Spectrum News: Democrats reintroduce John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act as the landmark legislation marks 60 years
By Cassie Semyon
Sixty years after the landmark Voting Rights Act became law, Democrats on Capitol Hill have introduced legislation to expand and protect voting rights nationwide.
The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named after the late Civil Rights icon and former congressman, would restore some protections of the 1965 law that federal courts have since weakened.
In 2013, the Supreme Court rolled back requirements for states with a history of discrimination to receive federal approval before changing how they hold elections in Shelby County v. Holder.
Democrats argue that a growing number of states have since put in place laws that make it more difficult for people of color to vote.
The bill’s reintroduction also comes at a time when lawmakers in Texas are redrawing congressional maps mid-decade to create more Republican-leaning seats, at the direction of President Donald Trump.
“We could all use a little bit of John Lewis’s courage right now to push back on this administration’s brazen attacks on our right to vote,” said Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., at a press conference introducing the bill ahead of the 60th anniversary of the original law. Padilla is one of the bill’s original cosponsors, with Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., leading the group.
“Democracy is the very house in which we live. It is the framework in which we get to fight for the things that we care about,” Warnock said at the press conference. “These last seven months have reminded us that we ought not take any of it for granted. We are literally in a fight for the life of the republic.”
The new bill would also mandate that states allow same-day voter registration nationwide and prevent voters from being purged from voter rolls if they miss an election.
But it will be an uphill battle to pass such legislation, with only Democratic lawmakers signed on to the bill.
The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act was first introduced in 2021, when Democrats held a supermajority in Washington but they still could not pass the legislation due to the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold.
Padilla said he’s undeterred.
“We need to restore those protections, and we’re going to keep working towards that until we do,” he told Spectrum News. “Is it an uphill climb? Yes. But it doesn’t mean that we stop fighting. We have to keep pressing these issues.”
The senior senator from California, who once served as the Secretary of State, says he sees this attempt by Republicans to create new congressional maps at President Trump’s request as part of a “broader pattern of attacking our fundamental voting rights. From making it harder — if they had it their way — for eligible Americans to register to vote, to stay on the voter rolls, to cast their ballot, and to have their ballot counted.”
The Department of Justice has also sought information about voter data over the past several months, furthering the urgency that Democrats say is needed to address voter protection legislation.
“Through the redistricting process, through the weaponization of the Department of Justice and demanding personal voter information from states and counties across the country, for what purposes, it should be alarming to everybody,” Padilla said.
The Supreme Court will once again weigh in on the Voting Rights Act when it takes up a case later this fall involving the creation of a second Black-majority congressional district under the law.
The court is expected to examine whether creating the district constitutes a violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
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