“Former President Barack Obama used Rep. John Lewis’ funeral on Thursday to issue a stark warning that the voting rights and equal opportunity the late civil rights icon championed are under increasing threat heading into the 2020 election” reports the AP. “Obama, speaking from the pulpit of the church that Martin Luther King Jr. once led, called on Congress to renew the Voting Rights Act, which the Supreme Court diminished in 2012. ‘You want to honor John, let’s honor him by revitalizing the law that he was willing to die for,’ Obama said.”
“Obama endorsed ending the Senate filibuster if that is what’s needed to pass an overhauled voting law. The first Black president called the procedural hurdle that effectively requires 60 votes to pass major legislation a ‘Jim Crow relic,’ referring to the segregation era.”