[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 14711-14716]
[From the U.S. 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

[[Page 14712]]

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 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

[[Page 14713]]

     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 
     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

[[Page 14714]]

     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 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.

[[Page 14715]]

       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.
       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

[[Page 14716]]

     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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