House Speaker James Clyburn, DS.C., said Sunday that if President Trump and Senate Republicans want to honor the life of the late Representative John Lewis, a Democrat from Georgia, they must approve and sign a bill law that reestablishes the Electoral Rights Law. .
“I think Trump and Senate leadership Mitch McConnell … if they celebrate this man’s heroism, then we are going to work and pass that bill,” Clyburn said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” referring to a bill passed by the House in December that would reinstate the Voting Rights Act.
Lewis, a legend in the civil rights movement and a longtime congressman, died last week at the age of 80 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
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After his death, condolences came from both sides of the political divide for a man whose bloody beating by Alabama state police in 1965 helped propel opposition to racial segregation.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Lewis was “a pioneering civil rights leader who risked his life to fight racism, promote equal rights, and align our nation with its founding principles.”
“He loved this country so much that he risked his life and blood so that he could fulfill his promise,” President Barack Obama said after Lewis’s death. “At first, he embraced the principles of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience as the means to achieve real change in this country.”
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Clyburn argued Sunday that the bill passed by the House in December is presented in the way the Supreme Court “asked us to” in its 2013 Shelby County v. Decision. Holder who invalidated a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“If the president signed that, I think that is what we will do to honor John,” he said. “It should be the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of 2020. That’s the way to do it. Words can be powerful, but deeds are long lasting. “
If passed, the bill would amend the 1965 law to impose new obligations on states and local jurisdictions, essentially reversing a 2013 Supreme Court decision that yielded a “pre-authorization” provision that determined which jurisdictions needed the federal supervision of elections.
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The bill passed, 228-187, with a single Republican, Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, joining Democrats in voting to pass the legislation. Lewis announced the count as a sign of the importance Democratic leaders attached to the measure.
Strict voter registration requirements, polling place confusion, and other obstacles Georgia voters face in 2018 show why federal oversight of elections is still needed in places with a history of discrimination, supporters said. Problems were also reported in Florida, where election officials were criticized for their handling of a legally required count in close races for the Governor and the United States Senate.
The White House, however, opposes the bill and calls it an example of federal overreach. The Democrats-backed measure would give the federal government “too much authority over an even greater number of voting practices and decisions made by states and local governments without justifying the current needs for such policies,” the White House said in a statement.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
