When Washington Won't Listen: Georgia Counties Can Lead the Fight Against Voting Rights Discrimination

When Washington Won't Listen: Georgia Counties Can Lead the Fight Against Voting Rights Discrimination

Earlier this summer, the House, Senate, and the President renewed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In doing so, the federal government violated the constitutional rights of millions of Americans all across our nation, on no other grounds than where those citizens happen to live.

In justly seeking to eliminate historic efforts to suppress the black vote, the Voting Rights Act unfairly discriminated against Georgia and the South from its very inception in 1965. That law should have applied equal voting rights protections for all voters nationwide, but it instead created separate laws for different states and regions. That was correcting one wrong with another wrong.

However, based on the fact that it did bring an end to legal voting hurdles for black Americans, ultimate good did come from it. That at least makes the historic inequity more bearable, as a price that probably had to be paid politically in order to end racial discrimination in the voting booth. It was politically easy for politicians to vote for tough measures against a minority of states, as long as their state wasn't included.

But that discrimination ended over 40 years ago. The majority of Georgians today did not even live here when that discrimination occurred. There's not a single member of the Georgia legislature who served in the pre-1965 legislature that committed those wrongs. Yet Georgia and much of the South remain under federal oversight, while non-Southern states with a fraction of Georgia's minority voting rights success remain oversight-free. How is this happening?

When Congress originally passed the VRA in 1965, it was intended to be temporary, and in effect only until discrimination was firmly eliminated. But the rules for getting out from under federal oversight were set in such a way that it is virtually impossible for a state to ever win release.

A state must have a 100% clean record from any objection by the Department of Justice for ten years to be eligible to apply for release from federal oversight.

Department of Justice lawyers are notoriously politically partisan. Every change in voting law or regulation, from adjusting district boundaries to moving a polling place across the street is subject to their review, and their objections. Since a politically motivated objection anywhere within a state keeps the entire state under federal oversight for another ten years, Georgia's temporary sentence has become by default permanent. There is therefore no practical means for release, regardless of indisputable evidence that black voting performance in Georgia exceeds the nation at large.

The Republicans of the Georgia congressional delegation did everything possible to correct this unconstitutional discrimination against the citizens of our state when Congress debated renewal of the Voting Rights Act this year.

Unfortunately, partisan politics prevailed again, and the federal government - all three branches - chose to violate the U.S. Constitution by adding another 40 years of discrimination against the voters of our state.

This action by the Congress and the President is not the final word. Now it is up to the courts and the people.

A constitutional challenge will likely be filed against the entire Act in the coming months. Whether it succeeds is anyone's guess, but based on previous court decisions that support the contention that federal oversight is only constitutional if temporary, we stand an excellent chance of winning.

But perhaps our greatest weapon to win justice in this case can be found at the county level. While current rules make it next to impossible for entire states to win release, the overwhelming majority of counties are likely eligible today for immediate release from federal oversight.

To win release, a county must show that for the past ten years:

· No test or device such as literacy tests or poll taxes have been used within the county

· All changes affecting voting have been reviewed by the Department of Justice prior to their implementation

· No change affecting voting has been the subject of an objection by the Attorney General or the denial of a Section 5 declaratory judgment from the District of Columbia district court

· There have been no adverse judgments in lawsuits alleging voting discrimination

· There have been no consent decrees or agreements that resulted in the abandonment of a discriminatory voting practice

· There are no pending lawsuits that allege voting discrimination

· Federal examiners have not been assigned.

Most of our 159 Georgia counties meet these standards. Most of the counties in the other states imprisoned under federal oversight likely do as well. If all the counties across the country that feel they are in compliance with the above conditions exercise their legal right to file for release from Section 5 oversight within the next year, the tidal wave of litigation could force the Justice Department and the federal courts to grant immediate relief for the vast majority of counties.

The party hack attorneys at DOJ would still have the state at large under their heel, but no longer our counties. And with the court evidence that the majority of jurisdictions inside our state are in full compliance with voting rights standards, our case will be much easier to win at the Supreme Court.

Oppression occurs only when the people allow it, or lack the ability to fight.

We can fight. If our county commissioners and attorneys accept this challenge, and coordinate their efforts, we can win back the constitutional rights of Georgians.

In the process, we will restore the original bright promise of the Voting Rights Act - equal rights for all.

http://www.house.gov/list/speech/ga09_norwood/VRAupdate.html