During my hiatus, an event occurred that I need to comment on; thus, bumping my previously announced planned post for today.
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On June 25, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote, struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act. This section designates which parts of the country must have changes to their voting laws cleared by the federal government or in a federal court. Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion stated that the criteria established in the Act for determining which states the section applied to was no longer valid. Section 4 sets forth the requirements to establish that a state has a history of racial discrimination in voting. Section 5 mandates that states meeting Section 4’s requirements must get clearance before changing election rules. It should be noted that this “pre-clearance” applies to 1/3 of the states today. By striking down Section 4, the Roberts Court gutted Section 5, making it unenforceable.
The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen’s “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” However, Congressional actions (or inactions) prior to 1964, let individual states set voter registration requirements (and qualifications) beyond those called for in the U.S. Constitution ( “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” – 14th Amendment)
Thus, individual states could use literacy tests, poll taxes, police repression and economic retaliation legally to keep non-white citizens from voting. This means prior to 1964, only white citizens in this country had an “automatic right to vote with birth,” everyone else had to qualify for the franchise through an individual state determined process. Some states, such as, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas wanted to know where you worked when you registered so they could inform your employer that you had registered to vote, presumably so that your employer could fire you for registering. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 ended that by prohibiting states and local governments from imposing any “voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure … to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.”
There are those who say in 2013, we, as a country, have progressed beyond the need for these laws…after all, we have a Black President now. And those people are wrong. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the minority opinion: “The sad irony of today’s decision lies in its utter failure to grasp why the VRA has proven effective….The Court appears to believe that the VRA’s success in eliminating the specific devices extant in 1965 means that preclearance is no longer needed.”
So what devices is Justice Ginsburg’s referencing? Well, let’s start with the 1964 Louisiana “Literacy” test. This state test was given to both white and black citizens who couldn’t prove their level of education (5th grade). You had 10 minutes to answer 30 questions. One wrong answer disqualified you from voting. The registrar (who was white) determined whether an answer was correct. Passing the test was important because if you were not registered to vote, you couldn’t serve on a jury; therefore, if you were Black you could never be a part of the justice system except as a defendant because the judge and juries will be all white. You see, a white person could pass the test by simply writing: “I am White” on the test paper. Click on the link above (it’s a PDF) and take the test yourself. Remember you must get all 30 correct in 10 minutes or you can’t vote and I can guarantee you’ll get question 27 wrong. After you’ve completed the test, ask yourself what the real purpose of this test is other than to disenfranchise citizens.
Justice Ginsburg is right. Federal oversight is still required to ensure disenfranchisement doesn’t occur to a greater extent than it already has. Texas, for example, wasted no time filing redrawn congressional districts after the court decision. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, per the last census, the Hispanic population increased by 440,898, the African-American population grew by 152,825 and the white population fell by 156,742. Yet white Republicans, a minority in the metropolis, will control, in the redrawn plan, four of five Congressional seats. In fact, whites are the minority in the state’s five largest counties but control twelve of nineteen Congressional districts, validating Justice Ginsburg’s point.
Sadly, I have no hope that this dysfunctional Congress will succeed with any steps taken to fix Section 4 to comply with Chief Justice Roberts judicial edict. There are many in Congress who consider this court decision a “fix” to a problem…just like tests similar to the Louisiana literacy test “fixed” a problem the 15th Amendment to the Constitution created for some states. For these people, disenfranchisement is the new normal.
My Mom was a voting rights worker, who worked on voter registration in Maryland in 1964. Regrettably, the Roberts Court has just made it harder for her great-granddaughter to vote in future elections. I know my Mom would weep at that thought because I do.