Congress Holding Up Bill To Create MLK Jr. National Park
The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site includes the birthplace of the slain civil rights leader.
Tasnim Shamma / WABE
The U.S. Congress keeps holding a bill that would reclassify the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site as a national park.
U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Atlanta) has been introducing the Martin Luther King Junior National Historic Park Act since 2013. The bill passed the House last year and this year, but it remains stuck in a Senate committee.
Judy Forte, superintendent of the MLK historic site, said the change could enable hiring more park rangers and providing more educational programs for local schools.
“We feel that if we go to a national historic park status that, you know, we’ll get, hopefully, more partners that are interested in partnering with us to preserve and protect these resources,” Forte said.
The bill would not automatically mean more federal money for the site, but Forte said it might encourage people to invest money into the site. She said the bill might not be a priority for the Senate, which has to deal with a lot of other bills.
Dr. Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia, disagrees. He said because the bill’s costs are negligible, it shouldn’t take very long to get through committees. But if the bill doesn’t get through its committee, it never comes to a vote.
Therefore, the people who might not like the legislation, or the legislation’s sponsors, don’t have to publicly oppose it. Bullock says the bill might be getting stuck for political reasons.
“If the sense is that a piece of legislation would not be acceptable to the President, then committees will often say ‘Well, why do we want to waste our time if it’s not going to succeed?’ So, that could be a factor,” Bullock said.
Lewis refused to attend President Trump’s inauguration and said he didn’t view him as a legitimate president. The bill is currently in the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
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