Voting Vigil? Congress Debates Democracy Fundamentals

What components are essential to democracy? What protections are needed to ensure fair voting? Do you think racism still affects voting?

Our representatives have been debating these questions and our Congressmen and women are coming up with varying answers.

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.

Because of the long history of the right to vote in this country, the National Urban League plans to hold a nightly vigil starting July 12, 2006 until the Voting Rights Act is renewed.

Voting Rights Act - A History

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 This Amendment superseded any state laws that prevented black suffrage.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, African Americans became the voting majority in many former Confederate states, and candidates of color began to be elected to local, state, and federal offices.

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. Since existing anti-discrimination laws were not enough to overcome some states’ 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 had kept segments of the population from voting.

Result of the Voting Rights Act

The impact of the Voting Rights Act is measurable and historically important. 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.

The Voting Rights Act triumphed over states’ attempts to segregate the vote.

Considering reauthorization

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 said the Bush administration would work with Congress to reauthorize the law, which is permanent but has provisions that are up for renewal in 2007.

President Bush and many Republicans have pushed for reauthorization, but some Republicans in the House oppose key provisions.

Up for debate - Section 5

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.

Republican members of Congress from these states oppose the provision, saying it’s outdated and unfair to the South.

But Democrats argue that Section 5 is still necessary, pointing to the recent Supreme Court decision that Texas unfairly split a Hispanic voting district.

The Court ruled that Texas is allowed to redraw its voting districts as often as it likes, but that the state’s 2003 redistricting of District 23 violated the Voting Rights Act. District 23, which stretches from southwest Texas to near El Paso, has a Hispanic majority that was diluted by the redistricting effort led by former House Speaker Tom DeLay.

The Court requires Texas to redraw the 23rd District to accurately reflect the voting strength of Hispanics in that area.

For more on Texas redistricting, click here.

Section 203

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.

Representative Cliff Sterns (R-Florida) offered an amendment that would bar funding for the language assistance requisite, but it failed 167-254. Opponents of bilingual language assistance want to sunset rather than extend Section 203; they say it’s expensive and prevents immigrants from assimilating into our dominant English-speaking culture.

What do you think?

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?

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