Ari Berman

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Ari Berman

Ari Berman is a former senior contributing writer for The Nation magazine, where he worked until 2017,[1] and current Mother Jones contributor.[2] He is a Journalism Fellow at Type Media Center (formerly The Nation Institute).[3] Berman's writing primarily focuses on voting rights and voter suppression. He is the author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, which highlights the history of voting rights in the U.S. since 1965.

News and Controversies

Support from Hilary Clinton

In September 2019, Hillary Clinton tweeted support of a panel discussion on voter rights and voter suppression that included Berman.[4]

Support for 2019 For the People Act

After House Democrats introduced the 2019 For the People Act, Berman called it "the most important democracy reform bill introduced since the Watergate era",[5] mentioning how it would include "automatic voter registration, Election Day registration, restoring voting rights to ex-felons, making Election Day a federal holiday."[5] In his appearance, he also talked about gerrymandering and the restoration of voting rights to Florida felons who had served their sentence, pointing out how "a lot of white Republicans [along with] black Democrats or Latino independents" had been disenfranchised by their previous felony convictions.[5]

Voter ID Problems for Native Americans

In October 2018, Berman expressed concerns that a Republican voter ID law could disenfranchise as many as 5,000 Native Americans because most tribal IDs do not contain a residential address and "this law was specifically written to not allow P.O. boxes count as an address."[6] He wished this voter suppression "got a fraction of the attention of Elizabeth Warren’s DNA test or Donald Trump’s Pocahontas slurs. And I think what we should be focusing on instead of her ancestry is all the barriers that are being faced by Native Americans in this country."[6]

Ohio Voter Roll Purge as a form of Voter Suppression

In June 2018, following a U.S. Supreme Court decision to allow the state of Ohio to purge over thousands of temporarily inactive voters from its voter rolls,[7] Berman appeared on Democracy Now!.[8] Berman mentioned the historical and modern prevalence of voter suppression in the U.S., saying "This is just one of many voter suppression tactics we’re seeing, along with voter ID laws, cutting early voting, making it harder to register to vote. Voter purging is part of this. And it’s a relic of the Jim Crow era. This was done in the Jim Crow South: make it as hard as possible for black voters to be able to register, and even if they do register, then you purge them from the rolls."[8] He also told Amy Goodman "The thing about voter purging that really is so problematic is that people don't know that they're purged from the rolls until they show up at the polls. Then they're not able to vote and there's nothing they can do about it."[8]

Content of Writing

2020 Census Citizenship Question

Throughout 2018 and 2019, Berman wrote several pieces about the Trump administration's attempt to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census.

Books

Awards

  • 2017, Izzy Award[9]

Education

  • B.A. in Journalism and Political Science from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University

Contact Information

Ari Berman, senior reporter at Mother Jones
Facebook: /aribermanauthor
Twitter: @AriBerman

References

  1. The Nation, Ari Berman, organizational website, accessed September 27, 2019.
  2. Mother Jones, Ari Berman, organizational website, accessed September 27, 2019.
  3. Type Media Center, Our Journalism Fellows, organizational website, accessed September 27, 2019.
  4. Hillary Clinton, 1174016700691427328, Twitter, September 17, 2019, accessed September 27, 2019.
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 Democracy Now!, "Ari Berman: Dems Introduce Sweeping Voting Rights Bill to Combat Rampant Voter Suppression", January 7, 2019, accessed September 27, 2019.
  6. 6.0 6.1 Democracy Now!, "Ari Berman: Republicans in North Dakota Are Attempting to Disenfranchise Thousands of Native Voters", Democracy Now!, October 16, 2018, accessed September 27, 2019.
  7. Pete Williams, "Supreme Court gives Ohio right to purge thousands of voters from its rolls", NBC News, June 11, 2018, accessed September 27, 2019.
  8. 8.0 8.1 8.2 Democracy Now!, "'Relic of Jim Crow Era': Ari Berman on Supreme Court’s Decision to Uphold Ohio’s Voter Purge", Democracy Now!, June 13, 2018, accessed September 27, 2019.
  9. Ithaca College, The Annual Izzy Award, college website, accessed September 27, 2019.