Good (news) Friday: Congress renews Voting Rights Act (without restrictions)

Given all of the problems Americans had exercising their right to vote in the past two presidential elections, one would have thought Congress would be debating ways to make voting more accessible and impervious to fraud, not more restrictive and subject to new-age Jim Crowism. But the latter is exactly what Southern Republicans attempted to do this week (via amendments); no doubt buoyed by the recent Supreme Court ruling, which upheld their former leader Tom Delay’s open and notorious gerrymandering of voting districts in his home state of Texas to increase the number of Republican members in Congress.

Anyone remotely familiar with American history will know that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted to ensure that historically disenfranchised blacks had not only the right but also the (unencumbered) means to vote. Therefore, it abolished Jim Crow barriers to voting like the poll tax and literacy tests. But it also required Southern states to seek federal approval for any changes to voting rights in their states and act affirmatively to aid voters at the polls; for example, by providing language assistance to citizens whose first language is not English. And these are the provisions (some) Republican Congressmen objected to.

Of course, it seemed to me a profound indictment of American democracy that a voting rights act was still necessary in 1965 – more than 100 years after blacks were finally recognized as human beings endowed with all of the inalienable rights of citizenship accorded to whites. But, that the right to vote is still being debated in Congress today is nothing less than a national disgrace.

After all, the provisions of the act which guarantee the means to vote should be every bit as permanent as the right to vote itself. Because where blacks encountered barriers in the past, other groups like Hispanics and other immigrants are bound to face similar discrimination if these provisions are grandfathered.