In 1965, Lyndon Johnson formed an alliance with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to craft and pass the Voting Rights Act. Developed in response to endless hurdles being thrown up to keep African Americans from registering to vote or voting, the Act established a nationwide prohibition against discrimination in voting. The necessity of the law despite the Fifteenth Amendment's guarantee of the right to vote to all citizens, adopted nearly a century before, is a testament to the long and largely successful history of voting discrimination in the United States.
The Voting Rights Act was one of the most important pieces of legislation enacted during Johnson's presidency, but it was also political suicide. Knowing that support for the Act would hand the South to the Republican party, Johnson forged ahead anyway. Three years later, he stunningly withdrew from the presidential race and retired.
Voting remains a critical issue in America today. The last two presidential elections confirmed the importance of every single vote in determining the leadership and direction of this country. Yet, despite this importance (or perhaps because of it), lawmakers continue to take steps aimed at restricting the ability of Americans to vote, even threatening the future of the Voting Rights Act itself.
Although many portions of the Act are permanent law, other sections must be renewed from time to time. Several important sections are set to expire in 2007, including the requirement that states get clearance from the Justice Department before making changes in their voting procedures, such as redistricting, that could affect minority voters. Affirming the importance of these procedures to protecting voting rights, a bipartisan consensus in Congress had agreed to renew the provisions this summer. It was the type of broad support such an important law deserved. However, the expected vote was cancelled last week after several southern Republicans complained that the law unfairly targeted the South. Now, it is unknown when Congress will take up the issue or whether the Act will be renewed at all over these lawmakers' objections.
The recent efforts by lawmakers to delay renewal of the Voting Rights Act are the kind of partisan politics Lyndon Johnson, a Southerner himself, rose above in initially passing the bill. Unfortunately, efforts to delay renewal are part of a nationwide trend toward making voting more difficult for more people. According to the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, several states including, of course, Florida and Ohio have recently passed restrictions on voter registration drives despite the fact that such drives have no correlation with voter fraud. These drives simply increase the numbers of registered voters and, consequently, the number of Americans who vote. Such efforts should be encouraged rather than restricted.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court produced a complicated decision on Wednesday regarding the recent redistricting effort in Texas. On one hand, the Court reaffirmed the continued need for provisions in the Voting Rights Act like those the rebelling lawmakers complain of, ruling that a redrawn district in southwest Texas unfairly diluted the votes of Latino voters. The Court ordered a new district drawn that would be more consistent with the tenets of the Voting Rights Act. However, the Court took no action to undo the highly-partisan redistricting that resulted in a net gain of four Republican seats in the Texas legislature, concluding that such gerrymandering of districts by party was constitutional.
The case in Texas is a mixed result that vividly illustrates both the continued necessity for protections like those found in the Voting Rights Act and the kinds of ways lawmakers continue to manipulate the election process.
In 2006, we look back at efforts such as poll taxes and literacy tests as blatant discrimination that ought to be condemned. Yet four decades after passage of the Voting Rights Act, lawmakers continue trying to manipulate the election process wherever they can find an opportunity, whether by campaign finance regulations, gerrymandered districts, restriction of voter registration drives, efforts to prevent ballots being available in foreign languages, expensive voter identification requirements, or even failing to renew some of the most important provisions of the legislation most useful in protecting Americans' right to vote. Such efforts taint our government, our elections, and our society and are no more acceptable today than they were in 1965.
2 comments:
Some good points, but i think it's a little silly and unrealistic to think that further changes from the inside will really have any demonstrable effect upon the leadership or direction of this country. The presidential elections are little more than referendums on two products, say like dr pepper or coke, with the actual pr firms who handle these soft drink and other product campaigns handling the presidential elections. It just seems farfetched that a true overhaul of the system could ever take place, since the people who would have to be the ones to initiate that change are the very people who have the highest stake in maintaining the status quo. That goes for liberal democrats just as much as conservative republicans. The number one goal of any elected official is keeping their job. A huge popular uprising, ala civil rights movement, is the only thing that has ever really effected real change in this country. Can you imagine something like that happening now? I hate to be pessimistic, and i applaud your optimism, but that seems really unlikely in these times. oh, and uh, happy independence day!
Several weeks ago I wrote about efforts by southern Republicans to derail renewal of the Voting Rights Act. Fortunately, those efforts (largely seen as an embarrassment to the Republican party) failed and the renewal was passed overwhelmingly by the House this week. Perhaps some of the House members saw my column or maybe they saw a piece in the New York Times making a nearly identical case but coming from a far more credible source (LBJs daughters).
Meanwhile, in Georgia, a state judge ruled that provisions requiring government-issued voter ID cards to vote violated the state constitution by placing an undue burden on the fundamental right to vote. The Georgia law was the second attempt to implement an ID card requirement and it was successfully argued that it would discourage many poor and minority voters who do not already have drivers licenses or other government-issued photo ID from voting.
Together, these developments are the cause for some small bit of optimism on the voting front although at least one reader has made his own (quite justified) pessimism on the topic known in the UnevenKiel forum.
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