[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 106 (Friday, July 29, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S9434]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, 40 years ago, in 1965, African Americans 
were excluded from almost all public offices in the South. At that 
time, with 21 million people fenced out of the political process, our 
nation was suffering a devastating failure. A failure to fulfill one of 
its signature promises: representation for all.
  As I speak here today, African-American and Hispanic voters are now 
substantially represented in the state legislatures and local governing 
bodies throughout the South. And 81 minority Members currently serve in 
the U.S. Congress.
  This turn-around came as the result of a monumental struggle, a 
struggle in which Americans risked their lives to secure the right to 
vote. They marched in Alabama and across the South to protest the use 
of poll taxes, literacy tests, and other barriers erected in Southern 
States to exclude African Americans from the political process. African 
Americans were harassed, intimidated, and physically assaulted for 
simply trying to vote. Televised broadcasts brought the horrible images 
of attacks on peaceful protesters with nightsticks, tear gas, and 
police dogs into the living rooms of citizens throughout the country. 
Some brave souls, and some innocent bystanders, lost their lives in 
this struggle for justice, which still today stands as a testament to 
the power of ideas and nonviolence to bring about crucial social and 
legal change.
  Two days after ``Bloody Sunday,'' a day on which protesters in Selma, 
Alabama, were attacked by State troopers while crossing the Edmund 
Pettus bridge, President Johnson sent the Voting Rights Act to 
Congress. In response to the horrific events in Selma and after years 
of efforts in Congress and around the country, on August 6, 1965, the 
Voting Rights Act was signed into law.
  The act outlawed barriers to voting, such as literacy tests, and 
empowered the Federal Government to oversee voter registration and 
elections in counties that historically had prevented African Americans 
from participating in elections. Since its enactment, the Voting Rights 
Act has been extended four times--in 1970, 1975, 1982, and 1992. 
Changes included increasing the act's scope to cover non-English 
speaking minorities such as Latinos, Asian Americans and Native 
Americans, Alaskan Natives, and other minority groups. It has also been 
used to examine and challenge new election formats that dilute minority 
votes and have a discriminatory effect.
  The Voting Rights Act has been hailed as the most important piece of 
federal legislation in our Nation's history. Not just the most 
important piece of civil rights legislation, but the most important 
piece of legislation ever passed. This may well be true: it is from our 
political rights, our rights of citizenship, that all other freedoms 
flow. Without a meaningful chance to vote, there can be no equality 
before the law, no equal access to justice, no equal opportunity in the 
workplace or to share in the benefits and burdens of citizenship.
  The Voting Rights Act is also considered one of the most successful 
pieces of civil rights legislation ever enacted. In Selma, Alabama, in 
1965, 2.1 percent of blacks of voting age were registered to vote. 
Today, more than 70 percent are registered.
  Still, we must remember that the fight is not over. On this 40th 
anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, many Americans are still 
disenfranchised by discriminatory redistricting plans, voter 
intimidation tactics, long lines at polling places and inadequate 
numbers of voting machines, and lifetime restrictions on voting rights 
for ex-felons.
  In 2007, key elements of the Voting Rights Act, including the Federal 
pre-clearance requirement, are due to expire. The pre-clearance 
requirement is especially important. It requires Federal approval of 
any proposed changes in voting or election procedures in areas with a 
history of discrimination. The Supreme Court in South Carolina v. 
Katzenbach, the case that upheld Congress's power to impose these 
requirements, aptly called this a shifting of the ``advantage of time 
and inertia from the perpetrators of the evil to its victims.'' It 
simply means that voters in these areas do not have to refight the 
battles they won in the civil rights struggle. These provisions of the 
Act are crucial.
  As we approach, the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Voting 
Rights Act on August 6, I urge my colleagues and the citizens of this 
great Nation to renew our commitment to protect and strengthen the 
right to vote for all Americans. That right is the foundation of our 
democracy and it must never again be denied to a group of Americans 
based on the color of their skin.

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