Want to honor Rep. John Lewis? Repair the Voting Rights Act
Over time, Lewis, who had been seen by many moderates as perhaps too “militant” (a very popular word among journalists of that day), gained a new reputation as a skilled peacemaker and unifier who could help fierce opponents find common ground.
He went to Congress, but he never fully left the streets. His last public appearance, appropriately enough, was with District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser at the dedication of a “Black Lives Matter” mural on the 16th Street pavement that leads directly to the White House two blocks south.
As a memorial to how much his Black life mattered, a growing number of people have proposed renaming Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, now named for a U.S. senator, Confederate general and KKK leader, after Lewis.
But Black Democrats, including Sen. Kamala Harris of California and House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina, suggested a better idea: Pass “the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of 2020.”
“Words may be powerful,” Clyburn said, “but deeds are lasting.”
Indeed. In perhaps the biggest pushback to voting rights since Reconstruction, the Supreme Court in 2013 struck down a provision in the original 1965 law. That provision forced particular jurisdictions, mostly in the South, to report any changes in voting laws to the Justice Department for “preclearance” approval.
Lewis and others successfully passed a bill in the Democratic-controlled House last year that would’ve reinstated federal oversight of state election laws, but Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not brought a similar bill to the Senate floor.
Allegations of voting discrimination through new state laws have gone up since the high court’s decision, but the Department of Justice has done less to challenge those laws, according to the federal Commission on Civil Rights. There could hardly be a more fitting tribute to John Lewis’ memory than to fix those enforcement shortfalls — fast!
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)
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