Essay 799

From The Chicago Sun-Times…

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Voting rights are under assault

BY JESSE JACKSON

The right to vote is fundamental to democracy. Not surprisingly, a central struggle of the civil rights movement was to pass a Voting Rights Act that would provide federal enforcement of voting rights in those states and counties with a history of discrimination. The federal remedy was essential if the entrenched discriminatory practices of local governments were to be ended.

Now, that commitment to voting rights -- enforced by the federal government -- is under assault. Facing an uprising of Southern and anti-immigrant legislators, the Republican leaders in Congress blocked a vote on renewing the Voting Rights Act. This comes in the wake of a dramatic retreat from federal enforcement in both the administration and the judiciary.

When Tom DeLay forced through off-year reapportionment of congressional seats in Texas, the professionals in the Justice Department said it violated the law. The administration’s political appointees overruled them and let it go forward. In a remarkably partisan vote, the Supreme Court just reaffirmed local control over federal enforcement.

Similarly, the Republican Legislature in Georgia passed a law requiring a state-issued ID to vote in Georgia -- with the discriminatory effect of excluding hundreds of thousands of legally registered voters from the polls. Again, the pros at Justice called for the federal government to block the law and Bush's political appointees overruled them. This week, a state court in Georgia ruled that the law violated the state constitution -- but once more federal enforcement was frustrated.

It is time for President Bush to stand up. The right to vote is not a partisan issue. It is essential to our democracy. Surely the United States cannot be an effective advocate of democratic rights abroad while trampling them at home.

Bush should call upon his party to stop blocking renewal of the act, to pass it and send it to his desk so he can sign it into law.

Bush is justifiably infamous for making a public gesture of decency while simultaneously acting quietly against decency. In 2003, he hailed Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday and then chose that moment to advocate rolling back our civil rights laws, sending his lawyers into court to challenge the University of Michigan’s affirmative action program.

Moreover, this administration seems remarkably callous -- or worse -- about minorities’ right to vote. In Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004, racially discriminatory practices -- from voter purges to inadequate places to vote -- contributed directly to Bush’s election. In New Orleans, the administration not only scattered the poorest residents across 50 states, but also refused to allow them to vote at satellite stations across the country. This is the same administration that allowed Iraqis to vote in the United States for the Iraqi elections; and allowed Mexicans in America to vote in the Mexican elections. Thus far, the administration would rather protect the rights of Mexicans in the United States to vote in Mexican elections than protect the rights of Mexican Americans to vote in U.S. elections.

Voting rights shouldn’t be controversial, but the administration and Republicans in Congress clearly are conflicted. The reasons for this are obvious. Republicans have consolidated their hold on the South as the party of white sanctuary. The legislators who benefit would like to return to states’ rights and roll back, if not repeal, the Voting Rights Act. Those who want to pander to the backlash on immigration seek to repeal the mandate to provide significant minorities with voting materials in their languages.

On the other hand, Karl Rove, the president’s political Rasputin, understands that to consolidate power, Republicans have to be able to reach across lines of race to appeal to minority voters. Thus the efforts to woo African-American ministers with grants to their churches and to appeal to Latino voters through cooperation with Mexico and attention to the Latino media. But these efforts will mean nothing if the administration can’t produce a renewal of the Voting Rights Act.

What is the measure of this administration and this Congress? On the question of voting rights, the time for evasion and double talk is over. It is time to stand up for basic justice -- or to inflict injustice. Bush now must decide where he stands.