Former Attorney General Eric Holder explained the filibuster’s long and racist recent history as a tool for denying African-American voting rights.
Video:
Eric Holder explains to Mitch McConnell and all of the Republican deniers how the filibuster has been used as a tool for racism in the past century. pic.twitter.com/REVUxEdxPX
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 24, 2021
AG Holder said on MSNBC’s The Reid Out, “Well, the filibuster was used throughout the 20th Century to frustrate the passage of civil rights bills. I mean, that first and foremost. You had to get past a humungous filibuster in 1964 to get the civil rights bill in place. Same thing with the Voting Rights Act in 1965, but you can go to earlier versions wore where southern senators, Democrats to be fair to filibustered to make sure that the civil rights bills did not become the law of the land.”
McConnell and Senate Republicans don’t want the American people to connect the dots and realize that the filibuster that is so beloved by McConnell has a long history of being used as a tool to deny people their rights. In this came context, it could be argued that when Republicans filibuster gun legislation, they are denying Americans their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Former AG Holder was right. The filibuster has a history of being used to deny African-Americans the right to vote. The term Jim Crow filibuster has been frequently used to describe it.
It is time for all Senate Democrats to stop glorifying a Senate tactic that is widely abused and used to take away the rights of so many Americans.
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Mr. Easley is the founder/managing editor, who is White House Press Pool, and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
