Stacey Abrams Accuses Mike Johnson of Celebrating The ‘Return of Jim Crow’

Stacey Abrams accused House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) of celebrating “the return of Jim Crow to the South” after he commended the Supreme Court for ruling race-based gerrymandering violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Abrams ripped Johnson and the recent redistricting decisions during an interview on MS NOW’s The Weekend: Primetime on Sunday. The show played a clip of Johnson telling Fox News earlier in the day that the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling that Louisiana’s congressional map violated the VRA was “long overdue” and was “bringing back fairness and certainty to the system.”

Co-Host Antonia Hylton then asked Abrams what she believed Johnson meant by that.

“He’s saying it brings back 1964, 1963, 1892,” Abrams said, when “race neutral” laws made it harder for Black Americans to vote.

“The race neutral laws that were in place prior to the Voting Rights Act said that you could have poll taxes and literacy taxes that diminished participation, but were race neutral,” Abrams said.

She said Johnson is from the South and should understand as well as anyone that “this is bollocks, that this is hogwash. They are very clear that race and partisanship sit side-by-side.”

Abrams continued, saying the “remarkably racist behavior” that was thwarted by the Voting Rights Act has now returned. “And so what he is celebrating is the return of Jim Crow to the South. And that is a terrible thing for America.”

The former state representative from Georgia is not the only Democrat to blast the recent redistricting victories for Republicans.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) accused members of President Donald Trump’s administration of preferring to see Black Americans “pick cotton” than pick the president during an appearance on MS NOW on Saturday.

Her harsh words came a few weeks after the Supreme Court’s ruling voided Louisiana’s second majority Black congressional district; the court’s conservative-leaning justices found the state’s map relied too heavily on race.

Chief Justice John Roberts said the Louisiana district was a “snake” created along racial lines. Justice Samuel Alito agreed, writing the map was an “unconstitutional gerrymander.”

Trump celebrated the decision afterwards, saying it was the “kind of ruling I like.”

Watch above via MS NOW.

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