WASHINGTON — It’s been almost 50 years since the historic civil rights marches in Selma, Alabama, and Congress is ready to celebrate the people who made it possible.
Lawmakers have overwhelmingly passed a bill to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the thousands who marched on Bloody Sunday, Turnaround Tuesday and the final stretch of the 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery — the movement that served as the catalyst for passage of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act.
The bill sailed through the Senate on Thursday with so much support it didn’t even get a vote. It passed the House 420-0 earlier this month. The only thing left is for President Barack Obama to sign it into law.
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Senate bill — The Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.)
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.)
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.)
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.)
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii)
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.)
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)
Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.)
