Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/house-delays-renewal-of-voting-rights-act Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript House Republicans decided to delay a renewal of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The act, which will expire at the end of 2007, was approved during the civil rights movement to ensure that Americans were not discriminated at the polls. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. GWEN IFILL: Politically speaking, this was supposed to be a slam dunk. Everyone understood that the Voting Rights Act, signed into law in 1965 and renewed in 1982, was set to expire next year.Democrats and Republicans, in the House and the Senate, agreed early on that another extension would be easily passed before the House left town for their Fourth of July recess.SEN. BILL FRIST (R-TN), Senate Majority Leader: Today, we stand together to make sure the Voting Rights Act will not expire. GWEN IFILL: Even President Bush was on board.GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States: I want this Voting Rights Act extended. And so we're working with members of the United States Congress to see if we can't get it done. GWEN IFILL: But a scheduled vote was suddenly yanked from the calendar just last week, after a group of Republican lawmakers revolted. Ignoring their House leaders, they argued that sections of the law are outmoded, unfair and unnecessary.John Lewis, the Georgia Democrat who led the marchers that got the law enacted 41 years ago, could not disagree more.REP. JOHN LEWIS (D), Georgia: We have made a lot of progress, but we cannot go back.