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On this day in 1965, state troopers attacked John Lewis and over 600 civil rights activists at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. “Bloody Sunday” provoked national outrage that led to the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act.
Over the past 58 years, it has become de rigueur for many presidents and candidates to make a pilgrimage to Selma to remind the nation of unfinished work. President Biden went there this past weekend and declared that the fundamental right to vote “remains under assault.” In fact, with the Supreme Court poised to wreak further mayhem in June, this could be the last commemoration of Bloody Sunday with even a semblance of a meaningful Voting Rights Act.
Critically, the president again called for national legislation, even if it requires changing Senate rules on the filibuster. The Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would set national standards, ban gerrymandering, and restore strong civil rights protections. These bills must remain a national priority. Recall that voting rights failed in 1957, 1960, and 1964 before Lewis’s sacrifice brought it into being in 1965.
This use of the presidential bully pulpit is in the highest tradition. Plainly, Biden cares deeply. But there is more he can do without Congress.
In 2021, Biden signed an executive order on Bloody Sunday that directed federal agencies...
A Southwest Florida farmer has reached a plea deal related to his role in a larger federal fraud conspiracy. Mark Frisbie pleaded guilty to one count of making a false statement in a federal crop-...