Hill District Event Celebrates The Impact Of The Voting Rights Act

Kaine. “Two years after the Supreme Court removed crucial provisions of this law, there is a disturbing trend in many states to shrink access to the ballot box, threatening the right of many Americans to participate in elections”.

The Department of Justice filed suit, alleging that the law violates the Voting Rights Act by denying or abridging the rights of black Americans.

President Obama urged the nation to prioritize voting rights during a nationwide video conference honoring the 50 anniversary of the Voting Rights Act Thursday afternoon. Critics of the law content that blacks, Latinos, poor and elderly voters are less likely to carry such identification. “One order of business is for our Congress to pass an updated version of the Voting Rights Act that would correct some of the problems that have arisen”.

Congress should honor the original intent of the Voting Rights Act by passing several bills that have been introduced to re-establish the federal oversight authority that had been struck by the court. The third would block states from making voters renew their voter registration prior to election day if they move within the state.

On August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law to end previously legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote under the 15th Amendment to the the Constitution.

South Carolina and other states with histories of discriminatory voting practices once needed federal approval to change their voting laws.

Although a victory for Democrats and minority rights groups, the decision wasn’t as sweeping as a ruling last year by lower court that compared the Texas law to old poll taxes that forced minorities to pay to vote.

“More than half a million registered voters do not have the kind of ID required by Texas’s harsh new law”.

The president also encouraged citizens to not let cynicism cause them to avoid the polls and they should “seize the power [they] have”, through voting and mobilizing as well. “We have to get it done”.

The measure prohibits racial discrimination in the voting process.

U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. and marched at Selma, is one of many who is using this 50th anniversary to call for revitalization of the Voting Rights Act.