On February 17, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Senator Jon Ossoff (D-Georgia) announced they had introduced legislation in the Senate that would allow the members of the Civil Rights Cold Case Review Board to be active for the full four years of their term.
In 2018, Senator Doug Jones (D-Alabama) and Representative Bobby Rush (D-Illinois) introduced legislation that would establish a review board to examine the evidence in cold cases dating back to the Civil Rights Movement and make that information public.
The legislation was passed and signed into law by Former President Donald Trump in January 2019, but was never put into effect. Citing possible problems with the bill, Trump simply did not appoint members to the board.
President Joe Biden appointed the first members to the board in June 2021 and the group has begun to do the work of compiling federal and local records relating to unsolved cases of lynchings and murders.
The review board was authorized for a four-year term, but due to the delay in appointment of board members, the current board will expire in one year, leaving them little opportunity to make progress. The purpose of the board is to make public as many records as possible relating to cold cases from the Civil Rights era.
On Thursday, Sen. Cruz and Sen. Ossoff announced they had introduced legislation in the Senate that would extend the appointment of the board for three additional years, giving the group the originally-intended four year term.
“I am pleased to work with Sen. Ossoff and Rep. Rush on this important bill to extend the tenure of the Civil Rights Cold Case Review Board to investigate unsolved murders and other crimes that involved the targeting of African Americans between 1940 and 1979,” said Cruz when introducing the bill.
He further commented, “During the Civil Rights movement, there were far too many unsolved violent race-based crimes committed against African Americans. It’s my hope that by giving the Review Board more time to examine the case files related to these unsolved crimes, we can shed sunlight on these Civil Rights cold cases and finally bring justice to the victims and their families.”
Companion legislation will be introduced shortly in the House, where Rush is expected to carry the bill.
“I am pleased that President Biden nominated members to the Review Board and that the Senate has begun the confirmation process, but it is apparent that the Board will need more than one year to carry out the necessary and important work it was intended to have a minimum of four years to complete,” Rush said in a press release.
“This legislation to effectively restore the full term intended for the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board is both common sense and necessary. I thank my colleague Senator Ossoff for leading this effort and look forward to introducing companion legislation in the House in the coming days,” he added.
The Cold Case Act that led to the creation of the review board was originally drafted by a group of New Jersey high school students. The act aims to provide a more streamlined and less redacted opportunity for private citizens to investigate — and possibly solve — cold cases.
A previous bill, the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, directed the FBI to create an investigatory board to review cold cases, however none were solved and most were closed.
