WASHINGTON — House lawmakers are giving another push to legislation that went nowhere in the last Congress: a bill to restore the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act.
The bill, introduced Wednesday by Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and John Conyers (D-Mich.), responds to the Supreme Court ruling that struck down Section 4 of the law in 2013. In a 5-4 vote, the court declared it was time to update the section, which determined which states and localities with a history of minority voter suppression had to clear changes to their voting laws with the Justice Department. The justices left it up to Congress to come up with a new formula for designating which regions of the country require special scrutiny.
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House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has called it “offensive” that Republicans won’t act on the issue. Last month, she drew a connection between the GOP’s unwillingness to address voting rights and the recent controversy over a speech House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) gave to a white supremacist group.
“If you look at what Mr. Scalise said, in the context of no voting rights bill and no immigration bill, you start to see an attitude,” Pelosi said. “That really is bothersome.”
