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DATE: July 7, 2006
TO: Concerned Parties
FROM: Bruce Gordon, President and
CEO
Hilary O. Shelton, Director,
Washington Bureau
VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965 REAUTHORIZATION AND
RESTORATION BILL SCHEDLUED TO COME TO THE HOUSE
FLOOR JULY 13
NAACP URGES SWIFT PASSAGE OF H.R. 9 WITH NO
AMENDMENTS
THE ISSUE:
On
Thursday,
July 13, 2006,
the full House of Representatives is expected to
consider H.R. 9, the
Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott
King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and
Amendments Act of 2006.
This is the same bill that was scheduled to be
brought up in June but was hijacked by a group
of extremists, many of whom represent areas of
states with some of the most egregious
violations of the Voting Rights Act.
The NAACP strongly supports this legislation and
is urging every member of the House to support a
"clean" bill and
oppose all amendments.
The bill that is being considered by the entire
House next week is the product of months of
intense hearings and is supported by members of
both parties in the House and the Senate. The
hearings demonstrated conclusively that barriers
to equal minority voter protection remain in the
United States today. Specifically, the
legislation would reauthorize and restore
expiring portions of the 1965 Voting Rights
Act. The NAACP strongly supports this
legislation, H.R. 9,
the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks and Coretta
Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and
Amendments Act of 2006.
Despite the fact that African Americans and
other racial and ethnic minority Americans are
guaranteed the right to vote by the 15th
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was
passed just after the Civil War in 1870, states
and local municipalities continued to use
tactics such as poll taxes, literacy tests and
outright intimidation to stop people from
casting free and unfettered ballots. Thus the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted to insure
that no federal, state or local government may
in any way impede people from registering to
vote or voting because of their race or
ethnicity. Most provisions in the Voting Rights
Act of 1965, and specifically the portions that
guarantee that no one may be denied the right to
vote because of his or her race or color, are
permanent.
There are, however, 3 enforcement-related
provisions of the Voting Rights Act that will
expire in August 2007 unless reauthorized. The
first is
Section 5, which requires certain jurisdictions to obtain approval
or "preclearance" from the US Department of
Justice or the US District Court in D.C. before
they can make any changes to voting practices or
procedures. The second provision that is due to
expire is
Section 203, which requires certain jurisdictions to provide
bilingual language assistance to voters in
communities where there is a concentration of
citizens who are limited English proficient.
The third expiring provisions are those in
Sections 6-9
which authorize the federal government to send
federal election examiners and observers to
certain jurisdictions covered by Section 5 where
there is evidence of attempts to intimidate
minority voters at the polls. The hearings held
in 2005 and 2006 in the House and Senate have
found a new generation of tactics, including
at-large elections, annexations, last minute
poll place changes and redistricting which have
had a discriminatory impact on voters,
especially racial and ethnic minority American
voters. Thus S. 2703 / H.R. 9 was introduced to
reauthorize the portions of the VRA that will
expire next year and allow the federal
government to address these new challenges.
Please click
here to view the
entire Action Alert.
The NAACP urges all members and friends to reach
out to their Representatives in the next few
days and urge them to pass a clean bill and to
REJECT ALL AMENDMENTS.
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