James Sensenbrenner Remains One of Six in Congress Who Opposed Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Wisconsin U.S. House roll call vote in 1983 on establishment
of Martin Luther King, Jr. as a legal public holiday, (GovTrack)

Updated - The birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. is celebrated as a national holiday on the third Monday of January every year.

President Reagan signed the Rev. King Holiday bill (H.R. 3706 (1983)), into law on November 2, 1983. Only three people have a national holiday observed in their honor (Congress.Gov), (White House).

[Note: No links are made here to the The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change website, (funded by by J.P. Morgan Chase Co.), or The Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr. because these groups see fit to copyright and privatize speeches, images and photos of King, profiting from a leader of the American civil rights movement.]

Getting Martin Luther King's birthday through congress as a legal national holiday was a difficult legislative process.

Wisconsin Republicans' Shameful Performance

If you are from Wisconsin, the Congressional record reveals familiar Republican names who were loyal members of the opposition to King: Reps Tom Petri, (R-Fond du Lac), Toby Roth, (R-Green Bay), and James Sensenbrenner (R-Whitefish Bay) (Gov Track).

These three Wisconsin congressmen represented overwhelming white districts in east-central and northeastern Wisconsin, and suburban Milwaukee. Petri, Roth and Sensenbrenner were among 90 House members who joined segregationists and white supremacists in opposing the King holiday in an August 2, 1983 vote that sent H.R. 3706 (1983) to the United States Senate (Gov Track) (Congress.Gov), (New York Times).

The years-long battle featured a fierce debate in 1979 in which the "strongest opposition came from lawmakers in the Deep South, such as Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina, and Senator Strom Thurmond, Republican of South Carolina, who ran for president in 1948 on a segregationist platform," (Stack, New York Times). Still the deep south had nothing on the rural north with respect to racism. Reps. Petri, Roth and Sensenbrenner all played to their white rural and suburban constituencies.

Racism Lives

Six serving members of Congress— Senators Charles Grassley (R-Iowa); Richard Shelby (R-Alabama); John McCain (R-Arizona); Orrin Hatch (R-Utah); and United States Representatives Hal Rogers (R-Kentucky) and James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin)—remain what is left of the congressional opposition who worked against Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (Mal Contends), (Washington Post). All six were reelected in 2016, and all six represent very white and very safe Republican jurisdictions today.

If you live in Arkansas, Alabama, or Mississippi today you can jointly observe Robert E. Lee Day, to give some balance to this most-uppity of black men (Little, National Geographic).

Bill introduced by Rep. Katie Hall [D-IN1, 1981-1984] on July 29, 1983, H.R. 3706 (98th):
A bill to amend title 5, United States Code, to make the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
a legal public holiday. 98th Congress, Aug 2, 1983, (Congress.Gov)

It is more important than ever to observe Martin Luther King's birthday as a moment to celebrate the abolitionist and civil-rights movements that remain today a promise still unfulfilled.

Proposed Fix to Voting Rights Act Is Worse than Court-gutted Corpse

James Sensenbrenner exposed as phony
on voting rights by James O'Keefe. See
three-minute, 19-second mark.

Update: Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison), a co-sponsor is hoping against hope that Speaker John Boehner will suddenly become amiable to amendments to take out the language of the Voting Rights Act Amendment that makes HR 3899 a steaming pile of very toxic and fetid waste. See this bizarre March 27, 2014 letter by House Democrats including Pocan that in part reads "some of us believe the bill should be enacted in its current form, and some of us prefer to see it amended" in an appeal to John Boehner. This is the same John Boehner who said during the 2012 campaign that he hopes Latinos and Blacks do not show up and vote. (Reeve, August 27, 2012; Yahoo News) at a Christian Science Monitor luncheon.
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Five Republicans Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year in a case that became instantly infamous: Shelby County v. Holder.

The five-four majority gutted sections four and five of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), destroying one method of the VRA's protecting people's right to vote against hostile state efforts to obstruct and deprive the vote.

As Justice Ginsberg writes in dissent: The majority decided the Voting Rights Act had worked so well the "conditions" (Roberts) of racism are a remnant of long-ago: "Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet."

John Roberts has for years declared racism is over.

Sensenbrenner has been in negotiations with major civil rights groups and champions of civil rights for months, finally releasing his draft of the Voting Rights Act Amendment, Section Four formula, H. R. 3899 in January, cosponsored by Rep Conyers.

HR 3899 actually enshrines and protects voter obstruction laws such as Wisconsin and Texas' Photo Voter ID laws.

Thankfully, the official statement (January 2014) of the NAACP's Lorraine C. Miller, Interim President and CEO, pissed on HR 3899: "The NAACP appreciates that the U.S. Congress has made a bipartisan effort to update the Voting Rights Act, however we have serious concerns about the ability of some provisions in this bill to protect ALL voters from discrimination at the polls."

As the nation's oldest and largest grassroots civil rights organization we have the responsibility to ensure that any proposed legislation is in the best interest of our members, our community and our country. Participation in our democracy should be unfettered and all votes should be properly counted. From the exceptions for voter ID laws to decreased preclearance coverage to increased reliance on costly litigation, there are essential revisions and amendments to this bill that must take place to ensure ALL voters have fair and equitable access to the ballot box."

Sensenbrenner has called Wisconsin's Voter ID law, Act 23, "common sense," and decried the DoJ effort to challenge Texas under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Sensenbrenner's proposed law's new Section Four formula also protects states with its "five strikes" formula that would allow a state five different Court-determined acts of voting rights discrimination before placing the state under preclearance.

In so many words, Sensenbrenner—with the aid of Rep. Conyers and others who should know better (but apparently do not)—drafted a law that actually codifies voting right violations as fine under the Voting Rights Act as long as the a given state confines obstruction laws to four or less in a 15-year time span.

Sensenbrenner is a voting rights phony, a fake, and liberal writers from Ari Berman to Rick Hasan to Steve Benen have been aiding Sensenbrenner in this enterprise since Shelby last June.

In February in Wisconsin Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-White People) decided his fake support for voting rights perpetuated by a friendly media would take too much a toll on his racist buddies in the GOP.

Sensenbrenner was caught on camera saying, "I hope the president vetoes the bill. If the president vetoes—well, let me rephrase that – if the president vetoes this bill, he will lose an awful lot of the African-American support that he has." (Roth. TRMS) See O'Keefe's video below:

In Wisconsin, we don't call this guy Senselessbrenner for nothing.

And here we don't say: Don't trust Sensenbrenner on voting rights for nothing.

Sensenbrenner is exposed as an utter phony on voting rights (not that more evidence was needed), calculating and disingenuous on the video below (O'Keefe's reading of the Act though mostly factually incorrect is also on his own video) :

So, we cannot trust Sensenbrenner.

Sensenbrenner's Voting Rights Act Amendment legislation is worse than the status quo post-Shelby, aka now, so why are progressives in Congress, major civil rights organizations and progressive writers still behind the Voting Rights Act Amendments and still lauding Sensenbrenner?

For no good reason. Maybe they think they Obama can sign this obscene piece of legislation, call it what Sensenbrenner calls it, and declare victory to Black and Brown folks targeted by the GOP, hoping ethic minorities are as dumb as Sensenbrenner thinks they are.

Anyone advocating support for Sensenbrenner's Voting Rights Act Amendment legislation is taking a position that is untenable.

There is a real Voting Rights initiative: The Pocan-Ellison Right to Vote Amendment to the Constitution "to provide all Americans the affirmative right to vote and empower Congress to protect this right," which of course Sensenbrenner and his Party will not get behind.

What are Democrats and civil rights champions thinking?

They hope against hope that Republicans will change course and get behind voting rights legislation after years of obstructing the vote?

I have an inquiry into these matters into Rep. Mark Pocan's (D-Madison) office, and will include the response in an update.

Secret Strategy in Play, or This Is Dumbest Civil Rights Bill in History

Update III: NYT: "The deletion of voter ID laws from the list of discriminatory violations is a steep price to pay for [GOP] support."

Update II: The Grio notes Rep. Conyers and Sen. Leahy gave in to the GOP voter obstruction forces, generally exempting "voter ID" laws from federal scrutiny in the Voting Rights Act Amendment. Are pro-civil rights forces in Congress really going to throw in the towel on photo voter ID obstruction, in the name of the Voting Rights Act no less? And if they are not, what are they waiting for in opposing this travesty of democracy through voter ID obstruction, inserted by Rep. Sensenbrenner?

Update: Yes,  Joshua A. Douglas of Slate Magazine, voting is mostly a state right. Hence, the Pocan-Ellison Right to Vote Amendment to correct this defect. But there are these things called the 14th, the 15th and the 24th Amendments that speak to voting clearly. In any event, the proposed Voting Rights Act Amendment that would contain language explicitly protecting GOP-crafted photo identification as a condition of receiving a ballot for voting in an election for Federal, State, or local office is a disgrace.
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Here's one of the latest pieces of foolishness on the newly proposed Voting Rights Act Amendment that still, inexplicably, has not been met with a 'are you kidding me' reaction.

Some other brilliant, well-crafted legislative strategy must be at work as HR 3899 resides at the Judiciary committee.

Kevin Drum discusses Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts in a piece as though the good CJ went on an objective, epistemological quest arriving at the honest conclusion that the old coverage formula for federal preclearance in the Voting Rights Act is simply outdated, 1,000s of congressional pages of social scientific evidence aside.

Drum writes that now, "a bipartisan trio of lawmakers introduced legislation that would partially reverse the Supreme Court's handiwork in Shelby County. Basically, it takes up John Roberts' challenge to create a new formula for preclearance that takes into account current conditions. In particular, any state with five or more violations of federal election law over the most recent 15 years would be subject to preclearance. Preclearance would last for ten years from the most recent violation, and states would roll in or out of the preclearance requirements depending on their performance over the preceding 15 years."

Five or more violations of federal election law over the most recent 15 years would be subject to preclearance?

This is the new formula? No heads exploding? Drum notes this legislation not with disgust.

Representative of this conventional wisdom of pretending this bill is worth a damn is Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Michigan), the Dean of the House:

"I commend my friends, Congressman John Conyers and Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, for working to write a bipartisan bill to amend the Voting Rights Act. Having voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, I am supremely honored to have worked on this legislation with these civil rights champions, as well as the incomparable Congressman John Lewis and Assistant Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn. I urge the House and Senate to move forward with this bill in order to restore the critical voter protections to minorities, seniors, and students invalidated by the Supreme Court's ill-advised Shelby County decision."

This really is crazy.

The Voting Rights Act Amendment would protect GOP state voter obstruction laws that specifically target minorities, seniors, and students.

While it's true that in 1982, "Congress amended Section 2 to provide that a plaintiff could establish a violation of the Section without having to prove discriminatory purpose," providing dueling sections of the law if passed, the bill's author, Sensenbrenner, in the House openly brags that the act "(i)ncludes modest provisions that continue to permit states to enact reasonable photo identification laws."

This legislation is no first step, it's a con that would stall civil rights challenges and protect GOP state voter obstruction schemes.

Oppose Voting Rights Amendment Act; It's a Sham

Update: Don't worry Republicans, state voter obstruction laws are safe.

Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014: Section 3(c) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (42 U.S.C. 1973a(c)) is amended by striking ‘‘violations of the fourteenth or fifteenth amendment’’ and inserting ‘‘violations of the 14th or 15th Amendment; violations of this Act (other than a violation of section 2(a) which is based on the imposition of a requirement that an individual provide a photo identification as a condition of receiving a ballot for voting in an election for Federal, State, or local office) ... ."
Translated, GOP state photo voter ID laws have been carved out as an exception by the Republicans, and just because the GOP obstructs voters there is no reason for this be considered a violation of the new and fetid VRA.

The Voting Rights Amendment Act, H.R.3899, is a con unprecedented in the modern fight for the right to vote.

The bill would allow for state GOP-crafted voter obstruction laws to pass muster under the Act, language which drew the NAACP's guarded statement that the "NAACP appreciates that the U.S. Congress has made a bipartisan effort to update the Voting Rights Act, however we have serious concerns about the ability of some provisions in this bill to protect ALL voters from discrimination at the polls."

This bill should be opposed, and a real act with teeth that codifies that voting is a federal fundamental right should be passed.

Such as an act exists; it's call the Pocan-Ellison Right to Vote Amendment. Republicans hate it because it protects the right to vote against GOP efforts to obstruct it.

Ari Berman writes: "Voting rights supporters will argue, justifiably, that the new Section 4 formula does not apply to enough states and wrongly treats voter ID laws differently than other discriminatory voting changes. Despite these flaws, the legislation represents a significant improvement over the disastrous post-Shelby status quo, which has seen states like North Carolina and Texas rush to pass or implement blatantly discriminatory voting restrictions after being freed from federal oversight." 

Berman's argument is that state voter obstruction laws are still legal, voter obstruction will occur, and we should still welcome this sham.

Talk about lowering the bar.

Call your congressional representative and register your opposition today. Our congressman here in southcentral Wisconsin, Mark Pocan, can be reached at Rep. Pocan.

Other representatives can be reached through the House of Representatives home page.

In the face of the Republican War on Voting, do some Democrats really believe the GOP has surrendered and suddenly morphed into voting rights champions?

Don't Trust James Sensenbrenner on Voting Right Act

James Sensenbrenner - Protector of
Republican Voter Obstruction

Update II: Sensenbrenner is also one of only six serving in Congress today who opposed the federal holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. What a hypocrite.


Update: Pennsylvania Judge Strikes Down GOP's New Voter ID Law, the injunction and opinion is at Applewhite et al v. Pennsylvania.

American democracy—Freedom and the right to vote, the light of the world

No kids, in America the Republican Party is hostile to these rights. For the GOP voting is a privilege reserved for those who vote the correct way, and the GOP continues its assault against the fundamental right of our democracy.

Now, the Republican Party is trying to codify and enshrine its state-level voter obstruction project that it says is perfectly in keeping with its 'fix' to the Voting Rights Act.

The national press is maintaining the pretension that Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-White People) cares about fixing the Voting Rights Act eviscerated by Sensenbrenner's GOP colleagues on the U.S. Supreme Court last year in Shelby County v. Holder.

Several liberal writers think it's the only shot at getting a weak repair to the Voting Rights Act through Congress. This effort is a crock.

The Republican voter obstruction project has as one of its primary tools: GOP-crafted state voter ID laws enacted with unanimous GOP support and unanimous opposition from civil rights groups and the Democratic Party.

Voter ID laws make it more difficult to vote for disaffected veterans, minorities, colleges students and other demographics not aware of their duty to vote Republican.

Such state voter obstruction laws are the policy rationale behind the Voting Rights Act (1965) and its reauthorizations.

But Sensenbrenner loves voter obstruction, Voter ID laws, slashing early voting, gerrymandering, and other GOP tricks to keep people from voting.

Steve Benen, writing for MSNBC, is one of the writers who likes to pretend Sensenbrenner is a champion of voting rights, while noting this new 'fix' of the Voting Rights Act is a bill that Sensenbrenner acclaims "includes strong, nationwide anti-discrimination protections and continues to permit states to enact reasonable voter-ID laws. Therefore, it prevents racial-discrimination and gives states the ability to address voter fraud."

That there is virtually no in-person voter fraud is, in the minds of Benen and Sensenbrenner, of no consequence.

As for Voter ID laws, what's "reasonable" in Sensenbrenner's mind? Texas and Wisconsin's restrictive Voter ID laws are.

Here's what Sensenbrenner had to say about Texas in August last year: "I regret that the Department of Justice announced its intent to file a lawsuit against Texas’ Voter ID law citing Section 2 to the Voting Rights Act.  The Texas legislature passed Voter ID, and Governor Perry signed this legislation into law in 2011. Voter ID laws are an essential element in protecting the integrity of our electoral process and do not have a discriminatory intent or effect"

There are of course serious efforts to protect voting: The Pocan-Ellison Right to Vote Amendment.

Sensenbrenner supporting this mega voting rights guarantee, and going against his Party's voter obstruction project is as likely as Sarah Palin winning a Nobel Prize in physics.

We noted here last November that in 2005-06, Sensenbrenner was chair of the House Judiciary Committee so he likes to preen that he was the champion of the renewal of the various sections of the Voting Rights Act that passed 390-33 in the House and 98-0 in the Senate and, history should remember, was signed into law by President George W. Bush. What guts.

In fact, Bush did one hell of a job of conjuring LBJ in the White House, and as noted by Gary May and Joseph Morgan Kousser cajoled Congress into passing a 25-year reauthorization in the Republican-controlled Congress.

Writes May:

(D)uring his second term Bush found it necessary to court black voters. The president's slow response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, which hurt blacks disproportionally and revealed again the presence of widespread poverty in the South, damaged Bush's standing. In an attempt to recoup his political fortunes as congressional elections approached in 2006, Bush turned to the black community. On a trip to Memphis visited the Loraine Motel and stood on the balcony where Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968. He also agreed to address the NAACP's annual convention, which he had ignored for six years. There Bush was received coolly but won a standing ovation when he expressed his support for the Voting Rights Act, urging congress to enact it then, one year before it was due to expire. This was not simply rhetoric. Behind the scenes Bush's staff encouraged Republicans, who now controlled both houses of Congress, to extend the Act. And this time the Republican congressional leadership in both the House and Senate were receptive to such appeals because if you weren't a southerner, there was no political payoff for attacking the now-iconic Voting Right Act. (pp 273-274)

So, House Judiciary Committee Sensenbrenner was going to defy Bush and Rove on the Voting Rights Act reauthorization of 2006? Right.

And Sensenbrenner is now going to declare war on the GOP's war on voting? Right.