Civil Rights Icon John Lewis Tears Into Supreme Court For Gutting Voting Rights

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) urged Congress to enact legislation that would protect the freedom to vote on Tuesday, just hours after the Supreme Court struck down a portion of the Voting Rights Act that stopped discriminatory voting laws from going into effect in areas of the country with histories of disenfranchisement.

In a 5 to 4 opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court ruled that Section 4, which establishes the formula that determines which jurisdictions are subject to federal “preclearance” of changes in election laws, is unconstitutional. Congress will now have to decide which areas of the country still deserve additional federal scrutiny.

“These men that voted to strip the Voting Rights Act of its power, they never stood in unmovable lines,” Lewis told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “They never had to pass a so-called literacy test. It took us almost 100 years to get where we are today. So will it take another 100 years to fix it, to change it?” he asked. Watch it:

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Congress voted to renew the Voting Rights Act in 1970, 1975, 1982, and 2006, each time with increasingly larger margins. Twenty Republican senators who are still serving in Congress supported re-authorization in 2006 and only 33 members in the House voted against it.

“It is going to be very difficult,” to pass legislation in this Congress, Lewis admitted, “but people said the same thing in 1965.” “I think what happened today with the Supreme Court will motivate hundreds and thousands of people, African American, latino, white, Asian American, Native Americans, men, women, students, to come out. The vote is precious.”

Indeed, in a press conference following the decision, Attorney General Eric Holder noted that federal courts relied on Section 4 of the Act to invalidate discriminatory voter laws in Texas and South Carolina as recently as last year and called on Congress to ensure that everyone’s vote is protected. Since 2010, at least eight of eleven states in the former Confederacy passed voting restrictions and just today, Texas Attorney General announced that the state will move “forward with a controversial voter ID law” in the wake of the ruling.

Progressive groups have kicked off a petition to amend the constitution to “protect our freedom to vote,” building on legislation proposed by Democrats in the House. The measure will have to be approved by Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the states.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), however, argued that any Congressional action is unlikely, “As long as Republicans have a majority in the House and Democrats don’t have 60 votes in the Senate, there will be no preclearance.” “It is confounding that after decades of progress on voting rights, which have become part of the American fabric, the Supreme Court would tear it asunder,” he said.

“I didn’t think that on that day when President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, that I would live to see five members of the United States Supreme Court undoing what President Johnson did with those pens,” Lewis added. “We must not forget our past. We must not forget our history. If we forget it, we will repeat it.”

UPDATE

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) told TPM that Congress should act to preserving voting rights: “My experience with John Lewis in Selma earlier this year was a profound experience that demonstrated the fortitude it took to advance civil rights and ensure equal protection for all,” Cantor said in a statement provided to TPM. “I’m hopeful Congress will put politics aside, as we did on that trip, and find a responsible path forward that ensures that the sacred obligation of voting in this country remains protected.”

Civil rights icon shames Republican into dropping anti-voting rights measure

By Stephen C. Webster/Raw Story

Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) learned a lesson in humility on the floor of the House of Representatives Wednesday night.

Reacting to an amendment proposed by Broun that would withhold funding for the enforcement ofa key portion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), who actuallymarched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others during the civil rights movement, said that Broun’s move was “almost unbelievable.”

“Under [the Voting Rights Act], seven states in the south, as well as Arizona, Texas and a number of counties scattered across the country, are required to receive federal preclearance to every change they make in election laws,” Broun said. “The provision stipulates that only changes to election law in those covered locations, which are shown to be non-discriminatory, may be precleared. Unfortunately, the burden of proving that a change is non-discriminatory is on the state or locality which wishes to make the change.”

He added that the law, signed by President Lyndon Johnson (D), essentially assumes the guilt of southern states, making it an “onerous” burden and an “antiquated provision.” “My home state of Georgia, as an example, has long struggled with the U.S. Department of Justice over its identification laws,” Broun said, claiming his home state is “being discriminated against.”

Lewis’s response to that assertion was fiery, to say the least.

“Maybe some of us need to study a little contemporary history dealing with the question of voting rights. Just think, before the Voting Rights Act of 1965, it was almost impossible for many people in the state of Georgia, in Alabama, in Virginia, in Texas, to register to vote, to participate in the democratic process. The state of Mississippi, for example, had a black voting-age population of more than 450,000, and only about 16,000 were registered to vote. One county in Alabama, there was more than 80 percent not a single registered African-American voter.”

“It’s shameful that you would come here tonight and say to the Department of Justice that you must not use one penny, one cent, one dime, one dollar to carry out the mandate of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act,” he said. “We should be opening up the political process, letting all our citizens come in and participate. People died for the right to vote! Friends of mine, colleagues of mine! I speak out against this amendment. It doesn’t have a place. This is not the place.”

Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) rose next to agree with Lewis, lecturing other members that “both Democrats and Republicans throughout history have used race to try to draw congressional districts and legislative districts,” and citing currently ongoing disputes over voting maps in New Mexico and Texas.

Soon thereafter, Broun then withdrew his amendment and apologized.

“I have the same dream that Martin Luther King had where people are accepted for their character and not any discrimination against their skin or their forefathers or anything else, and any insinuation that I would ever believe in any kind of discrimination or trying to suppress anyone from having their constitutionally given rights, I would contest that accusation, frankly,” he said. “I apologize to any hurt feelings that anyone has, because I certainly wasn’t meaning to hurt anyone’s feelings.”

This video was broadcast by C-SPAN on Wednesday, May 9, 2012.

This video was broadcast by C-SPAN on Wednesday, May 9, 2012.

Georgia Dems call for prison strike to block execution of Troy Davis

By Stephen C. Webster/Raw story

With the final hope of clemency now lost, Georgia death-row inmate Troy Davis faces execution tomorrow night -- unless, of course, prison staff refuse to carry out his sentence.

That's precisely what State Senator Vincent Fort (D) and U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) want to see.

"I am calling for a general strike or sick-out by all but a skeleton staff of the Georgia Diagnostic Prison on September 21st, 2011," Sen. Fort said in a prepared statement. "I say to the prison staff: If you work on that day, you will enable the prison to carry out the execution of a possibly innocent man."

In an exclusive interview with Raw Story, Sen. Fort elaborated on his call for civil disobedience.

"When someone is executed by the state, when someone is in effect murdered by the state, it is done in the name of all citizens," the Atlanta Democrat told Raw Story. "We don't want Troy Davis killed in the name of all citizens of the state of Georgia. What I have called for today is an extension of that.

"For those employees, doctors, nurses who have been given or have taken on the job of killing Troy Davis, we're asking them to say, 'Not in our name.' We're asking them to say, 'No, this is immoral, this is wrong, and we won't partake in it.' We're asking them to take a stand for what is right and good."

For a short time on Tuesday, Sen. Fort was the lone voice calling for a prison strike to save Davis's life. Reached by Raw Story, a spokesperson for Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), an icon of the Civil Rights movement, said the congressman would also be supportive of the action.

"If there are individuals who work within the Georgia prison system who feel their conscience is guiding them to not to participate in this execution, Congressman Lewis would support their right to follow the leading of their own convictions," a spokesperson wrote.

"At the heart of what the Civil Rights movement was about, was individuals standing up and saying no to injustice," Sen. Fort added. "That's what Dr. King did at the Birmingham jail, saying we're not going to abide by an immoral law. I believe what they're doing to Troy Davis, if they execute him, is unjust and immoral. Thus, as individuals, as moral human beings, we have to stand up and say, 'Not in our name.'"

Davis, 42, was convicted of murdering Georgia police officer Mark MacPhail in 1989. Since his conviction, seven of the nine people who testified against him have recanted or changed their testimonies.

"I am utterly shocked and disappointed at the failure of our justice system at all levels to correct a miscarriage of justice," Brian Kammer, an attorney for Davis, said following the decision.

No murder weapon was ever found, no DNA evidence or fingerprints tie Davis to the crime, and some witnesses have since said the murder was committed by another man -- a witness who testified against Davis.

Davis is scheduled to be executed Wednesday at 7 p.m. Protests in Atlanta, Washington, D.C. and other cities around the world are planned to coincide with the killing, although some activists have already begun demonstrating.

CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER REP. JOHN LEWIS: ‘VOTERS ID LAWS ARE A POLL TAX

From Think Progress

Joining in abicameral effort to combat the large number of voter ID bills being pushed by Republicans across the country, long-time civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) slammed these “all too common” bills as “a deliberate and systematic attempt to prevent millions of elderly voters, young voters, students, minority and low-income voters from exercising their constitutional right to engage in a democratic process.” Recounting the U.S.’ dark history of voter suppression efforts, Lewis said, “Make no mistake, voter ID laws are a poll tax.” Watch it:

Tea Party protesters reportedly spit on one lawmaker, call others ‘faggot’ and the n-word.

By Amanda Terkel

Today’s Code Red rally appears to be one of the most raucous Tea Party gatherings on Capitol Hill yet. In addition to protesters shouting with rage at federal lawmakers, Sam Stein reports on some more disturbing incidents:

A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-M.D.) had been spit on by a protestor. Rep. John Lewis (D-G.A.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a ‘ni–er.’ And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a “faggot,” as protestors shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Frank, approached in the halls after the president’s speech, shrugged off the incident.

But Clyburn was downright incredulous, saying he had not witnessed such treatment since he was leading civil rights protests in South Carolina in the 1960s.

“I heard people saying things that I have not heard since March 15, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus,” [said Clyburn.]

Clyburn added, “I think a lot of those people today demonstrated that this is not about health care…it is about trying to extend a basic fundamental right to people who are less powerful.” TPM, Mother Jones, and The Hill have reports of similar behavior by the Tea Party protesters.

Update On Twitter, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) wrote that he was "grateful for the thousands of patriots who are storming the Capitol today protesting government healthcare and defending freedom." M.C.L comment: Odd how things turned protest one president Jim DeMint would probably accuse you of hiding terrorists in your basement, scream racist and homophobic slurs, spit and threaten to do violence towards another president and members of that president party and Jim DeMint would call you an American hero.. What Jimmy DeMint doesn't know those protesters from the short bus that Freedom Works brought in already vote Republican, you're not expanding your base Jimmy those couple of thousand or so old racist right wing crap stains protesters are your voting base. But here's the bright side sane, honest,fair and reasonable people are seeing who the Republicans are trying to latch up with. The tea bag protest has shown health care is not the issue, hating the brown skin guy with a funny name in the white house is.