By Willie Burnley, Contributor, Emerson College
It is more than likely that in 1963, when he delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther king Jr. would have been unable to cast a ballot in his home state of Georgia. This was the result of prejudicial practices that effectively blocked black people from voting from 1870 to 1964, when the 15th Amendment was passed to ensure that suffrage could not be infringed upon due to race. It is also why various civil rights groups pressured the Johnson administration to pass what became the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark piece of legislation that abolished those practices and leveled unprecedented federal oversight on the voting laws of areas with a proven history of discrimination from putting forward such voting laws.
On June 25th, 2013, though, that all changed. Effectively gutting the Voting Rights Act in the 5-4 decision of Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court tossed back to Congress Section 4(b) of the VRA, which established a formula for which jurisdictions needed preclearance for their voting laws, due to their majority opinion that the data was obsolete. Furthermore, their mantra continued that things have changed dramatically in this nation since 1965. They seemingly made no mention of the 15,000+ pages of evidence that Congress compiled when reauthorizing the act in 2006 with overwhelming majorities, however. Nor did those in the majority opinion make note of the fact that the act had been used 74 times to block disparate treatment or impact only going back as far as 2000.
Less than two hours after the decision, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said that his state would “immediately” be putting forward a voter ID law that was previously blocked in 2012 by the VRA and federal courts as racially discriminatory when it was found to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Hispanic voters at rates more than twice that of white voters. Similarly, he left the future open to re-establish a 2010 redistricting plan that was halted after it was used to strengthen district control for white lawmakers, who did not lose a single seat during that state election, at the expense of black lawmakers who awoke to find their districts taken from them.
These procedural alterations come at a time when changing demographics pose a threat to Republican-controlled red states and the future of the Republican Party. From 2000 to 2010, for example, Texas was the fasting growing state in the nation with 89% of its growth coming from Hispanic and African-American populations – populations that traditionally vote for Democrats.
When asked if he thinks Texas should be under the special scrutiny of the VRA on The Rachel Maddow Show, Rep. Marc Veasey (D-TX) began by saying that during his four terms in the state legislature he had seen “some of the worse discrimination, as far as public policy, coming from Republicans trying to implement that public policy so that it would have an adverse impact on African-Americans and Latinos when it comes to exercising the right to vote.”
“Absolutely,” he continued, “Texas is not in any position to say that we can live in a post-Section 5 world.”
Texas is not alone in this regard. Mississippi, Alabama, and Virginia, which were covered under the Voting Rights Act, all have voter ID laws on the books that were never precleared and will be ready to implement by the 2014 election.
Republican-controlled North Carolina, which had 40 of its counties subject to the VRA’s preclearance, additionally passed the most restrictive voting laws yet exactly one month after the court decision. These plans include cutting early voting by a week in spite of 56% of voters using early voting, preventing counties from extending voting hours due to long lines (which may be exacerbated by a shortened early voting period), eliminating same-day registration, imposing a voter ID law and decreasing the types of ID that are acceptable such as student IDs from colleges and government employee IDs. According to data as recent as April 2013, 34% of the state’s registered black voters don’t have the state-issued photo IDs necessary to vote under this law as well as 55% of North Carolina Democrats. Only 21% of Republicans have this problem.
There is pushback to all of this. Attorney General Eric Holder has utilized Section 3 of the VRA to ask federal courts to pull Texas back under federal oversight in lieu of the voter ID law that has already been proven to have a disparate impact. Among other issues, protesters have participated in rallies known as Moral Mondays outside of the North Carolina legislature for a dozen weeks and called for them not to pass their restrictive voter laws.
However, all of this is moot without Congress. Although it is true that a person can sue against a law that they find discriminatory, under the current reactionary system that person will have to shoulder the burden of proof in their case and most likely will only finish their litigation after their election is over. Furthermore, inequitable practice will likely return at a rate that may leave those citizens who can file suit feeling like they are playing Whack-A-Mole. Unless our representatives can create a new formula to reinstate Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act, all of the states that were once subject to it will have free-reign to implement voting laws that disenfranchise our most vulnerable voters.
Both as an African-American and a Californian, this issue hits home for me. In 2008, on the same night that America got its first African-American president, a prospect that would have been impossible without the VRA, California’s Prop 8 passed and ended same-sex marriages in my state. Five years later, in the same week that Prop 8 would be overruled, voting rights for millions of people of color were put in jeopardy.
With these events happening in tandem, I cannot help but think of the black gay teens I know. Due to this ruling, there are now LGBT+ girls and boys across this nation who now not only cannot marry but also have their right to vote for lawmakers who can represent them in the fight for marriage equality threatened. As Emersonians who come from all across this country and the world, the struggle of people fighting for basic equality should be our concern.
On June 25th, 2013, though, that all changed. Effectively gutting the Voting Rights Act in the 5-4 decision of Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court tossed back to Congress Section 4(b) of the VRA, which established a formula for which jurisdictions needed preclearance for their voting laws, due to their majority opinion that the data was obsolete. Furthermore, their mantra continued that things have changed dramatically in this nation since 1965. They seemingly made no mention of the 15,000+ pages of evidence that Congress compiled when reauthorizing the act in 2006 with overwhelming majorities, however. Nor did those in the majority opinion make note of the fact that the act had been used 74 times to block disparate treatment or impact only going back as far as 2000.
Less than two hours after the decision, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said that his state would “immediately” be putting forward a voter ID law that was previously blocked in 2012 by the VRA and federal courts as racially discriminatory when it was found to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Hispanic voters at rates more than twice that of white voters. Similarly, he left the future open to re-establish a 2010 redistricting plan that was halted after it was used to strengthen district control for white lawmakers, who did not lose a single seat during that state election, at the expense of black lawmakers who awoke to find their districts taken from them.
These procedural alterations come at a time when changing demographics pose a threat to Republican-controlled red states and the future of the Republican Party. From 2000 to 2010, for example, Texas was the fasting growing state in the nation with 89% of its growth coming from Hispanic and African-American populations – populations that traditionally vote for Democrats.
When asked if he thinks Texas should be under the special scrutiny of the VRA on The Rachel Maddow Show, Rep. Marc Veasey (D-TX) began by saying that during his four terms in the state legislature he had seen “some of the worse discrimination, as far as public policy, coming from Republicans trying to implement that public policy so that it would have an adverse impact on African-Americans and Latinos when it comes to exercising the right to vote.”
“Absolutely,” he continued, “Texas is not in any position to say that we can live in a post-Section 5 world.”
Texas is not alone in this regard. Mississippi, Alabama, and Virginia, which were covered under the Voting Rights Act, all have voter ID laws on the books that were never precleared and will be ready to implement by the 2014 election.
Republican-controlled North Carolina, which had 40 of its counties subject to the VRA’s preclearance, additionally passed the most restrictive voting laws yet exactly one month after the court decision. These plans include cutting early voting by a week in spite of 56% of voters using early voting, preventing counties from extending voting hours due to long lines (which may be exacerbated by a shortened early voting period), eliminating same-day registration, imposing a voter ID law and decreasing the types of ID that are acceptable such as student IDs from colleges and government employee IDs. According to data as recent as April 2013, 34% of the state’s registered black voters don’t have the state-issued photo IDs necessary to vote under this law as well as 55% of North Carolina Democrats. Only 21% of Republicans have this problem.
There is pushback to all of this. Attorney General Eric Holder has utilized Section 3 of the VRA to ask federal courts to pull Texas back under federal oversight in lieu of the voter ID law that has already been proven to have a disparate impact. Among other issues, protesters have participated in rallies known as Moral Mondays outside of the North Carolina legislature for a dozen weeks and called for them not to pass their restrictive voter laws.
However, all of this is moot without Congress. Although it is true that a person can sue against a law that they find discriminatory, under the current reactionary system that person will have to shoulder the burden of proof in their case and most likely will only finish their litigation after their election is over. Furthermore, inequitable practice will likely return at a rate that may leave those citizens who can file suit feeling like they are playing Whack-A-Mole. Unless our representatives can create a new formula to reinstate Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act, all of the states that were once subject to it will have free-reign to implement voting laws that disenfranchise our most vulnerable voters.
Both as an African-American and a Californian, this issue hits home for me. In 2008, on the same night that America got its first African-American president, a prospect that would have been impossible without the VRA, California’s Prop 8 passed and ended same-sex marriages in my state. Five years later, in the same week that Prop 8 would be overruled, voting rights for millions of people of color were put in jeopardy.
With these events happening in tandem, I cannot help but think of the black gay teens I know. Due to this ruling, there are now LGBT+ girls and boys across this nation who now not only cannot marry but also have their right to vote for lawmakers who can represent them in the fight for marriage equality threatened. As Emersonians who come from all across this country and the world, the struggle of people fighting for basic equality should be our concern.