Senator Tammy Baldwin (Photo/The CapTimes)
By Karen Stokes
John Lewis (Photo/National Action Network) Lewis led and helped organize many moments of the Civil Rights Movement including Freedom Rides, the 1963 March on Washington and the Selma to Montgomery Marches
U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and her colleagues introduced the John R. Lewis Voting Advancement Act, legislation to stop state voter suppression efforts, safeguard critical voting rights protections, and restore and enhance the Voting Rights Act.
“We are just reintroducing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act this week. This is named in honor of my former colleague John Lewis who as a young man was instrumental in passing the Voting Rights Act and so restoring it to its original strength and naming the bill after him is so fitting,” Baldwin said.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting.
“The original Voting Rights Act was an incredibly important law and tool to make sure that there wasn’t voter suppression activity or discrimination but the original Voting Rights Act has been significantly weakened by a series of U.S. Supreme Court rulings over a number of years and now it is not the same powerful tool to be used to strike down state level or local laws that make it harder for people to vote,” Senator Baldwin said.
After the Supreme Court’s Shelby County decision in 2013, which weakened the federal government’s power to stop unfair changes to voting rules and procedures, states across America started making it tough for many Americans to vote. The recent Brnovich decision from the Supreme Court delivered another blow to the Voting Rights Act making it even harder for people to challenge unfair voting laws or procedures.
“The John R Lewis Act would restore the Voting Rights Act to its full strength and make it more powerful in striking down state or local laws that are intended to impede people’s access to the ballot box. Our right to vote is one of the most fundamental rights and we know that voting rights are under attack,” Baldwin said. “The John Lewis Voting Rights Act will curb state voter suppression efforts and remove barriers to our constitutionally protected right to vote.”
“We haven’t had republicans signing on to the legislation which is extremely disappointing because it used to be a measure that enjoyed very strong support on both sides of the aisle but that is no longer the case,” she said.
The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is endorsed by hundreds of organizations, including the following leading civil rights organizations: Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, American Civil Liberties Union, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), MALDEF, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, and Demos.
The legislation is led by the U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), and Chuck Schumer (D-NY).