House lawmakers approved new legislation aimed at protecting the right to vote on Tuesday, amid a wave of restrictive new elections laws from Republican-controlled state legislatures.
The bill is named for the Georgia congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis, who died last year.
“Old battles have become new again,” said Alabama Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell, who introduced the legislation. “I want you to know that the modern day barriers to voting are no less pernicious than those literacy tests and those poll taxes. And what we must do, as we did back in the ’60s, is when we see states running amok, we need federal oversight.”
Democrats say the bill, known as H.R. 4, would strengthen the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which had been weakened by a pair of Supreme Court rulings over the course of the last decade. Its supporters say that would make it more difficult for states to restrict future voting access.
While the bill passed the House along party lines, with 219 Democrats in favor and all 212 Republicans opposed, it now faces steep GOP opposition in the evenly divided Senate. Republicans have characterized the legislation as a federal overreach into the state’s role in election processes.
They changed the color of the lipstick, but it’s still a pig.
The left is really trying to make sure republicans never win again… THEY surpress votes, not the other way around.
Vote stealing codified into law.
But only for one party, into the 22nd Century.