[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 94 (Tuesday, July 18, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7745-S7749]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
VOTING RIGHTS ACT REAUTHORIZATION
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, more than 2 months ago I joined the
Chairmen of both the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, the ranking
member of the House Judiciary Committee, the Democratic and Republican
leaders of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and
Members of Congress from both parties to introduce a bill to
reauthorize and reinvigorate the temporary provisions of the Voting
Rights Act of 1965. The bicameral, bipartisan introduction of this bill
reflects not only its historic importance as a guarantor of the right
to vote for all Americans, but also the broad consensus that the
expiring provisions must be extended this year without delay.
Unfortunately, we in the Senate have been delayed in getting this bill
to the Senate floor by repeated cancellations and postponements of
committee hearings and markups. The bill was also delayed in the House
of Representatives for a month by a small group of opponents.
Fortunately, the House was able to pass this legislation last week with
390 Members voting in favor. Now it is time for the Senate to do its
part and pass this bill.
At my request, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee has
agreed to hold a special executive business session of the committee so
that after a month of delay we can report out the Fannie Lou Hamer,
Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and
Amendments Act of 2006. I hope that this vital civil rights legislation
will be ready for full Senate consideration without further delay and
that we can proceed with deliberate speed to pass the House-passed bill
so that it may become law before Congress takes its summer vacation.
The U.S. Constitution specifically provides that Congress has the
power to remedy discrimination under both the fourteenth and the
fifteenth amendments. Over the course of nine Judiciary Committee
hearings we received testimony from a range of constitutional scholars,
voting rights advocates, and Supreme Court practitioners. There was
agreement among these witnesses that Congress is at the height of its
powers when giving enforceable meaning to these amendments by enacting
laws that address racial discrimination in connection with voting. The
fourteenth and fifteenth amendments have not changed. As long as these
amendments are in our Constitution, Congress has the authority to
enforce them, especially on matters of racial discrimination in
connection with the right to vote. These are matters of fundamental
importance.
The Senate Judiciary Committee held several hearings this year on the
continuing need for the provision of the Voting Rights Act that
requires covered jurisdictions to ``pre-clear'' all voting changes
before they go into effect. This provision has been a tremendous source
of protection for the voting rights of those long discriminated against
and also a great deterrent against discriminatory efforts cropping up
anew. Some academic witnesses suggested in their committee testimony
that section 5 should be a victim of its success. In my view,
abandoning a successful deterrent just because it works defies logic
and common sense. Why risk losing the gains we have made? When this
Congress finds an effective and constitutional way to prevent
violations of the fundamental right to vote, we should preserve it. Now
is no time for backsliding.
Since section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was first enacted in 1965
and last reauthorized in 1982, the country has made tremendous progress
in combating racial discrimination. Certain jurisdictions disregarded
the fifteenth amendment for almost 100 years and had a history of
pervasive discriminatory practices that resisted attempts at redress
from the passage of the fifteenth amendment in 1870 to the passage of
the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Section 5 is intended to be a remedy for
violations of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, in place for as
long as necessary to enforce those amendments and eliminate practices
denying or abridging the rights of minorities to participate in the
political process. In fact, due in large measure to the remedies
provided in the VRA, many voters in jurisdictions covered for the
purposes of section 5 have gained the effective exercise of their right
to vote.
However, based on the record established in hearings before the
Senate Judiciary Committee and the Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil
Rights, and Property Rights, which builds on the extensive record
established in the House of Representatives, there remains a compelling
need for section 5. The Judiciary Committee received three categories
of evidence supporting the continuation of this remedy. First, there is
evidence that even with section 5 in place, covered jurisdictions have
continued to engage in discriminatory tactics. Often, this recurring
discrimination takes on more subtle forms than in 1965 or 1982, such as
vote dilution, which relies on racially polarized voting to deny the
effectiveness of the votes cast by members of a particular race.
Second, there is evidence of the effectiveness of section 5 as a
deterrent against bad practices in covered jurisdictions. Finally,
there is evidence of the prophylactic effect of section 5, preserving
the gains that have been achieved against the risk of backsliding.
Today, I would like to provide some of the evidence received in the
Judiciary Committee about the persistence of discriminatory practices
in covered jurisdictions that supports reauthorization of this crucial
provision.
The robust record compiled in the Senate Judiciary Committee includes
voluminous evidence of recurring discrimination in section 5 covered
jurisdictions. Often, this recurring discrimination takes on more
subtle forms than in 1965 or 1982, such as vote dilution and
redistricting to deny the effectiveness of the votes cast by members of
a particular race. Notably, many jurisdictions are repeat offenders,
continuing a pattern of persistent resistance dating back to the
enactment of the VRA. Debo P. Adegbile, Associate
[[Page S7746]]
Director of Litigation of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund,
Inc., testified about some examples of the types of evidence in the
record:
The Record before this Congress presents continued evidence of such
violations, and highlights the necessity for continued review of
voting changes to protect minority voters in covered jurisdictions. For
example, since the VRA's 1982 renewal, violations of minority voting
rights have taken the form of last minute election date or polling
place changes, discrimination at the polls, and familiar dilutive
tactics of ``cracking'' and ``packing'' minority voting districts.
Objections to voting changes interposed by DOJ are one category of
evidence relevant to the persistence of discrimination in covered
jurisdictions. Although several witnesses pointed to a recent reduction
in VRA objections as a reason to oppose extension of section 5, in fact
there have been more objections in covered jurisdictions since the last
reauthorization in 1982--608--than there were before that
reauthorization, including 80 statewide section 5 objections. However,
these objections only reveal a chapter of a much longer story. Mr.
Adegbile also testified:
Although many VRA opponents and commentators point to a recent
reduction in DOJ objections as evidence of the decreasing need for
Section 5--this analysis oversimplifies the many ways in which the law
serves to protect minority voters. Excluded from the category of
objection statistics are other categories of deterred and rejected
voting changes. These include matters that were denied preclearance by
the Washington D.C. District Court; matters that were settled while
pending before that court; voting changes that were withdrawn, altered
or abandoned after the DOJ made formal More Information Requests, MIRs;
as well as any recognition that the very existence of preclearance
deters discriminatory voting changes in the first place. Taken
together, these categories provide a more holistic view of the sizeable
impact, deterrent effect, and continued need for section 5's
provisions. Moreover, without the section 5 preclearance provisions
many jurisdictions that have experienced a long history of exclusionary
practices in voting would have lacked the incentive to tailor their
electoral changes in a non-discriminatory fashion. Even with section 5
in place, many covered jurisdictions made voting changes that
disadvantaged minority voters without preclearing them with the DOJ.
This is the Testimony of Debo P. Adegbile, Associate Director of
Litigation of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.,
before the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the
Constitution, June 21, 2006, citing generally Luis Ricardo Fraga &
Maria Lizet Ocampo, More Information Requests and the Deterrent Effect
of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, June 7, 2006--unpublished essay,
submitted to Senate Judiciary Committee on June 9, 2006.
The following are only a small set of examples from the robust record
compiled in the Senate Judiciary Committee:
Vote Suppression
Through the use of illegal devices, State and local
officials in covered jurisdictions have suppressed the
ability of minority voters to effectively exercise their
right to vote.
In 2001, Kilmichael, Mississippi's white mayor and all
white five-member Board of Alderman abruptly cancelled an
election after census data revealed that African Americans
had become the majority in the town and an unprecedented
number of African-American candidates were running for
office. Even after DOJ objected, concluding that the
cancellation was an attempt to suppress the African-American
candidates, the mayor and board did not reschedule the
election. Only after DOJ forced Kilmichael to hold an
election in 2003 did it elect its first African-American
mayor, along with three African-American alderman. This is
from Caroline Fredrickson and Deborah J. Vagins, Promises to
Keep: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, March 2006, at 12.
In March, 2004, in Prairie View, Texas, home to
historically black Prairie View A&M University, two students
decided to run for the local governing body. The white
criminal district attorney threatened that any student who
voted in the election would face felony prosecution for
``illegal voting'' and only withdrew his statements when the
NAACP filed suit. Shortly thereafter, the Commissioner's
Court voted to reduce the availability of early voting at the
polling place closest to the college from 17 hours over two
days, to 6 hours on one day. This would have severely limited
the students' political participation, as most planned to
take advantage of early voting since their spring break
coincided with the primary date. The county did not restore
the voting hours until the NAACP filed a section 5
enforcement suit. This is from Laughlin McDonald ``The Case
for Extending and Amending the Voting Rights Act,'' A Report
of the Voting Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties
Union at 65-66.
In a 2004 opinion invalidating South Dakota's redistricting
plan, a Federal district judge documented the State's long
history of discrimination, including persistent efforts to
suppress the Native American vote since 1999. The judge
documented illegal denials of the right to vote in certain
elections, barriers to voter registration, intimidation and
unsubstantiated charges of vote fraud, lack of access to
polling sites, non-compliance with the Voting Rights Act's
language assistance provision, and dilutive voting schemes.
The opinion also quoted legislators expressing prejudice
against Indians. For example, when debating an unsuccessful
bill to make it easier for Indians to register, one
legislator said, ``I'm not sure we want that kind of person
in the polling place.' '' This is from National Commission on
the Voting Rights Act, ``Protecting Minority Voters: The
Voting Rights Act at Work 1982-2005'' February 2006 at 44.
The Mayor of the Town of North Johns, AL intentionally
discriminated against African-American candidates for city
council when he frustrated the attempts of these candidates
to acquire the required forms for their candidacy and refused
to swear them in when they won their elections. The court
found that the mayor acted to undermine the candidacy of two
African-American men because their election would result in
the town council becoming majority black. This is from
Dillard v. North Johns, 717 F. Supp. 1471, M.D. Ala. 1989.
Discriminatory Redistricting
Due to racially polarized voting, the reality in many
jurisdictions is that the ability of minorities to have the
opportunity to elect their candidate of choice is often
dependent on the racial composition of a voting district.
Consequently, the seemingly neutral task of drawing district
lines can, in fact, be used strategically to abridge
minorities' right to vote using techniques called ``packing''
where a very large percentage of minorities are placed in a
single district and thereby denying them influence except in
that one jurisdiction, or the obverse ``unpacking,'' which
fragments minority communities into numerous jurisdictions,
denying them influence anywhere.
The impact of racially polarized voting is significant. In
the 2000 elections, only 8 percent of African Americans were
elected from majority white districts. This is from National
Commission on the Voting Rights Act, ``Protecting Minority
Voters: The Voting Rights Act at Work 1982-2005'' February
2006 at 38. As of 2000, neither Hispanics nor Native
Americans candidates had been elected to office from a
majority white district. Id. This is true throughout covered
jurisdictions. Every African-American representative
currently holding office in Congress from Louisiana, or in
the Louisiana State Legislature, has been elected from a
majority African-American district. This is from Debo P.
Adegbile, ``Voting Rights in Louisiana: 1982-2006,''
RenewTheVRA.org at 9. In Mississippi, the State with the
highest percentage African-American population, not a single
African-American candidate has won election to Congress or
the state legislature from a majority-white district, and no
African-American candidate has won a statewide office in the
20th Century. This is from Robert McDuff, ``Voting Rights in
Mississippi: 1982-2006,'' RenewTheVRA.org at 13.
After failing to redistrict for over two decades, following
the 1980 and 1990 census, the city of Seguin, Texas was 60
percent Hispanic, yet only 3 out of 9 city council members
were Hispanic. After a successful section 5 challenge by
Hispanic plaintiffs, the city redrew its discriminatory
districts in 1994 and again following the 2000 census, but
cut short the filing deadlines for the upcoming elections,
ensuring that the white incumbent would run unopposed.
Another section 5 suit was necessary to prevent this change,
called by some merely de minimis even though it determined
the election's outcome, from going into effect. This is
Testimony of John Trasvina, Interim President and General
Counsel, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund
MALDEF, before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee,
June 13, 2006, at 4.
At a 2001 section 2 hearing, while testifying in defense of
the St. Bernard Parish School Board's illegal plan to
eliminate its only African-American district, Louisiana State
Senator Lynn Dean, the highest ranking public official in St.
Bernard Parish, admitted that he uses a term considered by
many to be a derogatory, even offensive, word in referring to
African Americans, had done so recently, and does not
necessarily consider it a racial term. Dean had served on the
school board for 10 years. This is from Debo P. Adegbile,
``Voting Rights in Louisiana: 1982-2005,'' RenewTheVRA.org at
26.
In the post-1990 redistricting cycle, the Department of
Justice objected to Georgia's Senate redistricting bill twice
and to Georgia's House redistricting bill three times. The
newly adopted plans were then challenged by litigation in
which the state admitted to constitutional violations. After
[[Page S7747]]
losing the lawsuit, the state claimed to remedy the problem.
However, its newly adopted plans reduced the black
populations of numerous districts, thereby drawing DOJ
objections to both plans yet again in March 1996. This is
from Robert Kengle, ``Voting Rights in Louisiana: 1982-
2006,'' RenewTheVRA.org at 14.
The 2001 legislative redistricting plan in South Dakota,
which divided the State into thirty-five legislative
districts, altered the boundaries of District 27, which
included Shannon and Todd Counties, so that American Indians
comprised 90 percent of the district, while the district was
one of the most overpopulated in the State. Had American
Indians not been ``packed'' in District 27, they could have
comprised a majority in a house district in adjacent District
26. South Dakota refused to submit the plan for pre-
clearance, leading Alfred Bone Shirt and three other
residents from Districts 26 and 27 to sue the State in
December 2001. The plaintiffs claimed that South Dakota
failed to submit its plan for pre-clearance and also that the
plan unnecessarily packed Indian voters in violation of
section 2. A 3-judge court ordered the state to seek pre-
clearance and the Attorney General pre-cleared it, concluding
that the additional packing of Indians in District 27 did not
have a retrogressive effect. However, the district court,
sitting as a single-judge court, heard the plaintiffs'
section 2 claim and invalidated the State's 2001 legislative
plan as diluting American Indian voting strength, finding
that there was ``substantial evidence that South Dakota
officially excluded Indians from voting and holding office.''
This is from Bone Shirt v. Hazeltine, 200 F. Supp. 2d 1150,
1154 D.S.D. 2002.
In 2001, the Louisiana State Legislature sought judicial
pre-clearance of its statewide redistricting plan for the
Louisiana House of Representatives, which eliminated a
majority African-American district in Orleans Parish.
According to the legislators that drew that plan, the
district was eliminated because white voters in Orleans
Parish were entitled to ``proportional representation,''
despite significant population growth among African-Americans
in Orleans Parish over the course of the prior decade.
Although the legislators ultimately dropped their selective
``proportional representation'' argument, the court found
that the state ``blatantly violate[ed] important procedural
rules'' through its litigation tactics and condemned the
state for its ``radical mid-course revision in [its legal]
theory of the case.'' The evidence, obtained over plaintiffs'
resistance via a motion to compel, showed significant levels
of racially-polarized voting in virtually all electoral
contests, as well as retrogressive purpose and effect in the
adoption of the plan. The evidence also showed that the
Speaker Pro Tempore, who was a plaintiff in the action,
removed long-standing language from the State's redistricting
guidelines that acknowledged the State's obligations under
the VRA at the start of the line drawing cycle. The
litigation resulted in a settlement on the eve of trial that
restored the opportunity district in Orleans Parish. The 2001
Louisiana House redistricting plan followed the standard
practice in Louisiana as no initial redistricting plan for
the Louisiana House of Representatives has ever been pre-
cleared by DOJ since the inception of Voting Rights Act in
1965. This is Testimony of Richard Engstrom before the House
of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee
on the Constitution, October 25, 2005. This is also Debo
P. Adegbile, Voting Rights in Louisiana, 1982-2006, at 16.
After finding Point Coupee Parish, Louisiana's
redistricting plans retrogressive, the Department of Justice
objected 3 decades in a row: in 1983, 1992, and 2002. After
the first 2 census cycles, the parish attempted to pack
minority voters into a single district while fragmenting the
remaining African-Americans into majority-white districts. In
2002, without explanation, the parish eliminated one majority
African-American district, despite an increase in the
African-American population of the parish. Unfortunately, the
experience in Point Coupee Parish is typical in Louisiana:
``[b]etween 1982 and 2003, 10 other parishes were ``repeat
offenders,'' and 13 times the DOJ noted that local
authorities were merely resubmitting objected-to proposals
with cosmetic or no changes.'' This is Debo P. Adegbile,
``Voting Rights in Louisiana: 1982-2006,'' RenewTheVRA.org at
27.
In 1983, African-American legislators were excluded from
legislative sessions held to develop Louisiana's post-census
redistricting plan after negotiations stalled. The governor
had threatened to veto a proposed plan that would create one
African-American majority district and the Senate rejected
the governor's plan to create all white majority districts.
In the absence of minority legislators, a compromise--Act
20--was reached that sacrificed the majority-minority
district despite the fact that--after a marked increase in
the previous decade--the highly-concentrated African-American
population now made up 48.9 percent of the voting age
population in Orleans Parish. Act 20 was struck down by a
1982 section 2 case. The remedied district led to the
election of Louisiana's first African-American congressman
since reconstruction. This is also from Debo P. Adegbile,
``Voting Rights in Louisiana: 1982-2006,'' RenewTheVRA.org at
16.
In 1991 and 1992, the Morehouse Parish, Louisiana, Police
Jury drew district lines in an attempt to pack African-
American voters in the city of Bastrop multiple times in
defiance of DOJ objections. After a 1991 section 5 objection
to its attempt to draw the same districting plan several
times the Morehouse Parish Police Jury made cosmetic changes
and resubmitted the same plan. After DOJ lodged another
objection, the police jury resubmitted the same plan with
only cosmetic changes. Only after DOJ objected a third time
in 1992 did the police jury address the substance of the
first objection and draw district lines that did not result
in an over-concentration of African-American voters.
In 2006, election officials in Randolph County, Georgia,
moved the board of education district lines to include Henry
Cook, the African-American chair of the board of education,
from District Five of the county board of education, which is
majority black, to District Four, which is majority white. In
District Four, Cook would almost certainly be defeated given
the prevalence of racial bloc voting in the county, depriving
the African-American community of an incumbent elected
official who had their strong support in past elections.
Although Randolph County was covered by section 5, county
officials refused to submit the change for pre-clearance.
African-American residents of the county filed suit on April
17, 2006, to enjoin use of the change absent pre-clearance.
On June 5, 2006, the 3-judge court issued an order enjoining
further use of the voting change because of failure to comply
with section 5.
In 1991, Mississippi legislators rejected proposed House
and Senate redistricting plans that would have given African-
American voters greater opportunity to elect representatives
of their choice, referring to one such alternative on the
House floor as the ``black plan'' and privately as ``the n-
plan.'' DOJ objected, concluding that a racially
discriminatory purpose was at play. In the 1992 elections,
the cured redistricting plans boosted the percentage of
African-American representatives in the legislature to an all
time high: 27 percent of the House and 19 percent of the
Senate--up from 13 percent and 4 percent respectively in a
state where 33 percent of the voting age population is
African-American. This is Robert McDuff, ``Voting Rights in
Mississippi: 1982-2006,'' RenewTheVRA.org at 9-10.
In late 2001, Northampton County, VA proposed a change in
the method of electing the board of supervisors by collapsing
six districts into three larger districts. The DOJ objected,
finding that three of the six districts were majority-
minority districts in which African-American voters regularly
elected their candidates of choice. The new plan would have
diluted the minority-majorities and caused them to completely
disappear in 2 of the 3 new districts--clearly having
retrogressive effects. Two years later, the county provided a
new 6-district plan, which had the same retrogressive effects
of the 3-district plan. DOJ objected and provided a model
non-retrogressive, 6-district plan, which has yet to be
followed by the county. This from Anita S. Earls, Kara
Millonzi, Oni Seliski, and Torrey Dixon, ``Voting Rights in
Virginia, 1982-2006,'' RenewTheVRA.org at 27-28.
In 1989, in section 2 suit, a Federal district court
knocked down Chickasaw County, Mississippi, illegal plan to
have all majority-white supervisors' districts. Sent back to
the drawing board, the county then passed 3 different plans
over the next 6 years. Not one passed section 5 pre-
clearance. Finally, the Federal court drew its own plan for
the 1995 elections, providing for 2 majority-black districts
to reflect a population that was nearly 40 percent black.
Only then did the county adopt a plan that met no objection
by the Department of Justice. This is Robert McDuff, ``Voting
Rights in Mississippi: 1982-2006,'' RenewTheVRA.org at 6.
In 1992, DOJ objected to a Justice of the Peace and
Constable redistricting plan in Galveston County, Texas, that
fractured geographically compact African-American and
Hispanic voters and provided no opportunity districts among
the 8 districts in the plan, even though African Americans
and Hispanic comprised 31 percent of the county's population.
This is from Nina Perales, Luis Figueroa and Criselda G.
Rivas, ``Voting Rights in Texas, 1982-2006'',
RenewTheVRA.org, at 17-18.
In 1992, DOJ objected to the Terrell County Commissioners
Court redistricting plan. Although the Hispanic population in
the county had increased from 43 percent to 53 percent, the
proposed redistricting plan cracked the Hispanic population
by substantially decreasing the number of Hispanic voters in
one of the two Hispanic majority districts and packing
them into the other to create a district with an 83
percent Hispanic district. This is from Nina Perales, Luis
Figueroa and Criselda G. Rivas, ``Voting Rights in Texas,
1982-2006,'' RenewTheVRA.org, at 19.
In 2005, DOJ objected to the redistricting plan for the
Town of Delhi, LA, which eliminated an African-American
opportunity district, rejected an alternative plan which
would have been better for minority voters, and was adopted
with the intent to worsen the position of minority voters.
According to the 2000 Census, Delhi's population was majority
African-American, yet local officials attempted to reduce
minority voting strength in the town. DOJ denied pre-
clearance after determining that town officials sought to
worsen the position of minority voters by looking first to
the historical background of the city's decision, which
revealed that the plan was adopted despite steadily
increasing growth in the town's African-American population.
In its April 25, 2005, objection letter, DOJ stated,
``[w]ithout
[[Page S7748]]
question, Black voters are worse off under the proposed
plan,'' which was adopted despite the counsel of the Town's
demographer, who noted the retrogressive effect of the plan.
This is from a Letter from R. Alexander Acosta, Assistant
Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of
Justice, to Mr. David Creed, Executive Director, North Delta
Regional Planning and Development District, April 25, 2005.
In 1992, the Department of Justice objected to Florida's
redistricting plan for the State Senate, observing that
``[w]ith regard to the Hillsborough County area, the State
has chosen to draw its senatorial districts such that there
are no districts in which minority persons constitute a
majority of the voting age population. To accomplish this
result, the State chose to divide the politically cohesive
minority populations in the Tampa and St. Petersburg areas.''
This is from JoNel Newman, ``Voting Rights in Florida, 1982-
2006'', RenewTheVRA.org, at 9.
The Department of Justice interposed an objection to the
2002 redistricting plan for the Florida House of
Representatives, stating that the plan reduced ``the ability
of Collier County Hispanic voters to elect their candidate of
choice [and] the drop in Hispanic population in the proposed
district would make it impossible for these Hispanic voters
to continue to do so.'' As a result of the Department's
Section 5 objection to the 2002 reapportionment plan,
Hispanic majority-minority district was preserved in Collier
County. This is JoNel Newman, ``Voting Rights in Florida,
1982-2006,'' RenewTheVRA.org, at 10.
In 2002, the Department of Justice objected to Arizona's
state legislative redistricting plan because it fractured
Hispanic voters and reduced Hispanic voting age population in
5 districts below their 1994 benchmarks, despite the growth
of the State's Hispanic population and the ability to draw
three compact majority-Hispanic districts. The State court
responded by accepting an interim plan recommended by a
Special Master that restored one district to its benchmark
level and created 2 new Hispanic-majority districts in
metropolitan Phoenix to replace some of the other four
majority Hispanic-majority districts that had been
eliminated.
In 1991, Hispanic plaintiffs and Monterrey County,
California, which was 33.6 percent Hispanic, reached a
settlement plan which, unlike Monterrey's initial plan, did
not dilute the vote of the county's Hispanic population.
However, after voters struck down the county's redistricting
plan in a required referendum petition, the county issued a
new plan to which the Justice Department objected under
section 5, stating that the County's plan ``. . . appears
deliberately to sacrifice Federal redistricting requirements,
including a fair recognition of Hispanic voting strength, in
order to advance the political interests of the non-minority
residents of northern Monterey County.'' Subsequently, the
district court adopted the plaintiffs' plan. As a result of
the implementation of the plaintiffs' plan, a Hispanic was
elected to the Board of Supervisors for the first time in
over 100 years. This is Gonzalez v. Monterey County 808
F.Supp. 727, 729 (N.D. Cal. 1992); Joaquin G. Avila,
California State Report on Voting Discrimination (forthcoming
May 25, 2006, manuscript at 9.
After the 1990 census, Merced County, CA, adopted a
redistricting plan that ignored the presence of its growing
Hispanic population which at the time constituted 32.6
percent. In doing so, the county disregarded its
demographer's recommendation to create a supervisor district
with a Hispanic majority and instead chose a plan that
fragmented the county's Hispanic population. The Justice
Department issued an objection rejecting the county's
redistricting plan because the plan fragmented the Hispanic
population. Following the objection, the county created a new
redistricting plan that both avoided the fragmentation of the
county's Hispanic population and created a supervisory
district with a Hispanic majority. The plan was later
approved and a Hispanic Supervisor elected. This is Joaquin
G. Avila, California State Report on Voting Discrimination,
forthcoming May 25, 2006, manuscript at 11.
Discriminatory Polling Place Changes
Another method used in covered jurisdictions to deny
minorities the right to vote has been to move or even
eliminate polling places, often without notice. Moving a
polling place can appear to have little impact or importance,
but the record demonstrates that these changes have been used
systematically to deny minorities their constitutional right
to vote by injecting intimidation and confusion into the
electoral process.
Some have cited polling place changes as ``de minimis''
changes for which there should be an exception to section 5
pre-clearance. However, making such an exeception could lead
to substantial violations of minority voting rights. As
Robert McDuff, a civil rights attorney in Mississippi who has
worked on preclearance testified, ``polling place changes can
be retrogressive and should not be dismissed as per se de
minimis. With section 5 preclearance requests the context is
critical and DOJ has an expertise in assessing the context.''
Robert McDuff, Answers to Written Questions from Senator
Coburn. The following examples demonstrate that far from
being ``de minimis,'' polling place changes can be one of the
most effective means of denying minorities the right to vote.
In 1992, the Attorney General objected to a proposal by the
Wrightsville, GA, to relocate the polling place from the
county courthouse to the American Legion Hall, an all-white
club with a history of refusing membership to black
applicants and a then-current practice of hosting
functions to which blacks were not welcome. This is
Laughlin McDonald ``The Case for Extending and Amending
the Voting Rights Act,'' A Report of the Voting Rights
Project of the American Civil Liberties Union at 333, 334.
In 1995, Jenkins Parish, LA, attempted to relocate a
polling place from a predominately black community easily
accessible to many voters by foot to a location outside the
city limits in a predominately white neighborhood which had
no sidewalks, curving roads, and a speed limit of 55 mph. The
Attorney General rejected the change, concluding, ``the
county's proffered reasons for the selection of this
particular polling site appear to be pretextual, as the
selection of this location appears to be designed, in part,
to thwart recent black political participation.'' This is
Deval L. Patrick, Assistant Attorney General, to William E.
Woodrum, Jenkins County Attorney, March 20, 1995.
In 1985, the Apache County Board of Supervisors proposed to
eliminate the last remaining polling place on Arizona's Fort
Apache Reservation, reduce the daily hours of operation for
those voting stations that remained open, and implement a
rotating polling place system that would make it even harder
for Navajo voters to reach the polls. Yet, absentee voting
opportunities were not provided to Indian voters. Pointing to
the clear discriminatory purpose and effect of the proposed
changes, the Department of Justice objected. This is James
Thomas Tucker and Rodolfo Espino, ``Voting Rights in Arizona
1982-2006,'' RenewtheVRA.org, 46, 2006.
In 1994, after receiving word that whites were
uncomfortable walking into an African-American neighborhood
to vote at the Sunset Community Center, the St. Landry
Parish, LA, Police Jury moved the polling place to the Sunset
Town Hall, the site of historical racial discrimination. The
police jury did not hold a public hearing, seek any further
input, or advertise the change in any way. If not for the
section 5 pre-clearance process, minority voters would not
have known of the change until Election Day. This is Debo P.
Adegbile, ``Voting Rights in Louisiana, 1982-2006,''
RenewtheVRA.org, at 31.
In 1999, after the Davills Precinct polling center burned
down and the County Board of Supervisors of Dinwiddie County,
Virginia, moved the polling place to the Cut Bank Hunt Club,
privately owned with a large African-American membership, one
hundred and five citizens submitted their signatures to have
the precinct moved to the Mansons United Methodist Church,
located three miles southeast of the Hunt Club. The
petition's stated purpose for moving the precinct was for a
``more central location.'' Before the board's meeting to
discuss moving the polling place, the Mansons United
Methodist Church withdrew its name as a possible location.
The board then placed an advertisement for a public hearing
on changing the polling place which stated that if any
``suitable centrally located location [could] be found prior
to July 15, 1999,'' they would consider moving it there. On
July 12, 1999, the Bott Memorial Presbyterian Church members
offered their facilities for polling. On August 4, 1999, the
board approved changing the polling place to Bott Memorial
Presbyterian Church. The church is located at the extreme
east end of the precinct, however, and 1990 Census data
showed that a significant portion of the black population
resides in the western end of the precinct.
DOJ objected to the change, finding that the polling place
was moved for discriminatory reasons. This is a Letter from
Bill Lann Lee, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Civil
Rights Division, U.S. DOJ., to Benjamin W. Emerson of Sands,
Anderson, Marks & Miller, October 27, 1999.
Methods of Elections
Officials have used their authority to set the methods of
elections as ways to abridge or even deny the ability of
minority citizens to vote and elect candidates of their
choice. The following are examples of the use of at-large
election systems, dual registration systems and other methods
since the last reauthorization of section 5.
In 1995, the State of Mississippi resurrected a form of the
dual registration system, which a Federal district court had
struck down less than a decade earlier as racially
discriminatory in intent and effect. Mississippi then refused
to submit its voting procedures for pre-clearance until
ordered to do so by the U.S. Supreme Court. Under the
unlawful system, voters who registered pursuant to the
National Voter Registration Act, NVRA, would only be eligible
to vote in federal elections, but not in State and local
elections. The majority of voters registered under the NVRA
were African-American. In addition, while one state
department provided its mostly-African-American public
assistance clientele with only the NVRA registration forms,
another department registered its mostly-white driver's
license applicants through the state forms, which enabled
them to vote in all elections. In its objection letter, DOJ
noted the state had merely breathed new life into the dual
registration system originally enacted by Mississippi in the
19th Century with an aim to eliminate the African-American
vote. This is Robert McDuff, ``Voting Rights in Mississippi:
1982-2006,'' RenewTheVRA.org at 16.
[[Page S7749]]
In 1992, Effingham County, Georgia proposed an at-large
election system despite anticipating that, due to racially
polarized voting, after the change, African-Americans would
no longer be able to elect the commissioner who would serve
as chairperson. This decision came on the heels of the
county's decision to eliminate the position of vice-
chairperson, long held by an African-American commissioner.
The county's justification for the change--that the proposed
system would avoid tie votes in the selection of a
chairperson--was tenuous at best because under the new
system, an even number of commissioners would invite tie
votes to a greater extent than the existing system. This is
Robert Kengle, ``Voting Rights in Georgia: 1982-2006,''
RenewTheVRA.org at 9-10.
Ten years after a successful lawsuit that forced the
adoption of single-member districts in the city of Freeport,
TX, minority candidates had gained two seats on the city
council. The City then sought to revert to at-large
elections, garnering an objection from the Department of
Justice. Similarly, the Haskill Consolidated Independent
School District sought to revert to at-large voting after
significant gains by minority populations.
After the Washington Parish, Louisiana, School Board
finally added a second majority-African American district in
1993, bringing the total to 2 out of 8, representing an
African American population of 32 percent, it immediately
created a new at-large seat to ensure that no white incumbent
would lose his or her seat and to reduce the impact of the
two African American members, to 2 out of 9. The
Department of Justice objected to this change. (See Letter
from James P. Turner, Assistant Attorney General, Civil
Rights Division, U.S. DOJ, to Sherri Marcus Morris,
Assistant Attorney General, State of Louisiana, and Jerald
N. Jones, City of Shreveport, September 11, 1995, cited in
Debo Adegbile, Voting Rights in Louisiana: 1982-2006,
February 2006, at 21.)
A Federal district court found that the at-large method of
electing the nine member Charleston County Council in South
Carolina violated section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. In
particular, the court found evidence of white bloc voting and
concluded that in 10 general elections involving African-
American candidates, ``white and minority voters were
polarized 100 percent of the time.'' The court also noted
that there was a history of discrimination that hindered the
present ability of minority voters to participate in the
political process; significant socio-economic disparities
along racial lines; a negligible history of African-American
electoral success; and significant evidence of intimidation
and harassment of African-American voters at the polls.
Following the court's decision, which was affirmed on appeal,
a single-member district plan was put in place with four
majority African-American districts that eventually led to
the election of four African Americans to the County Council.
This is Laughlin McDonald ``The Case for Extending and
Amending the Voting Rights Act,'' A Report of the Voting
Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union at 591-
592.
In 2005, a three-judge Federal court enjoined the city of
McComb, MS, from enforcing a State court order it had
obtained that removed an African-American member of that
city's board of selectmen from his seat by changing the
requirements for holding that office, holding that the order
clearly altered the pre-existing practice. The court ordered
the selectman restored to his office and enjoined the city
from enforcing the change unless preclearance was obtained.
This is Robert McDuff, ``Voting Rights in Mississippi: 1982-
2006,'' RenewTheVRA.org at 8.
In 1991 the Concordia Parish Police Jury in Louisiana
announced that it would reduce its size from 9 seats to 7,
with the intended consequence of eliminating one African-
American district, claiming the reduction was necessary as a
cost-saving measure. However, DOJ noted in its objection that
the parish had seen no need to save money by eliminating
districts until an influx of African-American residents
transformed the district in question from a majority-white
district into a majority African-American district. This is
Debo P. Adegbile, ``Voting Rights in Louisiana: 1982-2006,''
RenewTheVRA.org at 24.
Annexations
The following are examples from the record where
jurisdictions changed their boundaries in order to diminish
the voting power of minorities by selectively changing the
racial composition of a district. Numerous jurisdictions have
annexed neighboring white suburbs in order to preserve white
majorities or electoral power.
In 1990, the city of Monroe, LA attempted to annex white
suburban wards to its city court jurisdiction. In its
objection, DOJ noted that the wards in question had been
eligible for annexation since 1970, but that there had been
no interest in annexing them until just after the first-ever
African-American candidate ran for Monroe city court. This is
Debo P. Adegbile, ``Voting Rights in Louisiana: 1982-2006,''
RenewTheVRA.org at 24.
Pleasant Grove, Alabama was an all-white city with a long
history of discrimination, located in an otherwise racially
mixed part of Alabama. The city sought pre-clearance for two
annexations, one for an area of white residents who wanted to
attend the all-white Pleasant Grove school district instead
of the desegregated Jefferson County school district, the
other for a parcel of land that was uninhabited at the time
but where the city planned to build upper income housing that
would likely be inhabited by whites only. At the same time,
the city refused to annex to two predominantly black areas.
The United States Supreme Court upheld the District Court's
denial of pre-clearance. This is from City of Pleasant Grove
v. United States, 479 U.S. 462, 1987.
In 2003, the Department of Justice interposed an objection
to a proposed annexation in the Town of North, SC, because
the town had ``been racially selective in its response to
both formal and informal annexation requests.'' DOJ found
that ``white petitioners have no difficulty in annexing their
property to the town'' while ``town officials provide little,
if any, information or assistance to black petitioners and
often fail to respond to their requests, whether formal or
informal, with the result that the annexation efforts of
black persons fail.'' Though the town argued that no formal
attempts had been made by African-Americans to be annexed
into the town, DOJ's investigation revealed that at least one
petition had been signed by a significant number of African-
American residents who sought annexation. The fact that the
town ignored or was non-responsive to the requests of
African-Americans, while accommodating the requests of
whites, led DOJ to determine that race was ``an overriding
factor in how the town responds to annexation requests.''
This is a Letter from R. Alexander Acosta, Assistant Attorney
General, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice,
to H. Bruce Buckheister, Mayor, North, SC, September 16,
2003.
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