expected to advance as stand-alone bills. It would establish automatic voter registration; allow 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote; allow people to opt into a permanent absentee voter list; and restore the right to vote for people with a felony conviction who are no longer incarcerated. Lawmakers also want to add protections for election officials.

It’s unclear whether Republicans will back the bills. At least one faction of the minority party voted this week against the bill to restore voting rights for people with felony convictions — but two Republicans voted for the bill when it advanced out of the full House on Thursday night.

During the January 6 conference, Greenman noted that several of the policies in the package have passed in other states with bipartisan support. She said the proposals are being shaped by what’s good for voters — Democrats, Republicans and others.

“I would love to have been engaging on this bill and a lot of bills, our folks across the aisle. I think that that’s what’s best for democracy. It’s what’s best for all of our voters,” she said. “But that’s certainly not going to be our litmus test, what we want. It’s going to be what Minnesota voters want and need.”

Minnesota’s democracy caucus appears to be one of the first of its kind, at a time when legislators across the country are filing numerous election-related bills. Even as some lawmakers work to shore up voting access and many election deniers’ campaigns failed in last year’s midterms, some legislators are also set to consider bills that would add restrictions around elections. The nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab estimates at least 373 laws nationwide that impact elections and how people vote have been enacted or adopted since the 2020 election. Of those, they categorized 177 laws as improving voter access and/or election administration; they believe 81 would restrict it; and the remaining 115 the group considered either neutral or mixed in their impact.

Minnesota is one of a number of states where Democrats took a narrow majority win and are now looking to expand voting. In Michigan, where women are leading in a legislature newly under Democratic control, policymakers have announced voting rights as a priority following an approved ballot measure that will expand early voting. In Arizona, where lies about election fraud have been pervasive, newly elected Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes plans to redirect a unit aimed at unfounded voter fraud toward voting rights.

Christina Harvey, executive director of Stand Up America, an organization that supports voting access, believes elections-related proposals like the ones moving through Minnesota will make it more likely that women run for public office.

Harvey said that’s crucial “at a time when it is clear that the current system is not working for [women], because in spite of us being the majority of the population in the United States, it has been made clear to us that our current government at many levels does not care if we live or die.”

Greenman, who has traveled the country as part of her work, said that efforts to enact elections policy is not limited to women, noting the involvement of Frazier, a Black man, and other people of color. She said it’s led by people who have a long history of fighting for their communities.

“Democracy is a space where communities need to come together to solve problems … and I think that is a role that women and that BIPOC community leaders have often played,” she said. 

Emma Greenman and Cedrick Frazier at the Minnesota State Capitol.
Emma Greenman and Cedrick Frazier (Courtesy of Minnesota House Media)

The policy activity comes as the country is still reeling from the ongoing effects of election denialism on free and fair elections. 

Lilly Sasse is campaign director for We Choose Us, a coalition that supports the omnibus bill in Minnesota and plans to have an ongoing presence at the state Capitol this year. She believes the bill’s chances are good with a Democratic trifecta. But she also said the public’s understanding of the ongoing threats to democracy have been heightened. She noted that Secretary of State Steve Simon — a Democrat who defeated Republican Kim Crockett, who claimed the 2020 election was rigged — garnered more votes than any other Democrat running statewide. 

“Minnesotans clearly understood that they weren’t just showing up in November to participate in democracy,” she said. “They were showing up to protect it.”

Harvey added: “I think including more people in our democracy means that we will have a government that is more representative of everyone who’s part of our society and better represents the interests of women in particular, but also of people of color and everyone whose voices have traditionally been marginalized.”

Senate lawmakers also met Thursday to discuss the Minnesota elections package, one of several legislative steps in the process. Boldon said ensuring the legislation’s passage will come down to not running out of time in a session with several priorities. She pointed out that the main bill’s numerical ranking in both chambers — House File 3 and Senate File 3 — reflects its importance.

“It conveys the level of priority at which we are taking this,” she said. “There is a recognition of the moment that we are in, and this is work, frankly, that is overdue and needed. So I am really hopeful that there is support and that we’re able to move things through.”

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

The 19th Represents Summit

Don’t miss our biggest event of 2023!

Register Today

Become a member

From the Collection

Voting Rights

A series of hands reaching for ballots.
  • Connecticut voters approved early voting. Here’s how their new secretary of state wants to make it happen.

    Barbara Rodriguez · February 13
  • Election workers believe in our system — and want everyone else to, too

    Barbara Rodriguez, Jennifer Gerson · November 8
  • Voter ID laws stand between transgender people, women and the ballot box

    Barbara Rodriguez · October 14

Up Next

Rep. Ilhan Omar looks on near an American flag during a news conference.

Politics

Rep. Ilhan Omar ties GOP vote on her committee post to her identity as a Muslim woman of color

Omar – one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress – says her expulsion is part of “continued targeting of women of color” by Republicans.

Read the Story

The 19th
The 19th is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Our stories are free to republish in accordance with these guidelines.

  • Donate
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Search
  • Jobs
  • Fellowships
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Community Guidelines
  • Membership
  • Membership FAQ
  • Major Gifts
  • Sponsorship
  • Privacy
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram