Providing for consideration of H.R. 9, Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act, '06

PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 9, FANNIE LOU HAMER, ROSA PARKS, AND CORETTA SCOTT KING VOTING RIGHTS ACT REAUTHORIZATION AND AMENDMENTS ACT OF 2006 -- (House of Representatives - July 13, 2006)

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Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the time.

Mr. Speaker, I certainly thank Chairman Dreier for making my amendment in order under this rule. I rise today in support of this rule, in support of the VRA, and against H.R. 9 as it presently is written.

We should all understand that in 1965, 40 years ago, when the VRA was written, part of it was intended to be permanent law and part of that bill was meant to be temporary.

The Voting Rights Act was needed in 1965, and it was a good bill. It enabled all citizens to be able to vote unencumbered. I strongly believe in that.

Now, 40 years later, we are not trying to remove the temporary part of this bill, meaning 4, 5 and on, but later this morning we are going to try to amend section 4 of the Voting Rights Act so that it may be updated, modernized and actually brought into the 21st century.

Only section 4 of the temporary part of the Voting Rights Act are we trying to amend. Section 4 of the VRA is the formula or the trigger mechanism that determines which jurisdiction, whether it be city, county or State, that has broken the rules and, therefore, is to be put in the penalty box of section 5. This is the section that puts jurisdictions under the heavy hand of the Justice Department, the preclearance section of the bill.

The trigger section occurs when less than 50 percent of citizens of voting age do not vote in Presidential elections. To determine if you will be under section 5 of the VRA, the elections used are 1964, 1968 and 1972, elections 40 years ago, presidential elections between Goldwater and Johnson. Only those who violated section 4 during those 8 years are under preclearance today. H.R. 9 wants to extend that 25 more years, using 40-year-old data, applied to the same jurisdictions, no matter how good their voting record is today.

H.R. 9, it does not seem to matter that many other jurisdictions around the country have also violated section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, even in this century. Those violations are not looked at generally by anyone.

My amendment, that we will have later today, changes that and updates section 4 to use the election years of 1996, 2000 and 2004. It will be incumbent upon the Attorney General, and he is so instructed, or she, to look at all jurisdictions in all States, and this information is to be reviewed after each Presidential election, using the latest three Presidential elections.

If you violate section 4, you are and you should go to the penalty box, which is the preclearance section. If you are in the penalty box and have not violated section 4 in the last three Presidential elections, you get to come out of the penalty box. It is that fair, it is that just, and it is just that simple.

Listen carefully now. The authors of H.R. 9 are going to give you many reasons why my lovely State of Georgia should stay in the penalty box, even though we have one of the absolute best voting records in the country of electing black Georgians and black voting and black registration, but I bet we do not hear them talk about that.

The truth is that under my amendment all Georgia jurisdictions stay under preclearance. Under my amendment all Georgia jurisdictions, meaning counties, stay under preclearance, except 10 counties out of 159, even though all of Georgia will be treated as if we are still under section 5.

They are not going to mention that 837 jurisdictions today in 16 States are under preclearance, but if my amendment were to pass, over 1,000 jurisdictions in this country will be under preclearance in at least 39 States.

I think that black Georgians who have protections under the law should give those same protections to black Tennesseeans.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to talk about this all day. I appreciate the time.

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