GOP backs voting rights event, but not legislation
Vice President Biden, center, leads a group across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., on March 3, 2013. From left: Selma Mayor George Evans, Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Biden, the Rev. Al Sharpton and Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.(Photo: Dave Martin, AP)WASHINGTON — A record number of lawmakers will help celebrate the 50th birthday of the Voting Rights Act this weekend, but only a few have committed to supporting legislation that would restore a key piece of the landmark law.President Obama likely will raise that issue on Saturday, when he delivers a speech on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., to a crowd that will include about 100 members of Congress.Many of the Republican members will be participating for the first time in the annual commemoration of the 1965 voting rights marches in Selma. But back in Washington, GOP lawmakers have mostly resisted efforts to advance a bill — the Voting Rights Amendment Act — that supporters say is needed to make sure minorities continue to have equal access to the ballot box.Civil rights groups say they're happy to have a record number of Republicans at this weekend's anniversary events, but they want more than a photo op."No elected official should come to Selma and leave without throwing their full-throated support behind passing the Voting Rights Amendment Act," said Ryan Haygood, deputy director of litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont and a possible candidate for president next year, said lawmakers who join him in Selma this weekend should be working to make it easier, not harder, for people to vote."To stand up and say, 'Well isn't it wonderful and brave what happened 50 years ago,' while you're actively participating in voter suppression today is to me extremely hypocritical," Sanders said.Partisan disagreement over the legislation is feeding a debate over how far the country has progressed since President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965. This weekend, that debate will play out on the bridge in Selma where peaceful voting rights marchers were beaten and gassed by Alabama state troopers 50 years ago on a day known as Bloody Sunday.The legislation pending in Congress would restore a Voting Rights Act provision nullified by the Supreme Court in 2013. That provision had required states with a history of voting-related discrimination — including Alabama — to get federal permission, or "pre-clearance," before making any changes to their election systems.Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who introduced the Voting Rights Amendment Act last year when he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has yet to find a Republican cosponsor."The best way we can honor those brave marchers of 50 years ago, and the countless others who sacrificed their lives for civil rights, is not only with medals and words, but also with meaningful legislation that protects the constitutional rights and advances the principles that they marched for," Leahy said.Many Republicans, emboldened by the Supreme Court decision, say Congress should no longer presume certain states can't be trusted to run fair elections.Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has said the Voting Rights Act already allows people to sue if they encounter discrimination, and restoring pre-clearance is unnecessary.Even some Republicans who will travel to Selma this weekend aren't keen on the idea of restoring pre-clearance, especially because it would single out certain states for federal oversight."The American South isn't what it was 50 years ago," said Rep. Martha Roby, R-Ala. "What is needed is to ensure fairness ... and my priority will be that Alabama not be treated differently than any other state."Under 48 years of pre-clearance, most of the Deep South had to get federal permission to redraw election boundaries, change voting procedures or even move a polling place.In its 2013 decision, the Supreme Court — in an Alabama case hatched 60 miles from Selma in mostly-white Shelby County — ruled that the formula used to determine which states were subject to the pre-clearance requirement was out of date.The update in the Voting Rights Amendment Act would restore pre-clearance in states with multiple voting rights infractions over the past 15 years — Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. The bill has bipartisan support in the House, but most Republicans oppose it.Democratic state Sen. Hank Sanders of Selma, one of the thousands of African-Americans elected to office after the Voting Rights Act was signed, is among those worried the Supreme Court's 2013 decision will turn back the clock on voting rights.He said new state voter ID requirements and district maps that divide minority communities are among the threats."We need to keep moving toward that more perfect union that the Founding Fathers spoke of," Sanders said. Contributing: Nicole GaudianoSee, hear chaos surrounding Harrison Ford plane crashMar 06, 2015
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