Voting rights legislation is facing a tough battle in the Senate.
The House on Tuesday passed legislation on John Lewis’s Voting Rights Advancement Act that seeks to strengthen a key component of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, after it was weakened by two Supreme Court decisions.
The legislation, dubbed the late civil rights icon, passed the House with a final vote of 219-221. There was no Republican support.
HR 4 would reinstate the formula prior to the liquidation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2013.
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, a key provision that required a federal review of local election laws and states with a history of electoral discrimination, was withdrawn after Shelby County, Alabama, filed a lawsuit in Washington. DC. it was unconstitutional to seek approval from the Department of Justice before changing voting procedures.
With at least 17 state-run Republican-led legislatures recently approving voting restrictions, Democrats and voting rights advocates said the bill will ensure access to the polls for minority voters.
“It’s not patriotic to undermine the ability of people who have the right to vote and have access to the polls. As John knew, this beautiful pillar of our democracy is being attacked by what is the worst voter suppression campaign in America since Jim Crow Triggered by the dangerous Shelby v. Holder, as mentioned in 2013, in 2021 state lawmakers have introduced more than 400 suppression bills, “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said during a debate in the room.
House Republicans criticized the bill as a “federal election takeover” and a “takeover of power” by Democrats that would undermine the state’s electoral process.
Terri Sewell, Alabama’s Democratic representative who was the author of the bill, told reporters that federal intervention is needed to combat what Democrats call voter suppression across the country.
“Old battles have become new again,” Sewell said in a joint press conference with Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, and Texas Democratic state lawmakers who have remained in the country’s capital after “flee” from his home state to break the quorum about six weeks ago to avoid a new state election law.
“When we see that states are malfunctioning, we need federal oversight. If it weren’t for federal oversight, not only would we not have gotten the Voting Rights Act, we wouldn’t have gotten the Civil Rights Act. After the Shelby v. Decision of the headline, we saw states like North Carolina and Texas reinstating restrictive voting laws and those voting laws are suppressive, oppressive and depressive. People who need to vote stop voting, “Sewell said Tuesday.
The House passed an earlier version of the voting rights law last year after Lewis ’death, but it eventually stalled. The bill now faces a similar upward battle this year as it moves to the Senate, where there is strong Republican opposition in the split body.