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December 12, 2024
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Prominent voting rights activist Dr. Desmond Meade was honored Friday with a street renaming ceremony in his honor. A portion of Southwest 268th Street in south Miami-Dade County, or Moody Drive, will now be known as “Desmond Meade Street.”
The street now named after him holds personal significance for Meade, president of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC). It is that very street that he grew up near as a young man struggling with addiction and homelessness.
“I walked this street as a drug addict, and today, I walk it with pride, knowing that it now stands as a beacon of hope for those who need it most,” Meade shared in his remarks during the Dec. 6 ceremony in Naranja. “This street sign is not just for me — it’s for everyone who has ever felt they didn’t have a second chance.”
Meade’s journey is one of resilience. Shortly after graduating high school, he joined the United States Army, where he served as a helicopter mechanic. As a returning citizen, he faced drug addiction, homelessness and incarceration. Meade was living in a homeless shelter when he decided to enroll in Miami-Dade College, where he graduated with honors in 2010. He then went on to earn his law degree from the Florida International University College of Law, graduating in 2013.
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December 10, 2024
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With its six-justice conservative supermajority, the Supreme Court has made a sharp right pivot in recent years, eliminating federal abortion rights, certain gun restrictions, and protections for the administrative state while also expanding executive power. To help you keep track of what’s happening this term, we’ll be periodically rounding up the biggest developments in Keeping Up With the Supreme Court.
Purging Voter Rolls Right Before an Election Is Now Legal—Maybe
The court has had a sleepy start to its new term, as it seemed to keep heavy cases off of the docket in anticipation of postelection litigation that never materialized because Donald Trump won decisively. Still, there were some noteworthy developments: Less than a week before the election, the high court issued an order in Beals v. Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights that is sure to influence future U.S. elections and inspire some states to push the boundaries of voter suppression.
This case went through the shadow docket, which means that while the justices sided with the state of Virginia, they did not provide a written explanation of their decision. (The three liberals did note their dissent, so we can assume it was a 6–3 split.) The ruling seems to fly in the face of the National Voter Registration Act, which explicitly prohibits the systematic removal of ineligible voters from official lists starting 90 days before a federal election. This is pretty much exactly what Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin did with his eleventh-hour executive order that mandated Virginia election officials use data from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles to identify and cancel voter registrations of residents suspected of being noncitizens, unless the resident could verify their citizenship within 14 days. The Biden administration, along with civic and immigrant rights groups, challenged the order in federal court—and in late October, a district court judge sided with them.
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State Voices Florida is a statewide civic engagement organization committed to bringing together progressive 501(C)(3) organizations to work together in building power around civic issues. If the progressive movement works together and speaks with one voice, great things will happen.
We believe everyone should have the right to vote, and voting should be simple and easy. We also support reproductive rights, environmental justice, criminal justice reform, economic justice and affordable housing for everyone.
Along with our partner organizations, we use data and technology, people-powered campaigns, and coalitions to collectively build a multiracial democracy that allows every Floridian to thrive and live in their full dignity. We are a member of the State Voices Affiliated Network, a network of state-based coalitions, advocates, and organizers fighting for a healthy, multiracial democracy.
We have over 100 partner organizations. They range from large national organizations with hundreds of employees to small nonprofits based out of a single county or even a single neighborhood. We provide support and tools to nonprofit partners regardless of size, to improve infrastructure while increasing capacity for all of our partners.
- Everyone deserves the ability to achieve their full potential and the freedom to be their truest selves. We envision a country in which this is a reality.
- BIPOC communities must be at the decision-making table because those most impacted by the problems have the best ideas for the solutions.
- Voting is an action we can take to achieve our shared vision—and casting a ballot should be easy and accessible to each voter. Every vote must count.
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