Rep. Terri Sewell Introduces The ‘John R. Lewis…
It’s March 7, which implies it’s the sixtieth anniversary of Bloody Sunday and the legendary freedom march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery. And since, underneath the present presidential administration, each single day is a day to marvel which civil rights protections our revolutionary icons fought and bled for might be rolled back subsequent, Democratic leaders are nonetheless selling payments to guard fundamental constitutional rights for Black people — nearly as if we had been nonetheless in that period and “making America great again” meant not solely repeating that historical past, however making it everlasting.
So, to commemorate the anniversary of Bloody Sunday — and to use the lesson America was imagined to be taught from it — U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Al.) led “every House Democrat” in introducing H.R. 14, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which is supposed to “restore and modernize the protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), addressing modern-day voter suppression and ensuring every voter, regardless of race or background, has equal access to the ballot box,” based on a press release printed Tuesday by Sewell’s workplace.
The invoice particularly seeks to deal with a 2013 Supreme Court resolution that considerably weakened the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by eliminating key provisions of the law as a way to — effectively — I’m in search of a more subtle reply than “reinforce white supremacy,” however I’m drawing a clean right here.
“Since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, we have seen state officials advance hundreds of new measures to make it harder for Americans to vote,” Sewell stated in a assertion asserting the invoice. “As we prepare to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in my hometown of Selma, Alabama, it is clear; the fight for voting rights is just as urgent today as it was decades ago. I’m proud to be reintroducing the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act with the support of every House Democrat. Our bill would give us the tools necessary to address modern-day voter suppression and ensure every American has equal access to the ballot box.”
Here’s a fast synopsis on what occurred in 2013, through the Brennan Center:
On June 25, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a devastating resolution, Shelby County v. Holder, which dealt a vital blow to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Court struck down the law’s system for figuring out which states and localities must be required to get federal approval for modifications to voting insurance policies to make sure that they weren’t racially discriminatory.
By hanging down that system, the Court successfully put an finish to that course of, which was often called “preclearance.” For nearly 50 years, the Voting Rights Act was arguably the simplest piece of civil rights laws within the nation’s historical past, and the preclearance requirement, present in Section 5 of the law, was its most progressive and impactful provision.
The results of the ruling had been quick. The similar day, Texas officers introduced that they might implement the nation’s most restrictive voter ID law, which had beforehand been blocked within the preclearance course of. That law, which a court docket later ruled to be racially discriminatory, was the primary of a large wave of restrictive voting insurance policies applied in jurisdictions beforehand subject to preclearance. And it turned out that the Shelby County resolution was solely the primary of a sequence of Supreme Court selections that may roll back protections for voting rights.
Not solely did the Supreme court docket resolution function a catalyst for voter suppression legal guidelines, however it’s arguably what led to the more latest development of Republican legislators redistricting their states’ congressional maps with the expressed function of diluting Black voting energy.
60 years was not very long in the past. 60 years in the past, lots of of protesters who can be labeled “woke” agitators by present conservative political requirements tried to stroll from Selma to Montgomery demanding that Black people have the unfettered proper to vote. The demonstrators had been brutally crushed, hosed, and gassed by state and county police officers, some of whom chased protesters down on horseback.
The late Democratic senator and civil rights icon who helped lead the march, Sen. John Lewis, who Sewell’s laws is known as for, famously described the protesters as “a few innocent children of God–some carrying only a bed roll, a few clutching a simple bag, a plain purse, or a backpack,” who “had been impressed to stroll 50 harmful miles from Selma to Montgomery to reveal the need for voting rights within the state of Alabama.”
In 2020, when President Donald Trump launched his “election fraud” propaganda marketing campaign, he solely (and baselessly) challenged the election ends in voting districts with giant Black populations, that means, if his “big lie” had been profitable in overturning the outcomes, it might have been Black voters who had been disproportionately disenfranchised.
Then, America elected him back into workplace 4 years later.
We’re not as far alongside as they declare we’re, good people. RIP Sen. John Lewis, and a particular shout out to Rep. Terri Sewell and all leaders who perceive the struggle that started once we landed on this rock, and culminated into Bloody Sunday 60 years in the past, nonetheless lives on.
Stay woke!
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