We need to know which senators are afraid to sign a resolution opposing the racist lynchings of African Americans.
Reuters:
The Senate on Monday formally apologized for having rejected decades of pleas to make lynching a federal crime as scores victims' descendants watched from the chamber's gallery.
On a voice vote and without opposition, the Senate passed a resolution expressing its regrets to the relatives as well as to the nearly 5,000 Americans -- mostly black males -- who were documented as having been lynched from 1880 to 1960 [...]
Dan Duster, a descendant of Ida B. Wells, a former slave who became an anti-lynching crusader, praised senators who publicly backed the resolution of apology and scorned those who did not.
No lawmaker opposed the measure, but 20 of the 100 senators had not signed a statement of support of it shortly before a vote was taken on a nearly empty Senate floor.
"I think it's politics. They're afraid of losing votes from people of prejudice," Duster said of those who did not sign the statement of support.
Aravosis
says:
They're apparently holding the vote late tonight so they won't have to have a real roll-call vote (i.e., individual Senators won't have to vote up or down). The reason? So they can hide the 12 or so Senators who apparently think it's bad politics back home to sign onto a resolution that apologizes for not passing anti-lynching legislation sooner. Apparently, southern Senators fillibustered efforts to pass such legislation for years.
I don't care if they're Democrats or Republicans, I want to know who isn't supporting this legislation. We have a right to know, and to know why anybody in either party would permit the basically-secret vote to take place this evening in order to his who these bigots really are.
I agree. We need to know who refused to sign on to this resolution, and the fact that neither AP nor Reuters listed them is odd. That, more so than the resolution, is the real news here -- that there are those who in 2005
still refuse to sign on to a resolution condemning lynching for fear of political retribution.
Kerry:
"It's a statement in itself that there aren't 100 co-sponsors," Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said. "It's a statement in itself that there's not an up-or-down vote."
Indeed.
Mary Landrieu, who sponsored the resolution, has a whole section of her site dedicated to the issue.
Update: The Senate site has the first 60 co-sponsors of the bill. However, there are 20 more that were added to the list after this was published.