CNN "Newsroom" - Interview with James Clyburn
Interview
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[10:30:00]
REP. JIM CLYBURN (D-SC): And of course it was a very emotional scene. But -- so I kept it ever since. And this morning, when I started here to Washington, I just picked one of them up and copied it --
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
CLYBURN: -- and brought it along.
BASH: Yes, it was in your wallet.
I want to ask about Congress. But real quick, in this new documentary, "Good Trouble," you talk about the fact that when John Lewis was part of the Freedom Ride, arrived in Rock Hill, South Carolina. And he was beaten bloody by the KKK.
CLYBURN: Right.
BASH: You were going to go and meet those buses, and you decided not to do it.
CLYBURN: Well, I didn't decide. Once again, my wife --
(LAUGHTER)
BASH: Your wife decided. But you said that you couldn't -- you weren't sure that you would be able to stay nonviolent in that kind of situation, but he could?
CLYBURN: No, most of us couldn't. We never could do what John did, and that's what made John such an effective leader of that movement. And that's why today, people all over the world are mourning his loss. Because John, as I said, internalized nonviolence. We adopted nonviolence, it was a tactic for us. But I don't know if all of us could absorb what he did.
BASH: You want to rename the voting rights legislation that the House passed -- and that has been sitting in the Senate for many, many months -- after John Lewis. How important is that? Not just the symbolic naming, but also getting it actually passed to fix the Voting Rights Act after the Supreme Court changed it?
(CROSSTALK)
CLYBURN: I think it's very, very important. And I've mentioned, time and time again, that I think that we ought to dedicate this election year to John Lewis. Nineteen sixty-five, March 8th, I believe it was, was Bloody Sunday. That took place at a time only two percent of black folks in Alabama were registered to vote.
And as a result of that march, Lyndon Johnson took to the floor of the joint session and called on Congress to pass what became the 1965 Voting Rights Act. And that's what led to my being here, that's what led to John getting here. And so many of us across the South. It's what led to our parents getting the right to vote.
But the Supreme Court took a look at that, seven years ago, and decided that it ought to be updated. That the formula that precipitated the application of Section 5 -- which is resting (ph) Section 4 -- needed to be updated. We had not updated that formula in a bipartisan way. Jim Sensenbrenner joined with John Lewis in working to update the formula.
And we have now passed it in the House and sent it to the Senate. So we have done exactly what the Supreme Court said should be done in order for it to be constitutional. So why won't the Senate pass it?
But I want to send this little addendum over, naming it "the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of 2020." And then hopefully they'll pass it and the president will sign it.
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