Kamala Harris is Right About Renaming Columbus Day and Making Election Day a National Holiday

Sen. Kamala Harris told a crowd of supporters in New Hampshire yesterday that she supports renaming Columbus Day “Indigenous Peoples’ Day." She is correct; America should ditch "Columbus Day" once and for all. Columbus was a thoroughly awful person and it's about time that we acknowledge it.

Illuminate: "If anything, Columbus should be remembered for opening up the Americas to colonization and slavery, and that shouldn't be cause for celebration. Contrition, yes, celebration, no.

And, you don't have to buy into the entire "Black Legend" to understand what a distasteful human being Columbus was. He made four voyages to the Caribbean spreading pestilence and enslaving the population while searching for gold to steal for Spain. There's really no way to put a positive spin on that."

Sen. Harris also proposed making election day a national holiday and that is way past due. Studies have shown that it would substantially increase voter turn-out in federal elections.

Researchgate.net: Little work has been done to suggest ways to remedy the problem of low voter turnout in America. Unlike other measures instituted to increase turnout, making Election Day a holiday decrease[s] the associated cost of voting and would be relatively easy to accomplish. Implementing the simple creation of a national holiday for Election Day would improve turnout dramatically.

Finally, Sen. Harris proposed legislation that would allow same-day voter registration, another important tool to increase voter participation nationally.

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