by Lauren V. Williams
See the full opinion at the Arizona Daily Star!
Kyrsten Sinema may cause her own demise by disenfranchising the very voters who brought her to victory. Sinema is dedicated to maintaining the filibuster, the primary hurdle stopping the Democrats from passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Meanwhile, Republicans are releasing an onslaught of voter restrictions that will disproportionately hurt communities of color. If Kyrsten Sinema allows the filibuster to be maintained, she will continue the Senate rule’s long history of blocking civil rights for people of color.
Kyrsten Sinema argues that the filibuster is a Senate tradition that promotes bipartisanship. In reality, the filibuster has historically been exclusively used to block civil rights legislation for Black Americans.
Anti-lynching legislation was killed via the filibuster in 1938. Strom Thurmond wore a catheter on the Senate floor so that he could filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for over 24 hours straight. Martin Luther King’s Civil Rights Act of 1964 was filibustered for over 60 days to prevent the end of segregation. The filibuster was the strongest tool used by Southern senators to maintain Jim Crow.
See the full opinion at the Arizona Daily Star!
A previous version of this essay can be viewed here.
