US REPRESENTATIVE BYRON DONALDS
Recently, Republican US Representative Byron Donalds was on the Breakfast Club radio show along with former CNN political commentator Angela Rye. The show booked Rye to expose the flaws in Donalds’ “Black Republican thinking.”
Rye reminded Donalds of his statement: “The success of Black people like himself was evidence that America was no longer a racist country, and America was the best place for Blacks to reach their full potential.” Rye pointed out that Black men were “lynched by the carceral state,” referring to the death row inmates recently executed in South Carolina and Missouri.
ANGELA RYE
Rye viewed these executions as evidence of America’s ongoing racism, but her example highlighted “systemic racism.” In other words, Blacks make up 13% of the US population but account for 42% of death row inmates; the disproportional rate indicates the presence of systemic racism.
Donalds was not referring to “systemic racism.” What he claimed no longer existed was racism based on the belief in black inferiority—the racism that gave rise to Jim Crow, the racism that reduced Black people to second-class citizens, inhibited their development, and hampered their potential to achieve.
Rye stated that Republicans voted against the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would have reinstated the protections originally enshrined in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Rye questioned Donalds about his decision to vote against the interests of Black people.
Donalds voted against the bill because it would have reinstated pre-clearance.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 included a pre-clearance requirement. States and localities with a history of discriminatory voting practices were required to acquire advance clearance from the federal government before making changes to their voting laws. The purpose of this provision was to stop these states and localities from implementing new discriminatory policies. In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that the continuation of pre-clearance was unconstitutional because it was based on 40-year-old statistics, failed to account for racial progress, and violated the constitutional principle of federalism.
According to Donalds, the problem with the John Lewis Voting Rights Act was its attempt to implement pre-clearance nationwide, requiring localities without a history of Jim Crow to seek federal approval before changing their voting laws.
Rye and the Breakfast Club hosts argued that the removal of pre-clearance made voting more difficult for Black people and that these voting restrictions peaked when Georgia’s Republican legislature approved the Election Integrity Act in 2021.
According to Politifact, “The Georgia election law is a mixed bag when it comes to restricting ballot access. It offers an extra Saturday of early voting and maintains the optional Sunday early voting use by large counties, but it adds restrictions to absentee voting and ballot drop boxes.” Rye and the hosts of the Breakfast Club argued that this was equivalent to Jim Crow laws and provided evidence for national pre-clearance.”
Donalds noted that in the year following the passage of the Election Integrity Act of 2021, Black voters in Georgia turned out in record numbers. (On October 15, 2024, over 300,000 Georgians cast votes, doubling the state’s first-day record for early voting, and the state expects record numbers again.)
Disregarding the facts, Rye emphasized to the audience her belief that Black voters had endured discrimination since the Supreme Court invalidated preclearance. The Breakfast Club host claimed that the Election Integrity Act of 2021 made it easier for Georgia to intimidate Black voters.
How? Donalds questioned the Breakfast Club host, but Rye moved on to the next topic.
Democratic Rep. Karen Bass introduced the George Floyd Justice in Police Act in 2021. Donalds did not endorse this police reform bill. He backed Republican Sen. Tim Scott’s Justice Act. According to Donalds, the main difference between the two police reform bills was that the Democratic plan sought to eliminate qualified immunity for police officers, but the Republican bill did not. The George Floyd Justice in Police Act passed the House but failed in the Senate due to Republican opposition.
Rye stressed the necessity to eliminate qualified immunity.
Donalds explained that qualified immunity is required to safeguard police officers from civil lawsuits after they have been absolved of wrongdoing. Eliminating qualified immunity would make it more difficult to hire police in dangerous neighborhoods, potentially harming residents.
Rye clarified that she was not talking about police receiving immunity for “wrongdoing.” She was referring to the immunity that police officers receive when they kill and severely injure Black people, or, the Breakfast Club host added, when they clearly violate constitutional rights.
Donalds stressed to them that police officers who violate constitutional rights are not granted qualified immunity.
Rye replied, “That is patently false.”
The Breakfast Club host stated, “I thought that’s what quality immunity meant.” Then he tried to fact-check the congressman in real time. He looked up the definition of quality immunity and read out loud that qualified immunity was “a legal doctrine that protects government officials from civil lawsuits when they perform their jobs, unless they clearly violate a constitutional right.”
Instead of admitting she was wrong, Rye altered the subject, stating that former President Trump wants to go beyond qualified immunity in civil cases and grant police officers’ full immunity in criminal cases.
Trump may have offered full immunity during a campaign rally, but no legal expert took it seriously. Reason Magazine stated, “As president, Trump would be extremely constrained in immunizing anyone, including police officers, from prosecution, as most criminal proceedings are in state court, where his power would not apply.” And while it’s true that some officers are charged federally for alleged misconduct—where he could lobby the Department of Justice to refuse to charge any cop—those prosecutions are often in addition to state charges.” Reason Magazine concluded that Trump’s promise was nothing more than a demonstration of his legal illiteracy.
The Breakfast Club was unsuccessful in exposing the errors in Donalds’ “Black Republican thinking,” but they were successful in proving Ronald Reagan correct when he stated, “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”