On Thursday’s broadcast of MS NOW’s “The Last Word,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) argued that “We’re looking at a time that parallels exactly what happened at the end of Reconstruction,” because the Supreme Court engaged in a “complete destruction of the Voting Rights Act in the name of the 15th Amendment and the Constitution.”
Raskin argued that any future confirmation hearing for Todd Blanche if he is picked to be the next attorney general should be about “the Callais decision and the Supreme Court’s complete destruction of the Voting Rights Act in the name of the 15th Amendment and the Constitution. We’re looking at a time that parallels exactly what happened at the end of Reconstruction, Lawrence, like in 1877, when, through a combination of voter suppression, disenfranchisement, attacks on the voting rights of black people, they were basically able to purge, I think, 14 African American members of the House and two members of the Senate.”
He continued, “And this is exactly what they’re looking to do in the South now, to demolish every majority African American district. I should say…I think we have 56 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, only 11 of them represent majority African American districts. So, in most parts of the country, there are lots of African American people getting elected to Congress. But, in the South, it’s not like that, where white voting patterns show less than 10% of the people are voting for African American candidates.”
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