Many Southern GOP lawmakers lauded the Supreme Court for removing the stigma that their states were hotbeds of racial intolerance and recognizing that these states had over the years changed their ways. These same members are less than enthusiastic about Congress putting them back in the preclearance penalty box.
One such lawmaker is Rep. Gregg Harper, R-Miss., who participated in the past week’s pilgrimage. He described the chill he felt standing in the Jackson, Miss., driveway where Medgar Evers, a black civil rights activist, was murdered in 1963 with his wife and children just inside their home — but he said that the experience didn’t change his opposition to a VRA update that would single out states like his.
“You can’t have something that creates different classes of states. And if you’re gonna do something, it’s gotta apply to everybody,” Harper said. “Why wouldn’t it be based on future events instead of pulling people back in based on something that has happened in the past? What’s your standard gonna be?”
More at Roll Call.