My latest troll, howard, seems to have fallen into the same trap that too many folks have fallen victim to over the years regarding the Voting Rights Act.

And by the way, have you explained to your students why part of their voting rights( the black ones off course) is going to expire in 2007( we are still talking about this TODAY!)

He is not the first I have met who has fallen under the spell of the seemingly-true urban legend, nor will he be the last. I've had a student in my college-level class wave a flyer distributed at her church in my face while wailing about "Bush wants to keep black people from voting...." I've had high school students engage in a rowdy oration about the issue during a discussion of the importance of voting. I've even received a copy of an email, forwarded to the entire school, from an otherwise level-headed colleague in another department. So I really do not think howard is mentally defective for mentioning this in one of his disjointed, race-baiting, Republican-hating rants. He is just misguided, misled, and misinformed.

Let's look at the claim in the form I've most often seen it, as archived at Snopes.com, that great site for debunking or confirming urban legends.

As everyone should be aware, in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voters Rights Act. This was created to allow Blacks the right to vote.

In 1982, President Ronald Reagan signed an amendment to extend this right for an additional twenty-five years. You guessed it . . . In 2007 (ten years from now), Congress will decide whether or not Blacks should retain the right to vote. In order for this to be passed, thirty-eight states will have to approve an extension. For me, as well as many others, this was the first time that we had heard this -- thus, bringing concern to all of us! What many Blacks before us fought and even died for as well as the milestones that we, as Blacks have achieved, this can be taken away from us . . . AGAIN!

If this issue has taken you by surprise as well, I encourage YOU to contact your Congressperson, alderperson, senator — anyone in government, that you put your vote behind and ask them what are they doing to — firstly, to get the extension and furthermore, make our right to vote a LAW. This has to become a law in order for our right to vote to no longer be up for discussion, review and/or evaluation. (Remember: Blacks are the only group of people who require permission under the United States Constitution to vote!)

As Black people, we cannot "drop the ball" on this one! We have come too far to be forced to take such a large step back. So, please let's push on and forward to continue to build the momentum towards gaining equality. Please pass this on to others, as I am sure that many more individuals are not aware of this.

Now this email carries in it a number of fundamental errors, mixed with just enough fact to make it plausible.

To begin with, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 does not grant any race or ethnicity the right to vote. That right is guaranteed in the Fifteenth Amendment.

AMENDMENT XV

1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

So you see, the right to vote is a CONSTITUTIONAL right, not a STATUTORY one. Clause 1 of the Fifteenth Amendment is the relevant section that guarantees that right.

Clause 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment authorizes Congress to enforce the right guaranteed by the preceeding clause. That is where the Voting Rights act of 1965 enters into the picture -- just not in the way the email would have folks believe.

We all know the sad history of race relaitions and oppression in the southern states where, under the rule of the racist Democrat Party, virtually all civil rights were denied to African-Americans for decades. Federal legislation protecting the voting rights of blacks was repealed by the Democrat-controlled Congress and signed into law by Democrat President Grover Cleveland. In 1964, the Twenty-Fourth Amendment barred poll taxes, but left in place many of the other tactics used to deny the right to vote. As a result, legislation was passed in 1965 to allow for federal action to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment right to vote.

The measures contained in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 fell into two categories. Portions of the legislation -- with no expiration date -- were intended to ensure that blacks (as well as other minority groups) could fully participate in the electoral system free from discrimination.

Other provisions were set to expire in five years. These were a set of truly heroic measures designed to force the registration of minority voters and their access to the polls, including authorizing the deputizing of federal voter registrars, the placement of federal election observers, and the requirement that jurisdictions with a history of racial discriminationin voting receive federal preclearance of any changes in voting districs or procedures. They were renewed in 1970, and permitted to expire by the Democrat-controlled Congress and Democrat President Jimmy Carter in 1980. In 1982, Republican President Ronald Reagan signed a statute passed by a Congress with control divided between the two parties, extending the "temporary" provisions for another quarter century, until 2007, which leads us to the present situation and the falsehood circulating among many people of good-will, including my commenter.

Now I've already spoken to the issue of whether or not the provisions should be renewed in an earlier post.

Let them expire, or fix them to meet the realities of the present day.

I believe they should be allowed to expire as the authors of the statute intended -- or, barring that, extended to cover every jurisdiction in the United States and not just a few which denied the franchise a generation ago. The current two-tiered system of voting rights enforcement needs to be eliminated. We have, as a society, moved beyond the need for such special measures, despite the attempts of partisan activists to manufacture controversies to justify their own existance. And as the Justice Department points out, any one of the provisions of the VRA could be reinstituted in any area where there is proven contemporary discrimination. But what is clear is that this will in no way constitute the expiration of anyone's voting rights!

So howard, don't worry -- you'll still be able to vote in 2008 for a candidate of the party that enslaved your people and prevented your ancestors from voting or exercising their civil rights for a couple generations afterward, while heaping abuse upon the party that freed your ancestors and overwhelmingly supported every single major piece of civil rights legislation in American history.

LINKED TO: LaShawn Barber, Everyday Thoughts

Posted by: Greg at 06:32 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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