Senate Republicans spit on the memory of civil rights hero John Lewis Wednesday afternoon when all but one of them blocked the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act from proceeding to the floor for debate, 50-49. Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski was the only Republican willing to join Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer changed his vote to “nay” so that he can bring the bill back to the floor at some point. Republicans didn’t even filibuster it as none of them bothered to spend any time talking on the floor about it. They just gave the finger to democracy, as everyone—including Sen. Joe Manchin, who keeps insisting that Republicans will work with him—knew they would. The bill would have restored the federal government’s ability to prohibit and prevent voting discrimination, which was lost when the Supreme Court gutted much of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) in 2013 with the Shelby County v. Holder decision, then finished the job this year in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee. In Shelby, the Supreme Court struck down the requirement in the VRA that states and local jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting had to have any change to voting or elections law preapproved by the Justice Department. Read more