Squad amendment to restore voting rights to felons, incarcerated individuals fails in House
From WWW.FOXNEWS.COM
The House Tuesday rejected an amendment authored by the progressive Squad to restore voting rights not only to felons but to individuals who are currently incarcerated.
The measure went down in bipartisan defeat with just 97 Democrats voting in favor of the amendment compared with 328 members who voted against – 119 Democrats and 209 Republicans.
Freshman Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., authored the amendment with support from fellow progressive Reps. Mondaire Jones, D-N. Y., Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and New Jersey's Bonnie Watson Coleman.
After the vote failed, Bush tweeted: "For the first time ever, the House took a vote on whether or not to end the cruelty of denying incarcerated people their right to vote. Our amendment didn’t pass, but 97 Democrats voted with us. We will not stop fighting until we dismantle white supremacy in all of its forms."
The National Republican Congressional Committee slammed the issue of giving people in prison the right to vote.
"The American people are probably wondering why Congress is wasting its time debating whether or not to grant convicted murderers additional rights," said NRCC Spokesman Mike Berg. "The answer is because Nancy Pelosi and her socialist colleagues control the House of Representatives."
Ahead of the vote, Bush pointed out that barring felons and people who are currently in prison from participating in federal elections disproportionately affects people of color.
"America does not love all of its people," Bush, a Black Lives Matter activist, said in urging her colleagues to back the measure. "And we see that. Right now more than 5 million people are legally barred from partic... (Read more)
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