In 1965, after the violence in Selma, Alabama, and President Johnson’s stirring invocation of history, large bipartisan majorities in Congress passed the landmark Voting Rights Act.
From 1970 to 2006, Congress voted five times to reauthorize the legislation, and presidents of both parties signed it.
That bipartisan tradition is long gone. Since the 5-4 Supreme Court decision in Shelby County vs Holder in 2013, Congress has failed to muster the votes to restore the gutted portions of the Voting Rights Act.
Democrats in Congress are proposing two major voting rights bills, but neither has any Republican support. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, described the legislation as a partisan power-grab based on debunked hysteria about racism. Turnout in the 2020 election was historically strong, Sen. McConnell noted.
After that election, state-level Republicans loyal to former President Donald Trump passed a raft of voting restrictions, alarming Democrats who believe those new laws will suppress the votes of minorities starting in the 2022 midterm elections.
In this episode of History As It Happens, historian Peniel Joseph explains why the bipartisan consensus around voting rights has dissolved.
“As late as 2007, there were 16 current Republican senators who supported the reauthorization for 25 years of the Voting Rights Act,” said Mr. Joseph, the founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas-Austin.
“The Supreme Court in 2013 came in and really overturned that, and those same 16 Republicans who supported it in 2007 when there was bipartisan agreement, now because of partisan interests refuse to support the restoration of the ‘65 Voting Rights Act, or any attempts to expand or strengthen it,” Mr. Joseph said.
Listen to the full episode here.
