Reauthorizing History: The Voting Rights Act Turns 40

Disagreement over the Voting Rights Act equals debate over democracy’s most fundamental principle: the right to vote. And those who have been denied voting rights in the past - women and minorities - could have the most to lose.

On August 2, 2005, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lauded the forty-year anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, calling the legislation one of the most successful civil rights laws in American history.

Gonzales says the Bush administration plans to work with Congress to reauthorize the act, which is permanent but has provisions that are up for renewal in 2007.

But critics say that Republicans have been wishy-washy about securing voting rights. For example, The Nation pointed out that House Judiciary Committee Chair James Sensenbrenner (R- WI) vowed at the NAACP convention to introduce legislation that would extend the act, proclaiming, "We cannot let discriminatory practices of the past resurface to threaten future gains." But several days later he was quoted as saying that the act’s renewal remains "an open question."

Before the Voting Rights Act

Prior to the Civil War, the U.S. Constitution did not provide voting protections to all. Only a few northern states allowed free black men to register, and women were banned from the voting booth. So the vote was left to white males, and many states required them to be property owners.

The post-war Military Reconstruction Act of 1867 required former Confederate States to allow all men to vote, regardless of race, as a prerequisite for rejoining the Union. And in 1870, states ratified the 15th Amendment, which provided voting rights to all men regardless of color or previous condition of servitude. This Amendment superseded any state laws that prevented black suffrage.

As a result, blacks became the voting majority in many former Confederate states, and candidates of color began to be elected to local, state, and federal offices.

But the movement suffered a backlash, and white supremacist organizations began to use terrorist tactics to keep blacks from voting. Further, white officials enacted a series of laws to control and suppress the black vote. The redrawing of election districts or, gerrymandering, divided black voting blocks, dissolving their strength, while poll taxes, literary tests, and vouchers of "good character" disqualified large numbers of black voters. Consequently, most black citizens of southern states were prevented from voting by 1910.

Enter the Voting Rights Act

Women were finally given the right to vote in 1920, but black citizens had to wait until 1965 to reclaim full rights under the law. States solidified their disenfranchisement of black voters throughout the first part of the twentieth century, but it took the murder of voting-rights activists in Pennsylvania and Mississippi and a televised attack on peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama to awaken Congress and President Lyndon Johnson.

In the wake of the Selma march, President Johnson called for a strong voting rights law. Upon finding that existing anti-discrimination laws were not enough to overcome state resistance to the 15th Amendment, Congress agreed. In 1965, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, which reiterates the 15th Amendment and prohibits literary tests and other provisions that historically kept segments of the population from voting.

Result of the Voting Rights Act

The impact of the Voting Rights Act is measurable and phenomenal. In March of 1965, only 19 percent of blacks in Alabama voted, while 69 percent of whites did, creating a 50 percent voting gap based on race. By 1988, the face of Alabama’s voting population had changed. Sixty-eight percent of blacks voted that year, along with 75 percent of whites, resulting in a less than seven percent gap. Similar results were found in Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. In Louisiana, black voters exceeded white voter turnout that year.

So, just as Attorney General Gonzalez pointed out, the Voting Rights Act has triumphed over states’ attempts to segregate the vote.

Considering reauthorization

Up for renewal is Section 5, the requirement that the nine states with documented histories of discriminatory voting practices submit any planned changes in their election laws to the Justice Department. These states are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.

And Section 5 may be necessary, since Texas, Georgia, and Colorado recently tried to shuffle their voting districts to create maps that would favor Republicans. The Colorado map went all the way to the Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case. The majority of justices voted to uphold the lower court’s decision to disallow the Republican-drawn map.

In Texas, Democrats argued that the redistricting plan there would compromise the rights of Texas minority groups since many of the reps who were likely to lose their seats represented immigrant, African American, and Chicano communities. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered a lower court to reconsider the plan, but those in favor of redistricting have vowed to fight on.

Also up for review is Section 203, which provides language assistance to voters who need it, allows for the recovery of legal fees in voting rights litigation in order to keep costs from being prohibitive, and authorizes the Attorney General to appoint election monitors.

At issue are basic voting rights, the foundation of our democracy. Do you think the Voting Rights Act is still needed to secure those rights? Do you believe the renewable provisions should be reauthorized? Does the Voting Rights Act limit states’ rights?

What do you think?

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Update Posted on: 8/5/2005