Voting Rights Act Must Evolve
by Owen Courrèges · 06/22/2006 10:08 amSection V of the Voting Rights Act is set to lapse in the near future, and Congress is already planning on renewing it. This is the provision that singles out southern states for pre-clearance by the U.S. Justice Department, which was required when the act was passed in 1965 because it was assumed, quite rightly, that all levels of government in the south, right up to the federal judiciary, were awash in segregationist sentiment.
Clearly, that situation has passed, and singling out southern states is glaringly patronizing. For this reason, some southern representatives are fighting against the renewal in its current form.
Alas, southern newspapers have already starting weighing in on the matter, and they are, of course, populated by liberal yankee ex-pats and self-hating liberal southerners who believe that the south still deserves to be singled out for special approval from the Justice Department.
Let’s take the Dallas Morning News:
The South is not what it was in 1965. We don’t have literacy tests to keep minorities from exercising their voting rights, and sheriffs aren’t beating up voting rights activists.
But neither is there enough evidence to prove Congress should let key elements of the 1965 Voting Rights Act expire. Just look at Texas, where the partisan redrawing of congressional seats in 2003 diluted the voting clout of blacks and Latinos in some parts of the state.
Look also at Georgia, where Republican legislators recently tried to require voters to obtain an ID card if they have no driver’s license, knowing this would hit minority voters more than white ones.
[...]
The extension would require states like Texas and Georgia to keep getting “pre-clearance” from the Justice Department for major election-law changes. House conservatives like GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert of Tyler would like all states to abide by that rule, not just those with racially discriminatory pasts. (Communities in “non-Southern” states like New York, California, New Hampshire and Michigan already must comply.)
That request sounds reasonable, but it’s a risk not worth taking. Extending the provision to all states would load the Justice Department with claims it couldn’t possibly investigate.
“The Department of Justice receives so many pre-clearing requests that it cannot possibly sort through them all without help,” Harvard Law School professor Heather Gerken wrote last year in The New Republic.
So, the Dallas Morning News thinks that partisan redistricting and statewide ID cards are evident that those nasty, racist Republicans are fighting to curb minority representation in the south, and therefore the south should continue to be scrutinized by the Justice Department.
It must be hard for their editorial staff to be living in Texas, seeing as we’re apparently one step away from being the rednecks in “Deliverance.” Really, though — their upturned-nose attitude towards their neighbors is truly disheartening.
And then there’s the Jackson-Clarion Ledger, which is frankly even worse:
Racial discrimination isn’t and wasn’t confined to: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Mississippi - which require preclearance.
But, it’s also a virtual lock that no other states are going to request preclearance, nor is it likely the federal government will seek to impose it. And there’s no general will of Congress to lift it from states where memories, and behaviors, linger.
For example, the fact that no black candidate has won a statewide office in Mississippi since the beginning of the 20th century. Or that battles over redistricting and voter ID continue with clear racial overtones.
Someday, Section 5 will be as odd an apparatus as a buggywhip. But that day has not yet come, here or elsewhere.
The Voting Rights Act should be renewed as is.
TRANSLATION: Our readers are redneck racists. We hate you. Please buy our paper.
Really, though, their evidence here is rather poor. Blacks have won statewide office throughout the south, and the fact that Mississippi has not certainly is anamolous. By itself, however, it isn’t credible evidence of racism, and it surely isn’t evidence that Section 5 is needed (after all, nobody is suggesting that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is racist, and they can review Mississippi’s apportionment at any time).
The bottom line is as I said before: Section 5 is patronizing and unecessary. No proud southerner who respects his friends and neighbors has any business supporting its extension. That includes President Bush.
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The southern states just need to get smart and get more dead people voting like they do in liberal bastions New York City and Chicago. Or we can bus in like-minded voters to vote in our states, like they do on the east coast. Or we can get more felons to vote. Or “vote early and vote often.” Or we can get more illegal aliens who don’t have a right to vote to vote (Remember: “Today we march, tomorrow we vote!”) There are lots of creative ways the southern states can get conservative votes cast without worrying about this law, just do what the liberals do.
“Look also at Georgia, where Republican legislators recently tried to require voters to obtain an ID card if they have no driver’s license, knowing this would hit minority voters more than white ones.”
How about hitting illegal aliens? Oh, yeah, they’re the new minority voter block.
I got an idea. Why don’t we conservatives come out in favor of illegal alien voting rights? Liberals will knee jerk against it immediately. Problem solved.
Boy I’m too smart for my own good.
Yankee Devils!
My fellow Southerners, they have caught on to us. Us white trash Southern folk can’t go a day without oppressin’ someone! We tried to fool ‘em, but alas them highly enlightened Yankees are just too danged smart. No wonder they gave us a whoopin’! I might just even have to scrape the decal off the top of my car:
http://www.cglfc.com/member_santi_mayoral.html
“liberal yankee ex-pats”?
Would that include GW Bush (by his New Haven birthright and higher education), or just his father?
Mike,
Neither G.W. nor senior are liberals, even if neither is particularly conservative.
As for being Yankee, G.W. was born in New Haven but moved to Odessa as an infant, and was raised in Midland and Houston. I would say that gives him pretty strong southern credentials.
I hope it evolves to where every voter needs a ID card with picture and fingerprint, and then put their print on the ballot.
KRAUT,
Wow! I could just feel the racism oozing from my computer screen!
/sarcasm
Perhaps when black owned businesses are FORCED to higher other minorities, they will have a change of heart on this type of thing. And when other minorities begin taking away the political seats traditionally held by blacks since the 1960s, what will they then do?
Kraut, perhaps not on the ballot, but the machine registers that they are the person who matches the ID, making them a legitimate voter IN THAT PRECINCT. It will make it very difficult for Democrats to get the dead to vote, to get voters to vote multiple times, to get the mentally ill to vote, and to get disqualified felons to vote. Heck, that’s half of their base gone!!
You know, I’m getting real tired of being held accountable for crappie that happened 100+ years ago. Heck, even the stuff that happened up into the 70’s is 30 years ago.
My family NEVER owned one single slave. Had a great-great-great grandfather who deserted the Confederate Army to go home to protect his SHARECROPPER farm in Mississippi. Yes, they were Sharecropping before the Civil War. That was Dad’s side of the family. My mother’s grandfather came from Poland right after the Civil War and his wife from Ireland because of the Potatoe Blight. So why again am I responsible??? Oh yeah, it’s so you - Mr. Liberal Better Than Us Southerners can keep your party voting base - in simpler terms, keep them enslaved to you and your party.
TxAggie, I have a superior claim from the Africans holding my ancestors (Moses & Co.) as slaves. We want reparations with interest. From that, those who had ancestors here and held slaves can DEDUCT what the African decendants pay. Don’t give me any guff about them being Egyptians. They were all in Africa, and that’s all that matters.
Since, according to the New Testament, as a Born-Again Christian, I am an Adopted Son of Yahweh, that means I’m also entitled to my pro-rata portion of said claim and pending settlement. And, as an adopted son, according to Mosaic Law, can’t be disowned or written out of the will. I Love It!
TXAggie, who do we sue first? Calypso Louie, Jesse Jackson, or the NAACP?
Wonder if we could get a class action suit going against all Africans and their descendants?
#7 DJ,
HaHa! I take it you like my idea? It worked well in the country I came from. Besides, most places you go to cashing a check you have to put your thumb print on the check.