Let me take this moment to give a shout-out to someone I usually excoriate with abandon, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. The California Republican was in Selma, Ala., over the weekend to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. Perhaps McCarthy was pressured into going by outrage over the initial absence of Republican leadership. Still, he was there. And it wasn’t his first time.

McCarthy can be seen in “March to Justice,” a 2013 film by Kerry Kennedy that follows Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) on his annual pilgrimage to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 2012. McCarthy doesn’t speak, but he is a prominent figure in the film. Not because of his white skin or silver hair, but because he is a Republican at a civil rights event.

The Voting Rights Act signed by President Lyndon Johnson five months after Bloody Sunday was a direct result of national revulsion at watching fellow citizens being clubbed and beaten for peacefully demanding the right to have a say in their government. And at every opportunity since, Congress has reauthorized the law with overwhelming bipartisan support. But all that changed in 2013 when the Supreme Court invalidated a key section of the voting law. When Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced an amendment in the Senate last year to update the historic statute, not one Republican signed on as a co-sponsor. Things are a little different in the House. Republicans signed onto a bill co-sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.). But nothing else has happened.

From what I’m told, the life and legacy of Lewis and all the Freedom Fighters are deeply personal to McCarthy. Over the weekend, President Obama signed into law H.R. 431, which awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to the Foot Soldiers who marched on Bloody Sunday. That happened because McCarthy got the bill to the floor and got it passed, quite an achievement in a chamber where bills are routinely pulled from the floor due to sloppy leadership or no support (or both). Now, he must work that same magic to spark action on an update of the Voting Rights Act. Not only would McCarthy give real meaning to his Selma visits, but he would also make his deeply personal commitment to Lewis — and a more perfect union — more concrete.

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