The right to vote is a key proponent in what makes the American government work. But, for many Americans, there are barriers to the expression of that right. U.S. Congressman David Cicilline (D-RI), has just introduced the Automatic Voter Registration Act (H.R. 2694), a bill that would help to break down many of those barriers, and make it easier for citizens across the country to place their ballot.

“Our democracy was founded on the principle that every citizen has the right to participate, and make their voices heard on election day,” Cicilline said in a press conference on Monday. “The right to vote is an essential part of making government work for the people it is intended to serve, but today, the right to vote is under attack by some who want to throw up new road blocks to voter participation.”

Those who are affected the most by voter suppression activities are low income and minority households. According to a Think Progress report, young people, African Americans, and Hispanics all have lower registration rates than the rest of the population. In Rhode Island, there are roughly 249,000 eligible voters who have information records at the Department of Motor Vehicles, but are not registered to vote, according to the Office of the Secretary of State.

Watch the press conference, video courtesy of Steve Ahlquist:

Cicilline’s act follows precedents set by state legislatures, most notably Oregon, and brings it to the national level. Rather than having to opt into being registered to vote, everyone will be automatically registered to vote when they turn 18 and will have a 21-day period in which they can opt out of being registered. Cicilline wants to change the current system because it makes the entry point for voting more accessible to everyone, and to make sure that more voices are heard in elections.

“It’s a significant improvement over the current system, which requires eligible voters to opt in, by registering before they’re allowed to vote. My bill reverses that presumption, and shifts the burden from the individual to the state, meaning that unless someone explicitly opts out of registering to vote, they will have the opportunity to participate on Election Day,” Cicilline said.

U.S. Congressman Jim Langevin (D-RI), Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea, and the Rhode Island chapter of the League of Women Voters Jane Koster all showed support for Cicilline’s bill. Gorbea brought the discussion down to the local level, speaking on why this bill would assist Rhode Islanders.

“As secretary of state, I am working hard to make sure all Rhode Islanders are engaged and empowered,” she said. “The way we do that is by making sure we make it easier for people to participate.”

Gorbea says the bill takes advantage of existing systems within the state, as well as technology that is readily available. Older systems and technologies, she said, keep Rhode Islanders from engaging in their civic duty far more often than it should. Gorbea is also trying to get two bills through the legislature that would provide quick and easy online voter registration as well as provide early voting opportunities, and clean up existing voter rolls.

“If we’re serious about turning our state around and creating opportunities for all Rhode Islanders, we have to ensuring that more Rhode Islanders are engaged and empowered,” she said.

“When something happens at the national level, and then you’re able to implement it, it quells the concerns of a lot of people. Why are we going to do this differently from somewhere else? We have to do this at the national level and at the local level, absolutely,” Gorbea added.

Although the demographics on the 249,000 Rhode Islanders who are eligible to vote but are not registered are not yet available, Langevin gave his own reasons as to why opting into voter registration could actually be keeping these people from actively registering.

“What I’ve found in my experience over the years, as to why people aren’t registered to vote, can fall into one of several categories. Two of the most pervasive, especially for a young person, is that one, they don’t know how to get registered to vote,” he said. “The other is that a family or an individual experienced some sort of major life change- change in job, change in neighborhood, moving to a new area, moving out of state. They come in and they’ve taken care of all the other things, and it may fall through the cracks.”

To that effect, Koster added that on average, an American moves 12 times within their lifetime, especially out of state. By making it easier to vote, states could make it easier to connect to those who are moving around often, and still give them the opportunity to participate. According to Gorbea, this would greatly reduce the “undue burden,” that is currently being thrust upon American citizens.

“Social Security benefits are a solemn promise that our seniors have earned over a lifetime of work,” said Whitehouse, a founding member of the Senate’s Defend Social Security Caucus. “Sadly, Republicans have made it their mission for decades to dismantle that promise, attempting to turn it over to Wall Street and cut benefits through misguided ideas like the so-called ‘chained-CPI.'”

Republican Senator Mike Enzi from Wyoming raised a point of order, calling Wyden’s amendment non germane to the budget resolution being debated. The Democrats rallying 51 senators to vote yea, but 60 votes were required to wave Enzi’s point of order.

Although his attempts to protect Social Security in the Senate budget have thus far failed, Richard Davidson, Whitehouse’s Rhode Island press secretary, tells this columnist that the senator plans to continue his efforts to keep Social Security off the GOP budget chopping block and from being privatized by supporting legislation like the Keeping Our Social Security Promises Act, legislation that would raise the income cap on the payroll tax to ensure the program’s solvency.

The Social Security trust funds are projected to be fully solvent though 2033; there’s no immediate funding crisis, said Davidson. But, in the longer run, Whitehouse believes the program must be bolstered by applying the payroll tax, which currently only applies to income up to $118,500, to higher levels of income, he says.

Protecting SSDI

One month before the Senate budget debate, the GOP-controlled Senate Budget Committee put a spotlight at a hearing on the impending insolvency of the nation’s Social Security Disability Trust Fund (SSDI). The federal government has predicted that SSDI fund reserves will run low by the end of 2016, at which point millions of disabled beneficiaries could see up to a 20 percent cut in benefits.

At the Senate hearing, entitled “The coming crisis: Social Security Disability Trust Fund Insolvency,” Democrats called for an easy quick fix to the problem, specifically the shifting of a small percentage of the Social Security payroll tax from the retirement trust fund to the disability trust fund. No big deal, they say, because these transfers have occurred 11 times in the past with bipartisan support without political bickering. But, from this hearing it seemed clear that GOP senators see things differently and are threatening to block the infusion of funds to SSDI.

Approximately 10.2 million Americans received SSDI benefits in 2013, including roughly 42,000 Rhode Islanders. In order to qualify, beneficiaries are required to have worked in a job covered by Social Security, and must have been unable to work for a year or more due to a disability.

The Plum Line blog, penned by Greg Sargent for the Washington Post, took a closer look a look at this SSDI entitlement debate in February.

In his opinion blog, Sargent says that GOP lawmakers claim that “restricting a fund transfer is all about forcing a necessary discussion on how to improve Social Security’s long term finances, rather than merely ‘kicking the can down the road.'” On the other hand, the Washington Post blogger believes Democrats see the Republicans as “exaggerating the sense of crisis to realize one of two political goals. Either they want to force immediate, and unnecessary, cuts – or they want to hold the disability fund hostage, in order to have another run at cuts to the broader program [Social Security].”

Gathering the Troops

At a March 23rd panel discussion hosted by the Providence-based Headquarters of Community Action Partnership , Whitehouse and Congressman Jim Langevin with Rhode Island Senator Donna Nesselbush, a disability attorney, along with SSDI recipients, disability groups, and the Social Security Administration, came to discuss the solvency of SSDI and its impact on the Ocean State. The lawmakers called for shifting Social Security payroll taxes to financially shore up the ailing SSDI program. Both lawmakers also supported a long-term solution, fully funding the federal retirement and disability programs by lifting the cap on the amount of income that is subject to the payroll taxes that fund the program.

“Right now, a millionaire hedge-fund manager pays the same amount of taxes into the Social Security system as someone who makes $118,500,” said Whitehouse. He called for “wealthiest Americans to pay a fair share into the program, so that it’s not funded disproportionately on the backs of middle-class workers.”

Congressman Langevin stressed “SSDI is not only a critical safety-net for disabled workers, their children and spouses, it is also a promise we make to everyone who pays into the Social Security trust fund that they won’t be impoverished if they are left with a debilitating condition or disability.”

Although Whitehouse’s efforts to protect the nation’s Social Security and disability programs were derailed in the Senate budget debate because of a GOP procedural call, it’s only the first of many political skirmishes to come. The upcoming 2016 presidential elections will firmly put this entitlement issue on the nation’s radar screen, hopefully to address once and for all.

But, here’s my message to Whitehouse: Even if you lose a skirmish, or battle, you can always win the war. Keep pushing.