Posted on 11/15/2005 1:47:16 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
The question of how much longer a handful of states — most in the South, including Georgia — will be relegated to second-class status in our own country is pending before the U.S. Congress.
At issue is extension of expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — specifically, Section 5, that 40 years later continues, without any basis whatsoever — to punish living Georgians for the sins of the dead.
The irony, in fact, is that not only are most of the offenders dead, but their party has been ousted from power and many of those who govern now either weren't old enough to vote or weren't living in this state four decades ago.
House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) was a 5-year-old when Democrats in one-party Georgia were denying blacks the right to vote. President Pro Tem Eric Johnson, 53, the state Senate's most powerful member, didn't even arrive in Georgia until he was 25 — a dozen years after the act was passed. Gov. Sonny Perdue, who is 58, was just old enough to vote.
Under the ostensibly temporary Section 5, due to expire in 2007, prior approval must be obtained from the U.S. Department of Justice for any change in voting standards, practices or procedures in Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, Alaska and Arizona. A handful of counties and townships elsewhere are also covered.
It is a form of martial law selectively applied. And yet, the odds are strong that the U.S. Congress will extend pre-clearance requirement, even though the original justification is no longer valid.
Ronald Keith Gaddie, a professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma and author or co-author of eight books on American politics, is an expert on racial pattern voting in states covered by the Voting Rights Act. He and University of Georgia professor Charles S. Bullock III have done extensive research on changes in Southern states since the act's passage. Gaddie testified last month before a U.S. House committee examining renewal.
He noted that in the South today, "Children are more likely to attend integrated schools than in the rest of the country, and an African-American is more likely to have black representation . . . Southern blacks are registered and voting at rates comparable to black voters in the rest of the nation."
"Race still divides the South, but Southern blacks are not helpless in the pursuit of political, social, and economic goals when compared to five decades ago," Gaddie continued. "The context of race relations and the status of minorities in the South are dramatically changed from four decades ago."
Voter registration in the 2000 election, the last presidential race for which complete and accurate numbers are available, reveals blacks to be registered in higher percentages in most Southern states covered by the Voting Rights Act than in states outside the South. In Georgia, for example, black registration was 66.3 percent, compared to 61.7 percent outside the South. White registration was 59.3 in Georgia and 65.9 outside the South.
In 2000 and in 2004, presidential years, black turnout was higher than among whites. In 2002, white turnout was higher.
The point is, however, that the original case for seizing the right of Georgia's elected officials to draw districts and to conduct elections is no longer valid. Now it is rank discrimination, without rational basis.
Johnson, the state Senate leader, is among those who believes that the pre-clearance provision should apply to every state — or none. "It's geographic discrimination," he says, in that it applies to Georgia and not to places with more current voting problems.
He believes, though, that Congress lacks the will to do what's right, and either to extend Section 5 to the rest of the nation or to allow it to expire. "If we can't summon the will to drill on 2,000 acres in ANWR, they don't have the courage to let provisions of the Voting Rights Act expire," he said. (Two thousand acres in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the equivalent, the Wall Street Journal reports, of one letter of the alphabet on this entire page).
Emotions will drive extension. The facts won't.
Georgia, "the fastest-growing of the original Section 5 states offers real evidence of voting rights progress in the last decade," Gaddie testified. Blacks run as well or better than whites statewide. Its congressional delegation has the highest percentage of blacks of any state in the nation. "At the highest levels of government, Georgia has accomplished more than any other state covered by Section 5."
Facts should set us free. But don't count on it.
— Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column appears Tuesday, Friday and Sunday.
It is a form of martial law selectively applied. And yet, the odds are strong that the U.S. Congress will extend pre-clearance requirement, even though the original justification is no longer valid.
The point is, however, that the original case for seizing the right of Georgia's elected officials to draw districts and to conduct elections is no longer valid. Now it is rank discrimination, without rational basis.....***
Ping
If this is needed anywhere, it is in New Jersey, Philadelphia, Chicago (Daly machine), California (illegal alien vote), NYC, and Louisiana (especially after Katrina).
Hmmm. I happen to be 58 as well and I couldn't vote until I was 21, which would have been 1968. No wonder Georgia needs a little extra help. ";^o
Since Bush senior left office, I have noticed that no precinct asks for photo ID... coincidence? In Kalifornia, before I left, I pulled out my DL and the ol'bats there were angry with me! They said it was "unnecessary." Go figure... I hope it is law someday, again, and don't give me that it will disinfranchise poor voters who can't afford an ID... I mean, how do you get state and federal assistance without it?
Startling admission from the AJC.
I'm surprised it wasn't stated in the more PC way or at least a disclaimer that all those evil democrats voters are now republicans
Disenfranchisement? You have got to be kidding me. An ID is required for everything from bank transactions to buying liquor. It is not unreasonable to expect people to have a state id at least. Especially when they will come to your house and give you one for free.
Exactly!
Jim Wooten is a conservative columnist at the AJC.
That means, he has his head on straight.
Of course, you are wrong on all counts. Did you sign up from DU just today???
"Poll tax" is the DNC talking point tip-off that you're just spreading rumor and innuendo, without knowing the facts.
These aren't the facts I understand...what I've heard is that they will come to the peoples home and issue a NO COST id....even if folks have to go a couple blocks to register it's still supposed to be a free ID...
I didn't know anything about the voters rights law..but seeing it only applies to a handful of states it appears to based more on emotion now in the 21st century than fact.
Being against an ID being required to perform as serious a right as voting for the nations leadership is asking for fraud...Picture ID is required to cash a $10 check for Pete's Sake.
Georgia, the "repressive" state was the first in the country to give 18 year olds the right to vote during WW2 and one of only four to do so until the mid 1960s.
The IDs would be free to anyone requesting one. Currently there are 17 forms of Id accepted for voting in GA and the new law would narrow that to 6.
You have to have a photo id to drive, cash a check, get on a plane, most everything. Is voting not so important as those????
If the Voting Rights Act is good enough for GA and the deep South, its good enough for the whole country.
Actually he would have only been 18yo at the time, not even old enough to vote in 1965 (you had to be 21).
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are 18 years of age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This dealt with the district that supported blacks in Georgia that ran up the Northeast side of the side. The district was broken up.
It was no such thing.
It was a blatant attempt to prevent non-citizens from voting and to prevent other forms of illegal voting, e.g. voting multiple times by the same person, voting for dead and fictitious people, et al.
But you are right in that illegal voting practices favor the Democrats, such is the extent of their corruption, and preventing them is not in the interest of Democrats.
That's why the Democrats were so strongly opposed to this legal provision, which is--in fact--a wise safeguard against government corruption, sedition, and an assault on the voting process by enemies of the U.S., both domestic and foreign.
Considering the importance of the vote to a republic, protection of its sanctity by careful assurance of the right of an individual to vote could not be more important--both to protect the right of a citizen to vote and to prevent illegal voting.
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