House Passes Voting Rights Bill Despite Near Unanimous Republican Opposition
Sad.
The House voted on Friday to reinstate federal oversight of state election law, moving to bolster protections against racial discrimination enshrined in the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the landmark civil rights statute whose central provision was struck down by the Supreme Court.
Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, who was beaten in 1965 while demonstrating for voting rights in Alabama, banged the gavel to herald approval of the measure, to applause from his colleagues on the House floor. It passed by a vote of 228 to 187 nearly along party lines, with all but one Republican opposed.
[T]he last time the Voting Rights Act was updated, the measure passed overwhelmingly in the House, where large majorities of both parties supported it, unanimously passed the Senate, and was signed into law by a Republican president, George W. Bush.
Sad.