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Poor People’s Campaign Asks Congress To Vote on Wages, Voting Rights Before Midterms

The speakers, along with others representing state affiliates of the Poor People’s Campaign, were among the initial signatories on the letter to the congressional leaders.

The Rev. William Barber II speaks during the Poor People’s Campaign’s congressional briefing on Sept. 22, 2022, at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington. RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks

The Rev. William Barber II speaks during the Poor People’s Campaign’s congressional briefing on Sept. 22, 2022, at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington. RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks

Washington Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde said at the briefing that she and other clergy were speaking out for people served by churches like those in her diocese, such as one “in what appears to be an affluent neighborhood” where hundreds line up weekly for two grocery bags of food.

“Those who benefit from these policies as they are would prefer and work very hard to keep those consigned to poverty silenced and invisible,” she said. “But this movement exists so that they will not be silent, and neither will we.”

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., chair of the Majority Leader Task Force on Poverty and Opportunity, thanked Barber and the other clergy in attendance.

“We need your voice here now more than ever,” she said, noting her support for the campaign’s “Third Reconstruction” agenda that has called for policies to transform the country by helping an estimated 140 million poor and low-income people.

Barber said the campaign is seeking to reach at least 5 million people ahead of the midterm elections, including people who have registered to vote but have not cast a ballot. He’s hoping that if poor and low-wealth people feel they are heard by politicians or the campaign’s door knockers, they will go out and vote. Such action, he predicts, could lead to policies that will help them.

“It is economically insane, it is constitutionally inconsistent, it’s politically inept and it’s morally indefensible not to be calling the name of poor folk by name,” Barber said in a Tuesday interview. “We must name poor and low-wealth people as a targeted voting bloc and stop ignoring them and not speaking specifically to them and their needs.”

Asked what happens if the letter writers’ request is not met and additional votes do not occur soon, Barber said after the briefing that it would be a teachable moment.

“If we don’t get the vote, it’ll be clear that it’s not just a few congresspersons,” he said, “but it’s a systemic problem — that the whole Congress evidently only wants to deal with poverty incrementally.”

This article originally appeared here