Republicans Stall Renewal of Voting Rights Act

Laurie Kellman for AP reports House Republican leaders on Wednesday postponed a vote on renewing the 1965 Voting Rights Act after GOP lawmakers complained it unfairly singles out nine Southern states for federal oversight. … The four-decade-old law enfranchised millions of black voters by ending poll taxes and literacy tests during the height of the civil rights struggle. A vote on renewing it for another 25 years had been scheduled for Wednesday, with both Republican and Democratic leaders behind it. … The shift came after a private House GOP caucus meeting earlier Wednesday in which several Republicans also balked at extending provisions in the law that require ballots to be printed in more than one language in neighborhoods where there are large numbers of immigrants, said several participants. … Several Republicans, led by [Rep. Lynn] Westmoreland [R-Ga.] had worked to allow an amendment that would ease a requirement that nine states win permission from the Justice Department or a federal judge to change their voting rules. The amendment's backers say the requirement unfairly singles out and holds accountable nine states that practiced racist voting policies decades ago, based on 1964 voter turnout data: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. … The amendment has powerful opponents. From Republican and Democratic leaders on down the House hierarchy, they argue that states with documented histories of discrimination may still practice it and have earned the extra scrutiny. "This carefully crafted legislation should remain clean and unamended," Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., who worked on the original bill, which he called "the keystone of our national civil rights statutes." --- Lynn Westmoreland was recently interviewed by Stephen Colbert. Westmoreland co-sponsored a bill requiring display of the 10 Commandments in the House and Senate. But when asked by Colbert to list the Commandments, Westmoreland could barely think of three! Norm at onegoodmove has the video (a must see).