John Lewis Voting Rights Advancements Act Passed In The US House
(WASHINGTON, DC) Exclusive News: The US House passed a bill Tuesday increasing the power of the federal government and racial minorities to block or challenge election rules they find discriminatory. Democrats named the legislation the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancements Act after the civil rights icon and longtime Georgia congressman who died last year.
“John knew that the fight for justice never truly ends,” tweeted Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabama. “Each generation must fight & fight again to preserve the progress of the past and advance it. Now it’s our turn.” The bill would restore an aspect of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that allowed the Justice Department to block certain jurisdictions with a history of voter discrimination from changing their voting rules, after conservative justices on the Supreme Court ruled in 2013’s Shelby County v.
Holder that the formula used was outdated. Attorney General Merrick Garland recently wrote in The Washington Post that the Voting Rights Act’s “preclearance” provision was “enormously effective” and led to “thousands of discriminatory voting changes that would have curtailed the voting rights of millions of citizens in jurisdictions large and small.”