Congressman Conyers: Some Bipartisan Good News (for a change)

I am happy to report that today the House Judiciary Committee approved on a bipartisan 37-1 vote, legislation to reauthorize the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act for another 25 years. Several Members on the GOP side tried to weaken the bilingual ballot provisions, but we beat back all the amendments and passed a clean bill. I hope the bill is on the House Floor next week, and than its on to the Senate, where the situation is a tad murkier.

So something good happened, and let me be the first to give those Republicans who worked with us -- including Chairman Sensenbrenner -- credit for lending their support. I was on the Judiciary Committee in 1965, when the Voting Rights first passed into law, and have been involved in every reauthorizaton. Today's markup was by far the smoothest one I have been a part of on this issue. So the battle is not over, but we are off to a good start.

http://www.conyersblog.us/

...but would it be too cynical of me to suspect that the likes of Sensenbrenner did not support this out of a heartfelt desire to defend the voting rights of minorities?