For putting off reauthorization of controversial portions of the Voting Rights Act, House Republicans are acting like Jim Crow-era segregationists. So say liberal civil-rights activists.
Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights:
“Those members who held up today’s vote represent retrogressive forces that America hasn’t seen at this level since the 1960s.”
Marc Morial of the National Urban League:
“In the 1960s, anti-civil rights extremists used stalling tactics, misinformation and obfuscation to thwart the original Voting Rights Act and other legislation aimed at remedying the ugly history of discrimination and ensuring full civil rights for all Americans,” Morial noted. “Those tactics didn’t succeed then and they won’t succeed now. I am confident that, as their predecessors stood up to extremism in the past, today’s House leadership will stand up to this effort to derail reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act.”
Yawn.