#Democrats push Voting Rights Act in honor of John Lewis

Democratic lawmakers want to honor civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis’ legacy by advancing the Voting Rights Act in the Senate.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) was the first to publicly pitch the idea of renaming the bill and pushing it through the Senate during a CNN appearance Sunday.

“It should be the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of 2020,” the No. 3 House Democrat told the network of how best to honor the 80-year-old Georgia Congressman.

“That’s the way to do it. Words may be powerful, but deeds are lasting.”

Shortly after the interview, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who authored the Senate’s counterpart legislation to the House’s Voting Rights Act championed by Lewis, pledged to reintroduce it under a new name.

“As author and chief sponsor of the Senate bill I will be reintroducing #VRAA this week, naming it for John Lewis, my longtime partner on this,” Leahy wrote on Twitter Sunday afternoon.

Leahy’s announcement has been met with support from a growing list of Democrats that currently includes Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), as well as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

The House of Representatives passed the legislation in December, with just one Republican voting in favor during an otherwise party-line vote.

Lewis presided over the vote, banging the gavel to announce that the measure had been approved by a vote of 228-187.

The bill has sat on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) desk in the months since.

The legislation was written as a response to a 2013 Supreme Court decision, Shelby County V. Holder, which struck down the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The House-passed bill would restore some of those key protections.

“I think that Trump and the Senate leadership, Mitch McConnell, by their deeds if they so celebrate the heroism of this man, then let’s go to work and pass that bill because it’s laid out the way the Supreme Court asked us to lay it out,” Clyburn noted during his CNN appearance.

Aside from the rising number of Senate Democrats backing the effort, Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Karen Bass (D-Calif.) along with Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) called on McConnell over the weekend to bring the legislation to the floor promptly.

How Senate Republicans and the White House will respond to the push remains to be seen.

Lewis died on Friday in Atlanta following a long battle with advanced pancreatic cancer.

First elected in 1986 and lauded as the “conscience of Congress,” Lewis, a staunch Democrat, commanded respect from both sides of the aisle.

But he forged his reputation in the 1960s, most notably during the 1965 civil rights march in Selma, during which he suffered a skull fracture at the end of a police billy club.

“There is still work yet to be done,” he urged during a 50th-anniversary event at the bridge in 2015.

“Get out there and push and pull until we redeem the soul of America.”