Civil Rights Monitor
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The CIVIL RIGHTS MONITOR is a quarterly publication that reports on civil rights issues pending before the three branches of government. The Monitor also provides a historical context within which to assess current civil rights issues. Back issues of the Monitor are available through this site. Browse or search the archives
Voting Rights Preserved
After numerous hearings and a lengthy debate, the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 (VRA) was signed into law by President Bush on July 27, 2006, having passed both the House (390-33) and Senate (98-0).
In a climate where Democrats and Republicans rarely see eye-to-eye, the bill had bipartisan support. However, despite the wide margins in the final vote tally, the VRA, often called the crown jewel of the civil rights movement, was debated vigorously up until the date of passage.
The VRA reauthorization had strong support from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), which along with the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, and many LCCR members, formed RenewtheVRA.org, a coalition of national and grassroots civil rights organizations. Beyond civil rights groups, many large corporations also spoke out in support of the VRA, including Coca-Cola, Verizon, Wal-Mart, Walt Disney, and many others.
Protections Guaranteed by the VRA
In March of 1965, activists, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rep. John Lewis, D. Georgia, engaged in a peaceful protest in Selma, Alabama and were beaten badly by state and local police using billy clubs and tear gas. The violence inflicted was captured by news cameras and this was witnessed by people in homes across the country. Less than a week later, President Lyndon Johnson, motivated by the events that had occurred on what would become known as "Bloody Sunday", announced to a joint session of Congress that he would bring them an effective voting rights bill. On August 6, 1965, he signed the VRA into law.
Over the last 41 years, the VRA has been renewed four times by bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate and signed into law by both Republican and Democratic presidents. Called by many the most effective civil rights law ever, the VRA has enforced the constitutional right to vote initially granted to all citizens by the Fifteenth Amendment. The VRA outlawed methods used to prevent people of color from voting, including literacy tests, poll taxes, and intimidation, while allowing the federal government to challenge local voting practices in federal court.
Much of the VRA is permanent; however, some of the most important provisions of the VRA are temporary, requiring periodic reauthorization. The temporary provisions include Section 5, which requires local jurisdictions with a history
of pervasive discrimination to obtain pre-approval from the federal government for all changes to voting practices. Jurisdictions can apply for a "bailout" from this requirement if they can demonstrate that the long history of pervasive racism no longer exists. These were viewed as critical provisions, because prior to 1965, states and localities simply replaced one discriminatory practice with another after one was struck down.
Sections 6 through 9 provide the Department of Justice with the authority to send federal observers and examiners to monitor elections, ensuring that they are conducted fairly.
In 1975, the VRA was amended to address the disenfranchisement of language minority groups. Sections 4 and 203 require jurisdictions with a significant number of voters who are limited English proficient to provide language assistance in the relevant languages other than English.
When it renewed the Voting Rights Act in 1982, Congress overturned the Supreme Court's decision in Mobile v. Bolden, making clear that it is unnecessary to prove that certain registration and voting practices have been established with discriminatory intent. A second 1982 amendment allows for people who are blind, disabled, or illiterate to be assisted in voting by almost anyone of their choice.
Congressional Hearings
Congress considered each of the expiring provisions during
seven hearings in the Senate and thirteen in the House. The House and Senate committees received voluminous testimony from lawyers, election officials, professors, and civil rights leaders, who argued that the VRA was still effective, necessary, affordable, and constitutional. As Wade Henderson, LCCR's President and CEO, testified, "The strength of our democracy depends on both equal access to the voting booth and the ability of all Americans to cast an effective and informed ballot. The Voting Rights Act has been instrumental in pressing for both."
Proponents of Section 5 cited recent examples of discrimination and discussed the VRA's continuing need for deterring discrimination, as well as the high rate of non-compliance with its requirements. Debo Adegbile, Associate Director of Litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, testified that, "Without Section 5, the DOJ's ability to monitor discrimination against minority voters would be severely handicapped, and the VRA's deterrent effect on covered jurisdictions would be lost. The hearings ... contain evidence that the burdens that would be placed upon voters to vindicate their rights in the absence of preclearance would be substantial."
Witnesses also testified about the need for Section 203 language assistance. As Wade Henderson stated, "When language minorities in communities across America are denied the language assistance that they need in order to cast an informed vote, we know the right of minority citizens to cast an effective ballot is in jeopardy."
Jacqueline Johnson, executive director of the National Congress for American Indians, testified that Section 203 "enables those who understand their own language better than they understand English to effectively participate in the democratic process. The value of Section 203 to Indian country cannot be overstated." She added that, "Native Americans continue to need and to use language assistance in the electoral process today."
AALDEF's Executive Director Margaret Fung explained that "economic barriers have hindered [Asian Americans] ability to learn English. Nevertheless, they understand the importance of civic participation, and they cherish the right to vote. With renewal of the language assistance provisions of section 203, Asian Americans can continue to have a meaningful voice in our democracy." In one 2004 example of discrimination cited by Fung, a Queens County, New York poll site coordinator said, "I'll talk to [Asian voters] the way they talk to me when I call to order Chinese food," and then said random English phrases in a mock Chinese accent.
The final hearing in the Senate focused on the U.S. Supreme Court decision in LULAC v. Perry and its implications. In LULAC, which was decided on June 28, 2006, the Supreme Court held that the Texas legislature violated the VRA by changing Congressional District 23 so that it was no longer a district in which Latinos could elect a candidate of choice. Nina Perales, a lawyer for MALDEF who argued the case on behalf of the American GI Forum, testified that the case shows how discrimination still exists in parts of this country and that the courts will uphold the constitutionality of the VRA when presented with the opportunity. She explained, "In holding that Texas's 2003 redistricting plan discriminated against Latino voters, the Court recognized that the critical protections of the Act remain essential to protect minority voters living in jurisdictions covered under Section 5."
State Examples of Modern-Day Discrimination
Also contributing to the record were state reports commissioned by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, available at RenewTheVRA.org, depicting the state of voting rights since the last time the act was renewed and the continuing need for the VRA. Rich with data and compelling stories of how the VRA has affected minority voters and office holders, the reports focus on old and new methods of discrimination employed to abridge the voting rights of minority citizens, and examine current events that affect the right to vote and illuminate the nature of the political climate for minorities.
For example, the Mississippi report details how in Kilmichael, the all-white town council abruptly attempted to cancel municipal elections in 2001 when it became clear that, for the first time in town history, a significant number of African American candidates qualified for the election. However, because Mississippi is covered by the pre-clearance provisions of the VRA, the Department of Justice ruled that the election had to go on as planned. Four African-Americans went on to win election - one as mayor, and three as Aldermen.
The New York report points out that even though New York City has a significant Asian-American citizen population, no Asian American had ever been elected to Congress, the New York State Legislature, or the New York City Council before the VRA required the provision of bilingual assistance to tens of thousands of Asian American voters. Now that language assistance is provided, there has been an increase in the number of first-time voters and in 2004 New York City elected its first Asian American City Councilman and State Legislator.
The Texas report notes that, starting in 2002, Harris County was required to provide bilingual assistance to its Vietnamese speaking voters, but failed to comply in the 2003 election. After the Department of Justice intervened, the county took action to ensure that the Vietnamese population could understand registration and balloting instructions. In the wake of these changes, in the November 2004 election, the first and only Vietnamese candidate won a legislative seat in Harris County.
The South Dakota report offers the example of Buffalo County, a county that has a population of approximately 2000 people, 83 per cent of whom are Native American. Under the decades-old plan for electing the three-member county commission, nearly all of the Native American population - some 1500 people - were packed into one district. Whites, though only 17 percent of the population, controlled the remaining two districts and thus the county government. The system violated the principle of one person, one vote. In 2003 the county admitted that its plan was discriminatory and agreed to submit to federal supervision under the VRA for the next 10 years.
House Hijacking
On June 21, the full House was scheduled to vote on the VRA, following a 33-1 vote out of the House Judiciary Committee. However, a small group of Southern Republicans, led by Lynn Westmoreland , R. Ga., and Charles Norwood, R. Ga., convinced GOP House leadership to table the bill. The entire civil rights community decried these efforts, citing them as proof that the VRA was still needed. LCCR's Wade Henderson noted that many of those seeking to derail the bill represented places with "the most egregious records of discrimination in voting."
Only a week later, on June 28, Rep. Cliff Stearns, R. Fla., proposed an amendment to the Science, State, Justice and Commerce appropriations bill that would have directed the Department of Justice not to expend funds to enforce the minority language provisions of the VRA. The amendment was promptly defeated by a margin of 254-167. Julie Fernandes, senior policy analyst for LCCR, said, "Efforts by a few rebels in the House to gut the language minority provisions of the Act have been thwarted twice...It is now time for the House to bring H.R. 9 to the floor for a vote."
Final Vote
That is exactly what happened on July 13. By a vote of 390-33, the House voted to renew the VRA. First, however, four amendments, described by members of the civil rights community as "poison pills", were proposed and defeated. One, offered by Rep. Steve King, R. Iowa, would have stripped the language assistance provisions; another from Rep. Westmoreland, R. Ga., would have made it easier for jurisdictions to bail out from Section 5. Rep. Norwood, R. Ga., proposed an amendment that would have updated the trigger for Section 5 coverage and allowed some counties with egregious records to avoid coverage. The final amendment, proposed by Rep. Louie Gohmert, R. Texas, would have renewed sections of the VRA for only ten years.
After the successful passage of the legislation without amendment, the civil rights community celebrated and called on the Senate to act. LCCR Deputy Director Nancy Zirkin said, "This country has taken the lead in spreading democracy abroad and we cannot do less to maintain its vitality here at home. That is why it is critical that the Senate ... provide for full debate and present the reauthorizing legislation to the full Senate for a vote so it can be on the President's desk for signing by early August."
A week later, on July 19, the bill was voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee by a margin of 18-0. The very next day, the full Senate voted 98-0 to reauthorize the VRA without amendment.
The final vote tallies showed greater support for the VRA in both the House and Senate than at any time in its 41-year history. LCCR's Henderson called it a "historic day not just for minorities but for all Americans," adding that "Congress should be applauded and celebrated for its role in reauthorizing the most transformative civil rights law in the nation - a transformation that is the envy of the world when it thinks about democracy."
  
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