U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie on Wednesday once again burnished his reputation as "Mr. No" in Congress by joining a handful of lawmakers who opposed a measure that would make lynching a federal hate crime.

Congress has tried for more than a century to pass a bill outlawing the practice, which terrorized mostly African Americans across the country in the 19th and 20th centuries. But such proposals have been repeatedly blocked or ignored.

The Emmett Till Antilynching Act, however, passed the House by a bipartisan vote of 410-4. The Senate has already passed its version of the bill.

Massie, a Kentucky Republican, joined fellow GOP lawmakers Ted Yoho, of Florida, and Louie Gohmert, of Texas, and independent Justin Amash, of Michigan, in voting against the measure.

"I voted against (the bill) because the Constitution specifies only a handful of federal crimes, and leaves the rest to individual states to prosecute," Massie told The Courier Journal on Wednesday. "In addition, this bill expands current federal 'hate crime' laws. A crime is a crime, and all victims deserve equal justice. Adding enhanced penalties for 'hate' tends to endanger other liberties such as freedom of speech."

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Rep. Bobby Rush, an Illinois Democrat, sponsored the proposal and said during Wednesday’s floor debate how it will show "race-based violence, in particular, has no place in American society."

"I cannot imagine our nation did not have any federal law against lynching when so many African Americans have been lynched," he said. "Lynching was the preferred method of the Ku Klux Klan, the preferred choice of (torturing and murdering African-Americans)."

Rush named the legislation after Till, a 14-year-old black teenager from Chicago who was murdered in Mississippi in 1955 by a group of white men. Till's brutal slaying gained international attention at the time and has been cited as one of the catalysts for the civil rights movement.

During the floor debate, Rush described growing up in Chicago and remembering how pictures of Till were on the cover of Jet Magazine after the teen's mother insisted on an open casket funeral to show her son had been brutally beaten and shot in the head.

Witnesses said two white men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, kidnapped Till, whose body was later found floating in the Tallahatchie River.

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A bipartisan group of lawmakers said the measure was long overdue and cited lynchings that happened in their districts and states.

"We cannot simply wash away the past,'' said Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska, who was a co-sponsor last year on a bipartisan anti-lynching bill.

Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, the House GOP whip, said he and other Republicans will also try to be added as co-sponsors. "It shouldn’t be partisan. It’s not partisan," he said. "I haven’t seen anybody who is against this bill."

Massie, a libertarian-leaning lawmaker, is known as "Mr. No" in Washington for opposing bipartisan measures big and small. He was the lone Kentucky Republican, for instance, who voted for a House resolution this year aimed at curbing President Donald Trump's ability to wage war against Iran.

That has earned Massie a primary challenger, attorney Todd McMurtry, who argues the congressman's views have made him an unreliable ally for the president.

McMurtry told The Courier Journal he is disappointed in Massie's vote against the anti-lynching proposal but isn't surprised given the congressman's record. He said he would have supported the bill if he were a member of Congress.

"This is a classic example of why I'm running to replace Thomas Massie in Congress," McMurtry said. "This is the kind of company he keeps in Washington and a classic example of the kind of inexplicable votes he makes routinely. Frankly, it's just embarrassing to Kentucky. We deserve better. We deserve a congressman who puts the interests of Kentuckians first."

The Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit legal advocacy group based in Alabama, researched thousands of lynchings across 12 Southern states between 1877 and 1950. It found reports of at least 168 lynchings of people of color in Kentucky.

The other four Republicans in Kentucky's congressional delegation voted for the anti-lynching measure.

Rep. John Yarmuth, the Bluegrass State's lone Democratic representative, did not vote on the measure, according to the House clerk's website.

A Yarmuth spokesman said travel issues delayed the congressman's flight back to Washington on Wednesday. He is a co-sponsor of the bill and is "thrilled that it passed," the spokesman said.

USA TODAY contributed to this report. Reach Phillip M. Bailey at pbailey@courier-journal.com or 502-582-4475. Follow him on Twitter at @phillipmbailey.