The Independent View: Congress Unveils New Voting Rights Act Fix

A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation Thursday that would restore protections in the Voting Rights Act that were struck down by the Supreme Court last year.

The proposed legislation would state that all states and jurisdictions are subject to the same standard: If they have a clean record with no voting violations over the past 15 years, they don't have to ask the federal government for approval to change their laws. But if they have a certain number of voting violations over the last 15 years, they have to get a thumbs up from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia first.

The bill is bipartisan, with Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner joining Democrats Rep. John Conyers and Sen. Patrick Leahy in introducing the legislation.

The The Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014 bill strengthens the VRA in five distinct ways:

1: The legislation draws a new coverage formula for Section 4, thereby resurrecting Section 5. States with five violations of federal law to their voting changes over the past fifteen years will have to submit future election changes for federal approval. This new formula would currently apply to Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Local jurisdictions would be covered if they commit three or more violations or have one violation and “persistent, extremely low minority turnout” over the past fifteen years.

The formula is based on a rolling calendar, updated with a current fifteen-year time period to exempt states who are no longer discriminating or add new ones who are, creating a deterrent against future voting rights violations. It’s based on empirical conditions and current data, not geography or a fixed time period, which voting rights advocates hope will satisfy Chief Justice John Roberts should the new legislation be enacted and reach the Supreme Court.

The new Section 4 proposal is far from perfect. It does not apply to states with an extensive record of voting discrimination, like Alabama (where civil rights protests in Selma gave birth to the VRA), Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, which were previously subject to Section 5. Nor does it apply to states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that have enacted new voting restrictions in the past few years.

Moreover, rulings against voter ID laws—like in Texas in 2012 will not count as a new violation. Voter ID laws can still be blocked by the Department of Justice or federal courts in the new states covered under Section 4, but that will not be included as one of the five violations needed to keep the state covered. This exemption for voter ID laws was written to win the support of House majority leader Eric Cantor and other Republicans.

2: The legislation strengthens Section 3 of the VRA, which has been described as the Act’s “secret weapon.” Under Section 3, jurisdictions not covered by Section 4 could be “bailed-in” to federal supervision, but plaintiffs had to show evidence of intentional voting discrimination, which is very difficult to do in court. Under the new Section 3 proposal, any violation of the VRA or federal voting rights law, whether intentional or not, can be grounds for a bail-in, which will make it far easier to cover new states. (One major caveat, again, is that court objections to voter ID laws cannot be used as grounds for “bail-in” under Section 3.)

3: The legislation mandates that jurisdictions in all fifty states have to provide notice in the local media and online of any election procedures related to redistricting changes within 180 days of a federal election and the moving of a polling place. This will make it easier for citizens to identify potentially harmful voting changes in the forty-six states not subject to Sections 4 and 5.

4: The legislation makes it easier to seek a preliminary injunction against a potentially discriminatory voting law. Plaintiffs will now only have to show that the hardship to them outweighs the hardship to the state if a law is blocked in court pending a full trial. There will be a preliminary injunction hearing on North Carolina’s voting law in July 2014, before the full trial takes place July 2015.

5: The legislation reaffirms that the attorney general can send federal observers to monitor elections in states subject to Section 4 and expands the AG’s authority to send observers to jurisdictions with a history of discriminating against language minority groups, which includes parts of twenty-five states.

Voting rights supporters will argue that the new Section 4 formula does not apply to enough states and wrongly treats voter ID laws differently than other discriminatory voting changes.

The legislation strengthens voting rights protections in a number of tangible ways and gives the federal government and voting rights advocates new tools to combat voting discrimination.

So they sort of listened to me. I recommended this awhile ago.

My suggestion was to use the Census process and review the prior 10 years. This would hopefully take the process out of Congress's jurisdiction.

UPDATE

Thanks to Ballot Access News for this update.

The bill, HR 3899, sponsored by James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) now includes three Republicans and six Democrats. The three Republicans are Spencer Bachus of Alabama, Steve Chabot of Ohio, and Sean Duffy of Wisconsin. The five Democrats are John Conyers of Michigan, John Lewis of Georgia, Bobby Scott of Virginia, Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, and Steny Hoyer of Maryland.

The identical Senate bill is S.1945. It is sponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), and co-sponsored by Senators Richard Durbin (D-Ilinois) and Christoper Coons (D-Delaware).

CLICK HERE to read the bill.