cCongressman Mel Watt Chair, Congressional Black Caucus


On May 2, 2006 a broad array of members and all the leaders of the House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats alike, gathered at a press conference on the East steps of the U.S. Capitol to announce, with great fanfare, the bipartisan and bi-cameral introduction of the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006. All the House and Senate leaders pledged swift consideration and passage of the bill. Acting expeditiously to deliver on the pledge, the House Judiciary Committee reported the bill favorably to the full House by a vote of 33 to 1.

The move toward prompt passage of the bill came to an abrupt halt, however, on the day the bill was scheduled to be considered on the House floor. A few Republican members managed to coerce their leadership into pulling the bill from the House floor, claiming that they had been unfairly excluded from the process that produced the bill. This small group, led by Reps. Westmoreland and Norwood of Georgia, is misleading the Republican leadership and using this claim as a smokescreen for their ideological objections to the Voting Rights Act. We must confront them. We must insist that the Republican leaders not allow their extreme elements to be the voice of their party and delay consideration and passage of this important bill. The claim made by these members that they were excluded from the process is unfounded and their ideological position is extreme.

The bi-partisan, bi-cameral press event surrounding the introduction of the Voting Rights Reauthorization and Amendments Act was possible only because it had been preceded by months of hearings in the House Judiciary Committee (a total of 10 hearings at which a legislative record of more than 12,000 pages had been amassed) and by painstaking, bipartisan discussions to reach agreement on the contents of the bill. After the bill was introduced, both the House and the Senate Judiciary Committees continued to have additional hearings on the bill.

During the House Judiciary Committee hearings, the Chairman requested and received unanimous consent to allow members of Congress who do not serve on the Judiciary Committee to participate in the hearings. This unanimous consent was important.


· It allowed members of the House who were not on the Committee to be much more involved than normal in the process; and

· It allowed reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, historic legislation for Republicans and Democrats alike, to be considered with broad, bipartisan input.


Rep. Westmoreland, who is not a member of the Judiciary Committee, actually questioned witnesses during the House Judiciary Committee hearings. Before the House leadership abruptly pulled the bill, the Rules Committee had also authorized both Rep. Westmoreland and Rep. Norwood to offer amendments during consideration on the House floor.

It is clear that some Republican members are simply using the claim that they were excluded from the process as an excuse for trying to derail the bill. The motives of these members and the power the Republican leadership is allowing them to wield must be questioned.

Rep. Norwood claims not to oppose the Voting Rights Act. Instead he claims to be concerned that jurisdictions with long and documented histories of denying equal voting rights to African Americans should not be singled out for special legal scrutiny (the requirement to obtain "pre-clearance" of voting changes from the Justice Department or the federal court before the changes can be implemented) when other jurisdictions that have been guilty of discrimination more recently are not subject to such scrutiny. While Rep. Norwood's argument may sound appealing, there are at least three powerful reasons that his position is untenable and should be rejected.

1. It is precisely the decades long, documented history of discrimination that the Supreme Court has held is constitutionally necessary to justify affirmative, special treatment (such as the requirement to obtain Justice Department or federal court pre-clearance) to assure that such discrimination does not continue and to redress the continuing effects of such discrimination. In this sense, Rep. Norwood's suggestion that other jurisdictions with recent voting rights offenses be required to obtain pre-clearance is as suspect as the suggestions of others who, also professing to have good intentions, contend that the pre-clearance requirement should be imposed nationwide. While that might appear to be "fair", the Supreme Court has indicated that it would also be "unconstitutional". It would, therefore, be the "kiss of death" for the Voting Rights Act.

2. The Voting Rights Act currently gives courts the authority to impose the pre-clearance requirement on other offending jurisdictions where a court presiding over a voting rights case involving that jurisdiction finds that there is sufficient justification for doing so.

3. The Voting Rights Act also provides any jurisdiction covered by the pre-clearance requirement a convenient means to terminate ("bail-out" of) this requirement. To do so, the jurisdiction needs only to demonstrate that it has met standards of compliance with the Voting Rights Act for the requisite period and now provides equal opportunity at the ballot box. The standards were relaxed in 1982 to ease the burden on jurisdictions seeking to bail out of the pre-clearance requirements and a number of jurisdictions have used the process successfully.

Rep. Norwood's claim that he seeks equity in the application of the pre-clearance obligation might have more credibility if he was not in cahoots with Rep. Westmoreland and if Rep. Westmoreland and the state of Georgia had a better record of seeking to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The fact that during his tenure in the Georgia legislature Rep. Westmoreland was one of the architects of the onerous Georgia voter identification requirement that the courts have held violates the Voting Rights Act can not leave one feeling confident that his motives are pure.

Neither Republicans nor Democrats can be allowed to play politics with the Voting Rights Reauthorization Act. We have worked too hard to craft a bi-partisan bill. We must insist that the Republican leaders in the House honor the agreement we have worked so hard to achieve despite pressures from their ideologues to do otherwise. They cannot both hail the historic importance of the voting rights reauthorization bill to which we have all agreed and capitulate to the wishes of Rep. Westmoreland, a freshman Congressman with dubious credentials on voting rights. It is time for them to act on this historic legislation; their credibility is on the line.

Voting is a fundamental right. Denying the right to vote is a fundamental wrong, one that must be eliminated. The implication made by some during consideration of this bill that fear of being labeled a racist stifled honest debate on this bill is insensitive, demeaning and absolutely incorrect. The extensive consideration leading to the introduction of this bill was neither stifled nor dishonest. Moreover, the cynical notion that bi-partisan, bi-cameral consensus on a civil rights bill is tantamount to racial pandering is not only wrong, it is offensive. A Congress with far fewer African Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because the right to vote had been denied for far too long. Congress made a moral decision that it was the right thing to do for our democracy. It is time for Congress to make the same moral decision on the Voting Rights Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006. The Act merits passage because the record demonstrates that the work of assuring that every citizen has the right to vote in our democracy is still incomplete.