House Democrats passed a voting rights bill that restores and strengthens parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that were struck down in two recent Supreme Court decisions.
The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named after the late Georgia representative and civil rights activist, passed 219-212 on Tuesday evening with no Republican support.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the bill was critical to pass “so that the Supreme Court of the United States cannot once again do violence as it did in Shelby County v. Holder and the most recent assault on Section 2.” She called the privilege of speaking in favor of the bill “almost a religious experience because of the sanctity of the vote.”
“Any diminishment of the Voting Rights Act is a diminishment of our democracy,” Pelosi said.
REPUBLICANS CALL JOHN LEWIS VOTING RIGHTS BILL A ‘PARTISAN POWER GRAB’
The 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision determined preclearance requirements in the 1965 Voting Rights Act were unconstitutional because they no longer responded to current conditions. In response, the bill would create a new formula to determine which states need federal preclearance before implementing changes in voting requirements.
The bill also empowers federal authorities to review changes in specific practices, including voter identification laws and the reduction of multilingual voting materials.
In response to the 2021 Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee case, the Supreme Court decided earlier this summer, which created a higher standard to challenge voting laws based on racial discrimination. The bill would codify a lower, previously used court standard used to rule on discrimination challenges.
Passage of the bill gives Democrats hope of taking lasting action on voting rights in a closely divided Congress. The party’s sweeping H.R. 1/S. 1 For the People Act, which would have massively upended local election laws, was blocked in the Senate earlier this year.
It is also a win for Democratic Texas state legislators who fled their state to delay a Republican election changes bill and lobbied in Washington, D.C., for federal voting rights legislation, including the John Lewis bill. Some of the Texas lawmakers joined Democratic Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee at a press conference earlier on Tuesday to celebrate its likely passage.
State Rep. Nicole Collier, chairwoman of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, noticed the John Lewis bill had not yet been introduced in the House when she and her colleagues first arrived in Washington.
Republicans staunchly opposed the bill, with many calling it a “partisan power grab.”
California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa lamented that, instead of dealing with the crisis of evacuating Americans and allies from Afghanistan, “We’re codifying a permanent majority of the Democratic Party everywhere they can.”
While Republicans warn of federal overreach, some left-wing Democrats warned that the legislation may not go far enough to combat a conservative-leaning Supreme Court.
“The John Lewis Voting Rights Act will not be safe so long as six far-right justices of the Supreme Court stand ready to destroy our democracy,” said New York Rep. Mondaire Jones, who has argued in favor of expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court.
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A version of the John Lewis bill first passed the House in 2019, when only one Republican, Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, voted in favor of the bill. He did not support Tuesday’s legislation.
The legislation now heads to the Senate, where it would need support from at least 10 Republicans to overcome the filibuster cloture rule and be sent to President Joe Biden’s desk. Only one Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, has voiced support for the bill.
