Doug Jones And Ted Cruz Team Up On Civil Rights Bill

Senator Jones and Cruz co-sponsored a bill requiring declassification and release of government records related to unsolved civil rights cases.

By Michael Seale, Patch Staff

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation led by Sen. Doug Jones and Sen. Ted Cruz to require the review, declassification, and release of government records related to unsolved criminal civil rights cases. Senators Jones and Cruz have led a months-long bipartisan effort to provide public access to unsolved civil rights crime documents through their Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act. Congressman Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) led the companion legislation in the House of Representatives. Their bill will now go to the President’s desk to be signed into law.

“This legislation has made a remarkable journey from its conception in a high school classroom to its passage in Congress today,” Jones said. “From the students who first brought their draft bill to my attention years ago to the journalists and researchers who study these civil rights cold cases to my colleagues Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Bobby Rush, this was truly a team effort to do the right thing by these victims and their families. While we can’t change history, we can and should do whatever we can to seek truth and healing. Today, we took an important step forward in the effort to ensure justice delayed is not justice denied.”

“This week has been a historic week for justice,” Senator Cruz said. “Crimes committed against Americans seeking their rightful place in the American dream during the civil rights movement too often went unsolved. But this bill seeks to right these historic wrongs by disclosing case records so that the public may pursue leads and document these tragic events. I am grateful my colleagues in the House recognize the importance of this issue, and am proud to have worked with Sen. Jones on this bipartisan bill. It is my hope that, with additional sunlight to these cold cases, there will be revelation, justice, and closure where it has long been lacking.”

Jones, who successfully prosecuted two of the former KKK members responsible for the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, has long been an advocate for greater access to civil rights cold case records. In 2007, he testified to the House Judiciary Committee in support of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act that established a special initiative in the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate civil rights cold cases.