By Makini Brice
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two U.S. senators, a Republican and a Democrat, called on Congress on Monday to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act, as Republican-controlled state legislatures pass new measures that voting-rights advocates say will restrict access to the ballot box.
Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska made the pitch in a letter that noted that the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed discriminatory voting practices, was last reauthorized in 2006 with a bipartisan Senate vote of 98-0.
Democrats, who hold narrow majorities in both houses of Congress, have passed a sweeping voting rights bill in the House of Representatives. Manchin rejected that bill as too broad, though even with his support the measure would likely fall short of the 60 votes it would need to pass the 100-seat Senate.
The Supreme Court struck down a key portion of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, saying that Section 4, the formula used to determine which states and localities were subject to additional federal scrutiny, was outdated.
“Protecting Americans’ access to democracy has not been a partisan issue for the past 56 years, and we must not allow it to become one now,” Manchin and Murkowski wrote.
Four Republican-led states, including Georgia and Florida, passed measures this year https://cn.reuters.com/article/us-usa-politics-voting-factbox/factbox-republicans-erect-voting-barriers-across-u-s-battleground-states-idUSKBN2CT2JO that activists say limit voting rights, with similar laws pending in several other states. The lawmakers driving those measures often cite as a justification former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was marred by widespread voted fraud.
That claim was widely rejected by numerous courts, state election officials and officials in Trump’s own administration.
Jon Greenbaum, the chief counsel and senior deputy director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, an organization that fights against voter suppression, said the statement was encouraging. “Generally speaking, this is a positive step,” he said.
Democrats later this year are expected to reintroduce the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which restores the 1965 Voting Rights Act’s measures that were struck down by the Supreme Court.
“There is frankly absolutely no reason for this bill,” said Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the election law reform initiative at the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation. “There is simply no evidence that any of the formerly covered jurisdictions are still engaged in that kind of discrimination.”
(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
