John Lewis to Justice Scalia: The right to vote is ‘what people died for, bled for’

from Politics Nation:



From left, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., the Rev. Al Sharpton, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, and Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., stand outside the Supreme Court before today's arguments in the Shelby County, Ala., voting rights case. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)


Congressman John Lewis, a hero of the civil-rights movement, said he was appalled to hear Justice Antonin Scalia refer to the Voting Rights Act as a “racial entitlement” today. Rep. Lewis was at the nation’s highest court to listen to arguments about whether the 1965 Voting Rights Act should be struck down as unconstitutional.

“It was unreal, unbelievable, almost shocking, for a member of the court to use certain language,” he said “I can see politicians and even members of Congress–it is just appalling to me.”

For Lewis, the comments were especially offensive because he knows from experience how hard he and others fought to win those rights. He was severely beaten by Alabama state troopers as he marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Al., on March 7, 1965, a date that’s now known as Bloody Sunday.

“It is an affront to all of what the civil rights movement stood for, what people died for, what people bled for, and those of us who marched across that bridge 48 years ago, we didn’t march for some racial entitlement,” he said. “We wanted to open up the political process, and let all of the people come in, and it didn’t matter whether they were black or white, Latino, Asian-American or Native American.”

Obama Diary: http://theobamadiary.com/2013/02/27/rep-john-lewis-scalia-comment-an-affront-to-a-cause-people-died-for/