More Voting Shenannigans

I posted about this a little while ago. (Bolds mine)

Chances of Voting Rights Act Renewal Dim

WASHINGTON - A conservative backlash to the massive street demonstrations over immigration is aggravating Republican leaders' carefully orchestrated plans to renew the landmark Voting Rights Act before the fall elections.

After Latinos came out in greater force than they have in decades to protest a House-passed immigration bill, conservatives persuaded Republican leaders not to force a vote last month to extend for 25 years the law that requires bilingual ballots in precincts with large non-English-speaking populations.

They joined with a group of Southern Republicans who object to extending the law's requirement that nine states have federal oversight decades after they quit hindering blacks' access to voting booths through Jim Crow laws.

[...]

Immigration and civil rights groups and lawmakers who support them are mobilized for a fight over what they see as the latest in a long history of attempts to undercut burgeoning political influence of racial minorities.

"The historical record suggests that when minority communities are in a position to exercise political power, efforts to limit that exercise of power follow," said Debo Adegbile, associate director of litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Since 1975, the Voting Rights Act has required ballots and other election assistance in languages other than English in jurisdictions where at least 5 percent of voting-age citizens are not proficient in English and literacy rates are below the national average.

As part of its immigration debate earlier this year, the Senate voted to make English the official national language. That effort has flowed into Voting Rights Act deliberations, even though the law applies only to American citizens.

Opponents say renewing the requirement to provide election assistance in other languages discourages people from learning English and is unconstitutional.

It's very simple. If you are an American citizen, and you wish to vote, you should be able to have your ballot and election materials in your preferred language. Period. There is absolutely no reason to go "English only," other than bigotry and discriminatory practices.

Some Republicans also have pushed for changes that require nine states — Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia — to get "pre-clearance" from the Justice Department before making any voting or election changes.

Well, here's something I can agree with. But I don't think the "pre-clearance" requirement should be scrapped; it should apply to all fifty states. Simply scrapping the requirement opens the gate to too many dirty tricks. Just because "they quit hindering blacks' access to voting booths through Jim Crow laws" for years doesn't mean it can't and won't happen again.

Civil rights activists see a recurring pattern. The post-Civil War era of Reconstruction brought for newly freed blacks a chance to vote, own land, get an education and participate in the political process. But many states passed Jim Crow laws segregating public places and denying ballots to blacks through literacy tests and poll taxes until passage of the 1965 law.

What followed its enactment were new efforts to weaken or dilute the effect of minority voters through redistricting and new voter registration rules, said the NAACP legal defense fund's Adegbile. "This is well-trodden ground," he said.

Just two weeks ago, the Supreme Court struck down a 2003 redrawing of a Texas congressional district by Republican designers who carved out 100,000 Hispanic voters and replaced them with 100,000 white voters to ensure the re-election of Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-Texas.

The court said the move trampled on Hispanics' voting rights as they were becoming a political force in the district.

That is exactly why this is so important. Republicans, realizing they're losing the support of Hispanics, are doing everything possible to strip them of their voting power. If we remove the safety measures we have in place to keep citizens from being disenfranchised, more and more people are going to suddenly find that their vote isn't valid, if it can be cast at all.

And I guarantee these people won't be white Republicans.

UPDATE: Rachel Perrone of the ACLU contacted me with their response letter regarding Rep. Westmoreland using their VRA report to back up his claims stating there aren't any problems in Georgia, and that Section 5 should be expanded nationwide. I'll post the PDF (when I figure out how), but here is the relevant portion that she provided to me:

Any proposal to apply Section 5 nationwide is not meant to strengthen the VRA, but instead would be a “poison pill.” Currently, Section 5 is specifically directed at preclearing the voting changes of jurisdictions with both a history and continuing record of discriminating against racial and language minority voters. Over 12,000 pages of House and Senate testimony strongly support the continuing need for the expiring provisions of the VRA in the currently covered states. Making Section 5 apply nationwide, to states and localities without a similarly long and documented history of voting abuses against minorities, would make the statute overly broad and unable to meet the Supreme Court’s requirements that Section 5 be “narrowly tailored” and “congruent and proportional” to address the specific harms the VRA is designed to cure. It is critical that Section 5 and its coverage formula stay intact.

If Georgia officials feel the current coverage formula reaches states and localities that do not discriminate in voting, the bailout provision of the VRA works to ensure that the scope of Section 5 is not overbroad or otherwise constitutionally flawed. Congress designed the bailout formula to allow a jurisdiction that could demonstrate it had taken sufficient steps to remove bars to minority enfranchisement to be released from preclearance. All jurisdictions that have attempted to bailout from coverage since the last reauthorization have been able to do so successfully. If Georgia no longer discriminates against its minority voters, it can be removed from coverage. Unfortunately, the truth is that Georgia simply does not currently qualify as eligible to bailout from Section 5."

(Video killed the cross-post star...)