GOP Seeks to Overturn Historic Civil Rights Law

Voting Rights Under Attack
Friday, September 7, 2012 by Common Dreams

Civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) told the audience at the Democratic National Convention Thursday night, “we have come too far together to ever turn back,” warning that Republican-led voter suppression laws are taking America back to the days when states had the right to deny voting capabilities to minority voters. Voting rights for minority voters continue to come under attack as Republican leaders are now turning to the Supreme Court to overturn historic civil rights legislation.

Several federal judges recently struck down voter suppression laws in multiple states, introduced by Republican legislators and governors, such as voter identification laws, provisional voting restrictions, limits on voter registration drives, and reduced availability for early voting.

The court rulings in Florida, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin, marked a widespread rejection of so called 'voter fraud' legislation, which seeks to greatly limit who can and cannot vote.

However, as Chris McGreal at the Guardian reports today, "Several state governments are [now] looking to the conservative-leaning supreme court, which has already expressed its doubts about racially-based policy," in order to overturn these rulings. This step would seek to challenge the historic Voter Rights Act of 1965, which gave the federal government some control over voting rules in states with a history of blocking African Americans from voting.

In question is Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires "pre-clearance" for nine states – Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia – before making changes to voting laws or procedures.

Civil rights leaders and activists have expressed concern over whether the Supreme Court will actually uphold this anti-discrimination law.

"The question is not whether Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act will be struck down, but when and how. Will it die a death of a thousand cuts? Or will it be killed with one swift blow?" Nathaniel Persily, a Columbia University law professor, told the Guardian.

"There has been a proliferation of cases that aim to take down and rip out this core provision of the Voting Rights Act," said Debo Adegbile, acting president and lead counsel of the NAACP legal defense fund. "I think it's fair to say that the supreme court invited these challenges."

Speaking to the DNC Thursday, Lewis continued:

Brothers and sisters, do you want to go back? Or do you want to keep America moving forward? My dear friends, your vote is precious, almost sacred. It is the most powerful, nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union. Not too long ago, people stood in unmovable lines. They had to pass a so-called literacy test, pay a poll tax. On one occasion, a man was asked to count the number of bubbles in a bar of soap. On another occasion, one was asked to count the jelly beans in a jar—all to keep them from casting their ballots.

Today it is unbelievable that there are Republican officials still trying to stop some people from voting. They are changing the rules, cutting polling hours and imposing requirements intended to suppress the vote. The Republican leader in the Pennsylvania House even bragged that his state’s new voter ID law is “gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state.” That’s not right. That’s not fair. That’s not just.

On Eve of Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, Arizona Sues to Overturn Voting Rights Act

(Oh Arizona...1860 called. They want their simple-minded lunacy back. If there are any rational people living in Arizona, could you please man up and take your state back from the backward and clueless who are trying to send you back a century or more in the past. It has to be so embarrassing for you. Get off your asses and take back your state. Otherwise, we'll be forced to nuke Arizona from orbit...to be safe.--jef)

Friday, August 26, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

by Jeff Biggers

 

It took years for Arizona to recover from right-wing Governor Evan Mecham’s disgraceful act to rescind the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday in 1989.

Now, on the eve of the unveiling of the national memorial to the civil rights leader in Washington, DC, Attorney General Tom Horne has joined a lone county in Alabama to make Arizona the first state to file a suit against the Obama administration to strike down parts of the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965 — spurred by the horrific violence encountered by King and civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama — as unconstitutional.

“President Lyndon Johnson’s high spirits were marked as he circulated among the many guests whom he had invited to witness an event he confidently felt to be historic, the signing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act,” King wrote. “The bill that lay on the polished mahogany desk was born in violence in Selma, Alabama, where a stubborn sheriff … had stumbled against the future.”

Claiming that sections of the Voting Rights Act are “either archaic, not based in fact,” Horne has indeed stumbled against his own future and Arizona’s unfinished history of voting rights violations.

Horne, of course, is infamous in Arizona for his controversial witch hunt and eventual ban of bilingual education and the acclaimed Mexican American Studies Program in Tucson. The Attorney General has openly lied in the past about his history of bankruptcy and has the unique distinction of being banned forever from the Securities and Exchanges Commission after he “willfully aided and abetted” securities law violations.

His law suit this week marches in step with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and her Arizona Gone Wild legislature’s obsession to defy federal authority over gun laws, health care, immigration policy, and border security.

US Attorney General Eric Holder immediately responded to Horne’s suit: “The Department of Justice will vigorously defend the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act in this case, as it has done successfully in the past.”

Despite the fact that President George W. Bush signed the Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act in 2006, it clearly rankles Horne to be included as “covered jurisdictions” among Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia and a handful of others states for “preclearance,” which requires Department of Justice approval for any changes in election policy, practices or administrative functions.

Echoing the state’s right mantra of notorious State Senate President Russell Pearce, who is currently embroiled in a recall election, Horne declared in his suit: “The State of Arizona is a sovereign state within the United States of America.”

The Canadian-immigrant Horne, who likes to claim that he attended the historic March on Washington in 1963, could benefit from a conversation with Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) on the deadly violence during the “Bloody Sunday marches” in Selma, Alabama in 1965, which led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act.

Horne could also benefit from a lesson in Arizona voting rights history — and present reality.
In preparation for the reauthorization vote in 2006, an extensive report by Arizona State University researchers on Arizona’s voting rights record from 1982-2006 cited numerous violations and concluded: “Arizona’s record since 1982, when the temporary provisions were last reauthorized, shows that the state still has a long way to go.”
It gets worse.

Last fall, a report by Common Cause ranked Arizona at the bottom of swing states for the worst voting laws. According to Tova Wang, author of the report, the strained atmosphere behind Arizona’s notorious SB 1070 “papers please” immigration law was just the beginning of larger voter irregularities: “One of the biggest concerns in this election, especially in Arizona, is that the ugly immigration debate will be leveraged into the elections and the voting process. We are worried about the use of vote suppression tactics such as challenges at the polls and bogus charges of noncitizen voting being used as a way to impose obstacles to voting that could affect a wide range of voters, but primarily people of color. Just the climate that has been created could have an impact on its own.”

Here are some of the “notable obstacles” to voter participation in Arizona:

Citizens must register to vote a full 29 days prior to the election, which could block some Arizonans from participating.

Restoration of voting rights is only available to individuals with a single felony conviction. Persons with two or more felonies are permanently disenfranchised. Not only is it problematic that many people who have served their time are disenfranchised, but the distinction between single and multiple offenders confuses even election officials, leading to the potential disenfranchisement of people who should have their rights restored.

Arizona is the only state that requires proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. Many citizens are not able to produce such documentary proof.

All voters must present either one form of photo ID or two forms of non-photo ID. If the voter does not have what the poll worker deems the requisite identification, he is forced to cast a provisional ballot. Some voters will not have the necessary ID.

Voters who cast conditional provisional ballots must provide proper identification to the county recorder within three to five business days in order for the ballot to be counted. Provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct will not be counted.
Arizona’s laws regarding challengers at the polling site are lax: voters may be challenged by any qualified elector of the same county and standards for initiating challenge procedures are low.

The absence of specific laws targeting deceptive practices such as dissemination of misinformation about the electoral process leaves voters vulnerable to confusion and disenfranchisement.

Arizona has historically had inadequate outreach to certain language minority communities covered by the Voting Rights Act, and gaps in coverage for qualified and trained bilingual poll workers.

GOP Push to Tighten Voting Rules May Disenfranchise Young, Poor

 (So what's your voter registration card good for now? Nothing?--jef)

by: Lizette Alvarez, The New York Times News Service
Sunday 29 May 2011

Miami - Less than 18 months before the next presidential election, Republican-controlled statehouses around the country are rewriting voting laws to require photo identification at the polls, reduce the number of days of early voting or tighten registration rules.

Republican legislators say the new rules, which have advanced in 13 states in the past two months, offer a practical way to weed out fraudulent votes and preserve the integrity of the ballot box. Democrats say the changes have little to do with fraud prevention and more to do with placing obstacles in the way of possible Democratic voters, including young people and minorities.

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas signed laws last week that would require each voter to show an official, valid photo ID to cast a ballot, joining Kansas and South Carolina.

In Florida, which already had a photo law, Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill this month to tighten restrictions on third-party voter registration organizations — prompting the League of Women Voters to say it would cease registering voters in the state — and to shorten the number of early voting days. Twelve states now require photo identification to vote.

The battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania are among those moving ahead on voter ID bills, part of a trend that seems likely to intensify the kind of pitched partisan jousting over voting that has cropped up in recent presidential races.

When voters in predominantly black neighborhoods in Florida saw their votes challenged in the contested Bush-Gore election of 2000, Democrats made charges of disenfranchisement. In 2008 Acorn, a group organizing minority and low-income communities, became a particular target, with Republicans asserting that Acorn was trying to steal the election with large voter-registration drives, some of which were found to be seriously flawed.

Democrats, who point to scant evidence of voter-impersonation fraud, say the unified Republican push for photo identification cards carries echoes of the Jim Crow laws — with their poll taxes and literacy tests — that inhibited black voters in the South from Reconstruction through the 1960s. Election experts say minorities, poor people and students — who tend to skew Democratic — are among those least likely to have valid driver’s licenses, the most prevalent form of identification. Older people, another group less likely to have licenses, are swing voters.

Republicans argue that the requirements are commonplace.

“If you have to show a picture ID to buy Sudafed, if you have to show a picture ID to get on an airplane, you should show a picture ID when you vote,” Gov. Nikki Haley said this month when she signed the bill into law in South Carolina, using a common refrain among Republicans.

Changes to voter law tend to flow and ebb with election cycles as both Democrats and Republicans scramble to gain the upper hand when they hold power. The 2010 midterm election was a boon to Republicans, who now control 59 chambers of state legislatures and 29 governorships. In some states, like Florida and Texas, Republicans hold overwhelming majorities. This has allowed the bills to move forward.

Republicans have tried for years to get photo identification requirements and other changes through legislatures, said Daniel Tokaji, a law professor at Ohio State University and an expert in election law. Similar bills were introduced over the past decade, but were largely derailed in the aftermath of a political battle over the Bush administration’s firing of several United States attorneys whom Republicans had criticized for failing to aggressively investigate voter fraud.

“That’s what really killed the momentum of more states’ enacting voter ID laws,” Mr. Tokaji said. “Now with the last elections, with the strong Republican majorities in a lot of states, we’re seeing a rejuvenation > Republicans say that large jumps in the immigrant population have also prompted them to act to safeguard elections.

“Over the last 20 years, we have seen Florida grow quite rapidly, and we have such a mix of populations,” said State Representative Dennis K. Baxley, the Florida Republican who wrote the law to tighten third-party registration here. “When we fail to protect every ballot, we disenfranchise people who participate legitimately.”

Taken together, the state-by-state changes are likely to have an impact on close elections, Mr. Tokaji said.

“Remarkably, most of these significant changes are going under the radar,” he added. “A lot of voters are going to be surprised and dismayed when they go to their polling place and find that the rules have changed.”

Most of the measures would require people to show a form of official, valid identification to vote. While driver’s licenses are the most common form, voters can also request free photo IDs from the Department of Motor Vehicles or use a passport or military identification, among other things.

But Democrats say thousands of people in each state do not have these. The extra step, they add, will discourage some voters who will have to pay to retrieve documents, like birth certificates, for proof to obtain a free card. If voters do not have the proper identification on Election Day, they can cast provisional ballots in most states but must return several days later to a local board of elections office with an ID.

A few state bills and laws also shave the number of early voting days, a move that Democrats say would impact Democratic voters once again. In the 2008 presidential election, a majority of those who cast early votes did so for President Obama. In Florida, the number of days is reduced but the number of hours remains the same.

Democrats point to state figures showing that there are few proven cases of voter impersonation and question why budget-conscious Republicans would want to spend taxpayer dollars on a problem that is isolated.

“There is not one documented case that has been presented to us, and we had numerous hearings,” said State Senator Brad Hutto of South Carolina, a Democrat. “Republicans have to have some reason to do this because it doesn’t sound good to say, ‘We don’t want Latinos or African-Americans voting.’ ”

But Republicans counter that detecting and proving voter impersonation is tricky under current law precisely because few states require photo identification. Plus, they add, there is no evidence that the requirement reduces minority participation. In Georgia, where photo IDs became a requirement in 2007, minorities voted in record numbers in 2008 and 2010.

Turnout among Hispanic voters jumped 140 percent in the state in 2008 and 42 percent among blacks compared with 2004, a change attributed in part to President Obama’s candidacy. Two years later, in the midterm election, turnout also rose among Hispanics and African-Americans, according to data from the Georgia secretary of state.

But with the presidential election campaign season already under way, Democrats say they are taking no chances. The Democratic Governors Association started a Voter Protection Project this month to educate voters and encourage them to speak out against the measures. It also began running online advertisements.

Disenfranchisement as Political Repression

The New Jim Crow
By DAVID MACARAY

In the U.S., if you’re caught boosting cars, robbing liquor stores, or attempting to escape reality by injecting heroin into your veins, you not only go to jail, but you lose your right to vote. And you don’t just lose it for the time you’re incarcerated; it’s still gone when you get out. This abrogation of voting rights is referred to as “disenfranchisement.”

Contrast this with the way Israel and Ireland treat their prisoners. Not only are convicted felons allowed to resume voting once they’ve been released, they’re allowed to vote while behind bars. Israeli and Irish courts have reached the enlightened conclusion that prisoners may have an even greater stake in the political process than free citizens.

There are only two U.S. states—Vermont and Maine—that allow convicted felons to vote while incarcerated. The other 48 expressly prohibit it. Some states enforce the restriction until the ex-felon is off parole; Delaware extends the period to 5 years after release. In some states, a dishonorable discharge from the military is considered a felony, making it a disenfranchisement offense.

Remarkably, in some states, a single felony conviction can result in permanent disenfranchisement. A person who gets caught shooting heroin in Kentucky not only goes to prison and carries forever the stigma of being an ex-jailbird (try getting a job with that on your resume), but can be prohibited from voting for the rest of his life.

Other countries tend to be more generous. In addition to the examples of Israel and Ireland, Germany generally imposes disenfranchisement only when the offense involves treason or other state crimes, and China, which is regularly portrayed as this stern and inscrutable dictatorship, usually evokes it only when the crime involves something “political,” such as corruption or election fraud.

But the situation in the U.S. could change soon. Because a disproportionately large number of African Americans are incarcerated (and stripped of their voting rights), these statutes could be struck down. With Justice Sonia Sotomayor expected to lead the charge, the Supreme Court could soon be re-examining U.S. disenfranchisement laws.

And if a re-examination takes place, it is very likely to occur within the context of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (1965), which prohibits the passage of any law that “….results [italics added] in the denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the U.S. to vote on account of race or color.”

The number of African Americans in prison is not only staggering, it’s come to be viewed by much of the world as a form of institutionalized discrimination. Indeed, this wholesale incarceration of African Americans, particularly young black men, has been referred to as the “New Jim Crow.”

Drug sentences for black Americans—whose only crime, if we’re willing to look at it objectively, is wanting to get high—are far more common and far stiffer than for whites, and that stark fact, along with the accompanying disenfranchisement, is the basis of the discrimination challenge under the Voting Rights Act.

The majority of incarcerated African Americans are not doing time for violent crimes (defined by the FBI as murder, rape and aggravated assault). Like most inmates, they’re in there for drug offenses. In fact, if we released all inmates—black, white and Latino—who are doing time for drug offenses or probation/parole violations related to those offenses, our prisons would practically be emptied out.

In summary: (1) Much of the world believes incarceration should not result in forfeiture of one’s right to choose political representatives; (2) U.S. drug laws are weighted against African Americans; and (3) a civic-minded junkie would be advised to shoot up in Dublin, not Louisville.