Butterfield Says House Democrats Ready to Pass VRA Fixes, but GOP Opposes

By CASH MICHAELS

It is a top priority of the Democratic majority in the U.S. House, and indeed, it could be introduced for a vote as soon as next week, and ratified without a problem.

Renewal of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), a measure the prior Republican-led U.S. House refused to even take up, let alone pass.

U.S. Rep. G. K. Butterfield (D-NC-1) says renewal of the VRA is, indeed, a top agenda item of the newly strengthened Congressional Black Caucus and House Democrats.

“It’s going to happen,” Butterfield said during a recent interview. “ Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) and Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL) are leading an effort right now to introduce and pass [VRA legislation] very, very soon, which will correct the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court Shelby County case decision, and create a new formula for Section Four of the VRA, and that will happen very soon.”

In that 2013 US High Court Shelby ruling, Section Four of the five-section VRA – which required federal preclearance of all new state laws governing elections, was struck down, thus allowing North Carolina and several other Republican-led states at the time to adopt a variety of voter suppression laws designed to minimize black voter turnout through photo voter ID laws and other mechanisms.

The only remedy to the U.S. Supreme Court decision was for Congress to rework Section Four and vote to reinstall it. But because republicans were in charge, they saw it in their best interests not to do so, allowing voter suppression laws to flourish across the country.

Now that Democrats have regained control of the House, as Congressman Butterfield said, they’re ready to pass legislation to restore the VRA, as well as to combat gerrymandering, and institute automatic voter registration.

Knowing that Republicans are going to fight the VRA restoration bills, Democrats are planning to travel and hold hearings in several states, including North Carolina, to gather evidence on how the voting rights of African-Americans, Hispanics and others have been encroached on by voter restrictions since the 2013 Supreme court Shelby decision. The hope, according to published reports, is to actually have the VRA legislation ratified by 2020 – the next presidential election.

Why? Because even though the Democrat-controlled House is certain to pass it now; the Republican-led Senate is certain not to.

Indeed, Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has even vowed to stop a Democrat-sponsored bill that would make Election Day a national federal holiday for voters, saying that all it would be is a “power grab” by Democrats to get more of their voters to the polls. In effect, the harder it is for voters to cast their ballot, the better chance Republicans have to hold onto power.

“Let’s hope that there will be some bipartisanship,’ Rep. Butterfield said. But right now there aren’t that many signs that there will be.”