Juneteenth holiday vote a split decision for Chattanooga area members of Congress

Jun. 19—Some of the most conservative members of the House of Representatives voted against a proposal this past week to make Juneteenth a national holiday, but Northwest Georgia's Marjorie Taylor Greene was not among them.

Greene, R-Rome, voted in favor of the designation.

"I'm in support of celebrating important days in American history, and the emancipation of slaves is important," Greene said in a statement to the Times Free Press. "Plus, any day that we can shut down the federal government is a good day for the American people."

U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Ooltewah, also voted yes. His office did not respond to a request for comment.

The House overwhelmingly passed the bill on Wednesday, establishing June 19 as Juneteenth National Independence Day, a U.S. federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.

While support for the legislation was bipartisan, more than a dozen Republicans in the chamber voted against the measure. The bill, which the Senate unanimously approved on Tuesday, was signed into law by President Joe Biden.

Juneteenth commemorates when the last enslaved African Americans learned they were free. Confederate soldiers surrendered in April 1865, but word didn't reach the last enslaved Black people until June 19, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to Galveston, Texas. That was about two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in the Southern states.

It's the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was created in 1983.

Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-Sherwood, was one of the 14 Republicans who voted against the measure. DesJarlais' office said in a statement he voted against the measure due to financial reasons.

"Representative DesJarlais voted no on H. Res. 479 because he believes it is fiscally irresponsible to continue to create new paid holidays for federal workers while the majority of hard-working private-sector employees get left to pay the bill," he said. "Juneteenth is a state holiday in the vast majority of American states. The only thing making this holiday federal does is spending $600 million dollars to pay federal employees to not come to work."

Contact Patrick Filbin at pfilbin@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6476. Follow him on Twitter @PatrickFilbin.