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As Rev. Al Sharpton was leading the memorial service for George Floyd in Minneapolis on Thursday, Republican Sen. Rand Paul spurred a raw, emotional debate with two of the Senate’s black members over the definition of lynching.
The arguments centered on the widely supported Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act. An identical bill was already passed by the Senate last year — except, when the House then passed it in February with a bipartisan 410-4 vote, it renamed the law to honor the 14-year-old black teen who was murdered in Mississippi in 1955 for allegedly flirting with a white woman.
So that change sent the bill back to the Senate, where Paul (R-Ky.) has held up the legislation, arguing that it’s too broad.
“This bill would cheapen the meaning of lynching by defining it so broadly as to include a minor bruise or abrasion,” he said. “Our nation’s history of racial terrorism demands more seriousness from us than that.”
This drew a passionate response from Harris (D-Calif.), who argued that Paul is trying to weaken a bill that has already passed.
“That we would not be taking the issue of lynching seriously is an insult, an insult to Sen. Booker, an insult to Sen. (Tim) Scott and myself,” Harris said, naming the Senate’s three black members.
“There is no reason for this,” she said. “There is no reason other than cruel and deliberate obstruction on a day of mourning.”
“ “Black lives have not been taken seriously as being fully human and deserving of dignity, and it should not require a maiming or torture in order for us to recognize a lynching when we see it.” ”
She continued that, “to suggest the nothing short of pulverizing someone so much that the casket would otherwise be closed except for the heroism and courage of Emmett Till’s mother … to suggest that a lynching would only be a lynching if someone’s heart was pulled out and displayed to someone else, Is ridiculous.”
Watch Harris’s remarks here:
Booker (D-N.J.) also responded in a speech that brought him to tears more than once. “I do not need my colleague, the senator from Kentucky, to tell me about one lynching in this country,” he said. “I don’t mean to be emotional. I’m raw this week.”
Paul’s amendment to the bill failed on Thursday. The anti-lynching bill will remain in the Senate until either Paul concedes or the bill is changed. A vote on it has not been scheduled.
Paul countered that he has been asking Booker’s office for three months for “one small change” to the legislation.
“You think I take great joy in being here? No,” he said. ”I’m a sponsor of 22 criminal justice bills. You think I’m getting any good publicity out of this? No. I will be excoriated by simple-minded people on the internet who think somehow I don’t like Emmett Till or appreciate the history and the memory of Emmett Till.”
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