Speaking to reporters this Tuesday, Mitch McConnell addressed the U.S. Senate moving forward with plans to consider the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, saying that "Democrats want to change the subject."
"... to a non-existent problem with this marching out of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Again, I repeat, the Supreme Court did not strike down the Voting Rights Act. It's still on the books. There's no evidence right now anywhere in the country that states are engaged in suppressing the vote based upon race."
In an op-ed for MSNBC this Wednesday, Steve Benen contends that McConnell's notion that Democrats are only pretending to care about voting rights is "plainly silly."
"This has been a priority for the party for quite a while — they first took up the For the People Act last year — and Democratic leaders would be pushing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act regardless of the larger political circumstances," Benen writes, adding that McConnell's claim that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is "still on the books" is "disingenuous nonsense."
Benen then cites this quote from McConnell: "There's no evidence right now anywhere in the country that states are engaged in suppressing the vote based upon race."
In other words," Benen writes, "there may be all kinds of voter-suppression measures becoming law in red states across the country — but don't worry, they're not racially discriminatory."
Read the full op-ed over at MSNBC.