SELMA, Ala. –– President Obama on Saturday used the 50th anniversary of the landmark civil rights march here to urge Republicans to move new voting rights protections.
He probably shouldn’t hold his breath.
GOP leaders have opposed new legislation updating the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that gutted central provisions of the 1965 law. And the Republicans on hand in Selma this weekend showed no indication that the silver anniversary festivities had changed their minds.
{mosads}”They knocked out part of the Voting Rights Act … but the federal government still has the power to prosecute and investigate anyone who violates of the [law],” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said Saturday just before the president’s speech. “So as we go forward, maybe there are some other things that need to be done, but I think fundamentally the Supreme Court was correct.”
Rep. Kevin Yoder (Kan.), another Republican participating in the Selma pilgrimage, said he’s also not racing to throw his support behind any VRA updates.
“We’re just taking this moment to reflect on our history,” he said. “I think we’ll certainly get to those issues as we go forward.”
The remarks are a sharp contrast to those coming from Democrats, who are pushing for immediate passage of a new VRA bill they say is vital to preventing discrimination at the polls.
“We remember the struggle that took place right here 50 years ago and the tremendous victory that was won for voting rights, [but] we also understand that today, there are people in this country, in this area, who are trying to undo what was accomplished 50 years ago,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Saturday. “It is beyond comprehension that in 2015, there are officials who want to make it harder for people to vote.”
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said the message coming out of Selma lends momentum to the push for Congress to enact stronger voting protections. But he also acknowledged that Republicans have shown no signs of moving legislation.
“This is not a lobbying trip, it is a raising consciousness trip,” he said, referring to the bipartisan discussions surrounding the visit. “I’ve seen that the awareness campaign is working, but awareness unaccompanied by action is not something that we can applaud.”
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the only Republican leader in Selma this weekend, walked by reporters without taking questions.
At issue is a section of the Voting Rights Act that had required a number of states with a history of racial discrimination at the polls – most of them in the south – to get federal approval before changing their voting rules.
In a 5-4 decision in June 2013, the Supreme Court eliminated that requirement. Behind Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court’s conservative majority found that the formula dictating which states are subject to the extra hurdles — defined by Section 4 of the law — is outdated and therefore unconstitutional.
The Court did not invalidate Section 5 of the law, which empowers the federal government to require pre-clearance for certain states and localities. But without a formula to determine which regions are subject to the extra scrutiny, Section 5 was effectively neutered.
The ruling has immediate practical implications, as a number of conservative states — including Texas, North Carolina and Alabama — quickly adopted stricter voting requirements that had been on hold under the old VRA.
Roberts invited Congress to “draft another formula based on current conditions,” and a bipartisan group led by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) has done so in the past two Congresses. But Republicans leaders have declined to consider the legislation.
Obama on Saturday told thousands of spectators gathered at the Edmund Pettus Bridge that the Republicans’ inaction is a mistake.
“One hundred members of Congress have come here today to honor people who were willing to die for the right to protect it,” the president said. “If we want to honor this day, let that hundred go back to Washington and gather four hundred more, and together, pledge to make it their mission to restore that law this year. That’s how we honor those on this bridge.”
Obama’s reference to the VRA came as something of a surprise, as White House spokesman Josh Earnest had said just a day earlier that the president would not use the speech “to lay out additional policy proposals or to make specific prescriptions about the legislative process.”
The Democrats in the crowd cheered the last-minute decision to be more aggressive.
“I’m glad he went there,” said Rep. Mark Veasey (D-Texas).
Sessions said that even in voting to reauthorize the VRA in 2006, he was always “uneasy” about the Section 5 requirements. He said he hasn’t studied Sensenbrenner’s bill — “I’d be glad to look at what the House is considering,” he said — but suggested the new protections simply aren’t necessary.
“I don’t believe you’re going to find any area of the country where votes are systematically being denied today,” Sessions said. “If they do, I think somebody will blow the whistle on it immediately, and something will be done about it.
“We aren’t going to allow that to happen.”