title
Motion of the Council of Allegheny County urging the United States Congress to undertake action on a number of legislative items with all deliberate speed.
body
Whereas, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act (“VRA”) was introduced in the 114th Congress as H.R. 2867, in the 115th Congress as H.R. 2978, and the 116th Congress as H.R. 4 and S. 4263, and would function to restore and strengthen parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in the wake of the invalidation of a technical provision of the VRA by the United States Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013). Ultimately, the Act would function to restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965's requirement that certain states pre-clear certain changes to their voting laws with the federal government, but the bill has yet to be reintroduced in the 117th Congress; and
Whereas, the For the People Act was introduced in both the House of Representatives (as H.R. 1) and the Senate (as S. 1) in the 117th Congress. Intended to expand voting rights, reform campaign finance laws in order to reduce the influence of campaign funding in politics, limit the potential for gerrymandering along partisan lines, and create new ethics rules for federal officeholders, H.R. 1 passed in the House on March 3, 2021, but the process of voting on the bill was blocked in the Senate via filibuster on June 22, 2021; and
Whereas, the Emmitt Till Antilynching Act would categorize lynching as a Federal hate crime, and was initially introduced in the House of Representatives during the 116th Congress as H.R. 35 and in the Senate as S. 488. On February 26, 2020, H.R. 35 passed the House by a vote of 410-4, but the Act was prevented from passing by unanimous consent in the Senate by the vote of a single Senator. The bill has been re-introduced in the 117th Congress as H.R. 55, and as of the date of introduction of this Motion, it remains pending before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security; and
Whereas, t...
Click here for full text