GOPer cites election of Barack Obama and Kamala Harris as reason for opposing voting rights bill
Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday morning, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) was put on the spot by host Jake Tapper over Republican opposition to the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and responded by pointing out how Black Americans have been elected to office as a reason it is not needed.
"The Senate's going to take up the Democrats' election reform bills this week," host Tapper began. "A key part one of them is the John Lewis Voting Rights Act which would restore provisions of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act that protects against discriminatory state election laws. When the Senate reauthorized that law just a decade ago it passed 98-0. Why don't Republicans, including yourself, support restoring those, the voting rights act now?"
"So the Supreme Court decided, that the conditions in 1965 are different than they are now. Imagine that?" Cassidy shot back. "We've had an African American-elected president of the United States, and an African-American elected to the vice presidency and African-American elected to the Senate in South Carolina. If anyone can't see the circumstances have changed, they're just not believing their lying eyes."
"The reality is that, in Louisiana, we have the highest percentage of African-American officials in the nation," he continued to rant. "We've had a white mayor of a predominantly Black city and a Black mayor of a predominantly white city. There's been incredible progress in our country."
"There's more to do, absolutely," he conceded. "We need safeguards, but to argue we are still the same as we were in 1965 is to deny facts that are clearly before us."
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