Extend the Voting Rights Act

Saturday, August 6, marks the fortieth anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson's signing into law of the Voting Rights Act, considered by many to be the most comprehensive civil rights law ever passed. The act provides protection for voters against actions taken by states to limit participation in the electoral process, actions most often targeted toward black, Hispanic, and low-income citizens. The law banned literacy tests and the other barriers that southern states had erected since blacks won the vote in 1870. And in the three years after it passed, more than a million new nonwhite voters cast ballots in southern states.

As The Nation's unsigned editorial said this week, "By tearing down the barriers to equal opportunity at the ballot box, the act removed the essential political mechanisms that maintained segregation and white supremacy." Several key provisions of the act expire in 2007, however, and Rev. Jackson, the NAACP and the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition are taking the lead in campaigning for their renewal.

Click here to read a stirring speech given by Jackson to the NAACP convention a few weeks ago, click here to see how you can help and click here to read the actual text of the act itself.

These days, with each of the last two presidential elections marred by accounts of black voters being intentionally disenfranchised, the renewal--and strengthening--of the Voting Rights Act is more critical than ever. So let's honor the proud anniversary of this act by extending its promise forty years later.

Comments (15)

1. I'm sorry...but is there REALLY some "danger" that even a Republican Congress isn't going to re-new the VRA? and essentially throw a big hunk of 'red meat' to the Democratic base for 2006?

   Posted by Mask at 08/05/2005 @ 11:23am

2. ABSOLUTELY NOT..IT WILL BE RENEWED OF COURSE...THIS IS THE NUTTY LEFT GRASPING FOR STRAWS AS USUAL AND MR. ROTHBERG WRITING ANOTHER LAME ARTICAL THAT RAISES THE USUAL STRAW MEN...SO WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU?????PATHETIC NO IDEAS BITTER OUT OF POWER CRY BABIES IN SEARCH OF ATTENTION ANYWAY THEY CAN GET IT

   Posted by aludra at 08/05/2005 @ 11:31am

3. Are you familiar with the criticism of some of the newer voting machines? Seems to me that low tech is the way to go. Mail in ballots, counted by hand over two weeks. More reliabe, paper trail, and inexpensive. This would eliminate both sides from screwing voters out of thier voice.

   Posted by wereverywhere at 08/05/2005 @ 12:13pm

4. "ABSOLUTELY NOT..IT WILL BE RENEWED OF COURSE...THIS IS THE NUTTY LEFT GRASPING FOR STRAWS AS USUAL AND MR. ROTHBERG WRITING ANOTHER LAME ARTICAL THAT RAISES THE USUAL STRAW MEN...SO WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU?????PATHETIC NO IDEAS BITTER OUT OF POWER CRY BABIES IN SEARCH OF ATTENTION ANYWAY THEY CAN GET IT"

   wow. i think i've changed my mind about universal sufferage.

   Posted by dabar at 08/05/2005 @ 12:20pm

5. Or Mr. Rothberg is simply calling attention to the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. It's served as both bedrock and precedent legislation for the voting rights of non-white citizens of this country. I didn't read one claim by Mr Rothberg of a republican coup to undermine extending the Voting Rights Act (while undermining voting rights on election day may be a different story). ALLUDRA your absurd paranoia seems to be getting the better of you once again.

   Posted by BSF at 08/05/2005 @ 12:25pm

6. " Roberts is not a friend of the VRA"

   MORE SILLY RANTINGS FROM A TOTAL NITWIT

   Posted by aludra at 08/05/2005 @ 12:44pm

7. Voter supression on election day. You mean by the left - correct?

   I don't think it was republicans that were slashing tires (ohio I believe).

   Posted by USAPRIDE at 08/05/2005 @ 1:14pm

8. Robert

   If only the Party of Nixon had even a shred of a soul left. Greedy, government of the people hateing, evangelic conservatives advocate for placing the money changers back into the temple by making republican America Killing tax cuts permanent. Tyranical, government of the people hating, evangelic conservatives advocate a war against God's mechanism of freedom and liberty, The US Constitution, by making permanent the "patriot act" assault on American liberties. Despicable, government of the people hating, evangelic conservatives show us, once again, their true face as the Butt-Boys for Beelzebub by ignoring the voting rights act or at the very least only extending it until they can achieve a permenent evangelic majority, and then kill all our rights to vote. The teachings of the Nazerene tell us we should love our neighbors as we love ourselves. If we Liberals as men and women of faith and good conscience, love and cherish our own right to vote, than we must also love and cherish our neighbors right to vote. We must obstruct at every turn the evangelic infusion into the faith of America. We must extend the Voting Right Act, permanently.

   Posted by Will C. at 08/05/2005 @ 2:30pm

9. aLSO MOST OF THE VOTER PROBLEMS WERE IN DEMOCRATIC DISTRICTS....INCOMPETENT DIMS..THATS WHY THEY MUST NEVER BE TRUSTED WITH POWER

   Posted by aludra at 08/05/2005 @ 3:56pm

10. Look, they may technically renew the VRA [movingideas.org] but attach unnecessary and unhelpful riders to the bill.

    Posted by MJQ at 08/05/2005 @ 4:18pm

11. Zero,

    your comments are misleading. Lets put the whole issue in context using first the excerpt I have inserted:

    After a 1980 Supreme Court decision, Mobile v. Bolden, dramatically weakaned certain sections of the Voting Rights Act, Roberts was involved in the administration's effort to prevent Congress from to making it easier for minorities to successfully argue that their votes had been diluted under the Voting Rights Act by the ruling. The Supreme Court had decided, despite a lack of textual basis for this interpretation of the statute, that plaintiffs claiming certain violations of the Voting Rights Act, such as minority vote dilution, had to prove that the discrimination was intentional rather than just having a discriminatory effect. Roberts joined the Administration in opposing the "Section 2" extension of the Act, strongly supported by both the House and the Republican-controlled Senate, which would have reinstated the effects standard. Instead, he participated in the effort to amend the extension of the Act so that voting rights plaintiffs would continue to have to prove discriminatory intent, a much harder task. As the Washington Post stated:

    Congress was attempting (and did successfully) to insert new language into the VRA because in 1980, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 (a moderate to liberal court I might add) to strike down a portion of the VRA. Roberts agreed with Reagan that the Supreme Court was correct thus his efforts.

    He was not trying to eliminate the VRA!

    I thought liberals were all about upholding Supreme Court decisions? Here was Roberts doing just that and now liberals are upset that he did what they like..Oh, I guess it does depend on the issue, rather than principle. And Republicans are blasted when they attempt to use a similar standard.

    Posted by love liberty at 08/05/2005 @ 5:05pm

12. I agree with Will C we need make the entire VRA permanent.Some in Congress say that Section 5 is irrelevant,a "relic of an unjust past".That past is as recent as 2000 and 2004.Access to the polls was discriminatory in several states in counties where minorities are prevelant.Section 5 requires that states with a history of discrimination submit any changes in their voting systems for review.Several sections of the act are due to expire including section 5.The entire act should be made permanent as,unfortunately,there will always be discrimination in this country.

    Posted by BusyHands at 08/07/2005 @ 03:42am

13. If anything we need to expand the VRA after the debacle in 2000 and the "shady doings" in 2004 (ref HERE [en.wikipedia.org]) Sure, there is some ranting (on both sides) but there are also real issues as well. We need a a safe and fair voting system and at this time, in some areas, we have neither. We need the VRA + actual reform. A smidgen of campaign finanace reform wouldn't hurt either!

    Posted by leftofcenter at 08/08/2005 @ 09:41am

14. I would like to second the post by WEREVERYWHERE 08/05/2005 @ 12:13am But not just paper ballots, absentee ballots for the whole nation. Honestly, DIEBOLD, who dreamed that up!

    Posted by gaiasfool at 08/08/2005 @ 3:51pm

15. ALUDRA makes a good point, interestingly enough.

    If you look at where there were long lines, messed up ballots, butterfly ballots, untrained poll workers, etc.

    It was almost always in predominantly democratic areas. Mostly big cities.

    So the question is, who is responsible for disenfranchising those voters?

    I live in an area where there was 97% turnout on election day. There were no lines at the polls. Took 5 minutes to vote.

    Where I live, the Republican party predominates, and it is republican apointees who make the rules and oversee the polls.

    Where there are all those problems, the democratic party predominates, and it is their apointees and they who oversee the polls and decide things like how many poll workers, how many voting booths, etc.

    Obviously the democrat local politicians are either incompetent, or indifferent to the needs of the voters.

    In either case, the solution is simple.

    Elect republicans. They may not do the "right thing", but at least they can do the thing right.

    Posted by jonb at 08/14/2005 @ 7:30pm