Did you consider going to Selma this past weekend for the ceremonies honoring the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, and are you concerned that issues of voting rights and enfranchisement seem to be becoming more partisan? The vast majority of political attendees in Selma were Democratic, and the president’s line about voting rights and fixing the law in this year’s State of the Union garnered mainly Democratic applause.
Well, I think the Voting Rights Act was a seminal victory for our country and a great healing moment. But there are some who want to continue to drive divisions and create phony narratives. As you know, the argument is over the preclearance requirements in states like mine, which actually have a better record of minority voter participation than states that aren’t covered. So I had a pre-existing [scheduling commitment] to a criminal justice panel at the American Enterprise Institute with Cory Booker and Mike Lee, so that’s the main reason I didn’t go, but I don’t think anybody should doubt our national commitment to heal the wounds of racial division. I think we’ve come an awful long way. I was proud to see President [George W.] Bush there.
Have you talked to Leader Mitch McConnell, who has a deep history in the Civil Rights movement, about moving legislation that would fix that formula? You mentioned that one of your concerns is that the original law unduly affects places that have made progress on this front, but there are still places where people are having difficulty voting. Do you think it’s important for Congress to address that formula and to amend it, as the Supreme Court (which you can see here, from this office) has asked Congress to do?
I think Eric Holder and this administration have trumped up and created an issue where there really isn’t one. For example, the attorney general sued my state for requiring a voter ID, saying somehow that suppressed minority votes, when you can get one for free. And the Supreme Court has passed, in an opinion by John Paul Stevens, who is not exactly a conservative, that this is a reasonable way of protecting the integrity of the ballot and it doesn’t unduly burden the ability of minority voters to cast a ballot. [Editor’s note: Justice Stevens has said his judgment was specific to the case and “should not be taken as authority that voter ID laws are always OK.”].
So a lot of this is, I think, theatrics, to try to create division where there isn’t [any]. That, to me, is one of the shames of… the first African-American president of the United States. You would think this would be a great time of national pride and great national healing, but unfortunately, this president has tried to use his bully pulpit and his presidency to try to cause division, and that’s a shame.
So you don’t think that Congress needs to fix the formula?
No.