“Even noted impressionist painter George W. Bush and his wife and muse Laura were there,” said Larry Wilmore, the Emmy Award-winning producer, actor, comedian, writer and host. “That’s what made this so special.”
He continued; “Mitch McConnell and John, look—I get you don’t support Obama, but you could’ve at least showed up to support John Lewis. Your party stood with him in 1965, so shame on you for not supporting him in 2015,” he said.
Of the hundreds of Republicans in Congress, only one Republican Congressional leader attended the 50th anniversary to acknowledge one of the most important event in this nation’s history – ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Selma Alabama, where protesters were beaten because they demanded equal voting rights. Bloody Sunday led to the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Thanks to the Conservative controlled Supreme Court, some southern states can now legally take away the voting rights of some of their residents.
The Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act on Tuesday, the provision of the landmark civil rights law that designates which parts of the country must have changes to their voting laws cleared by the federal government or in federal court.
The 5-4 ruling, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, found that “things have changed dramatically” in the south nearly 50 years after the Voting Rights Act was signed.
“There is no doubt that these improvements are in large part because of the Voting Rights Act,” the court ruled. “The Act has proved immensely successful at redressing racial discrimination and integrating the voting process.”
“Section 4 and 5 were intended to be temporary, they were set to expire after five years,” the justices added.
Consider this two steps forward, three steps back.
Vice President Joseph Biden today urged the Supreme Court to uphold a provision of the Voting Rights Act that gives the federal government ongoing oversight of ballot collecting in states with histories of discrimination.
Speaking at annual memorial festivities in Selma, Ala., commemorating the 1965 civil rights marchthere, the vice president told a crowd including some of those original activists, “you know it continues on today.”
“Look folks, here we are, 48 years after what you did, and we’re still fighting,” he said.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 struck down Jim Crow segregation laws and other measures designed to impede or otherwise disenfranchise black voters. It has been renewed four times, most recently in 2006 when it passed Congress near-unanimously.
But last week conservative justices on the Supreme Court indicated they were ready to void a section of the law that requires certain states, mostly in the South, to seek federal approval for any changes to their voting regulations.
“Section Five of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, OK? I even got credit getting [Sen.] Strom Thurmond to vote for its reauthorization in the Senate,” Biden said, referring to the late, formerly segregationist lawmaker. “Strom Thurmond voted for its reauthorization in the Senate, and yet it’s being challenged in the Supreme Court of the United States of America as we stand here today.”
On Wednesday, Chief Justice John Roberts expressed concern that in its renewal Congress had used an outdated “coverage formula” that singled out certain states unfairly. Justice Antonin Scalia warned of “racial entitlements” that he said would prove “very difficult” to get rid of through democratic processes.
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