Since the Voting Rights Act has been hijacked by a handful of Republicans, can it be considered a racist move? Well let’s start by looking at who exactly hijacked this very important piece of legislation:
The postponed vote is the latest example of divisions within the GOP that have complicated House and Senate leaders’ efforts to move legislation backed by President Bush. Social Security revisions died in 2005, and a proposed overhaul of immigration laws is in peril despite the backing of Bush, who also supports extension of the Voting Rights Act.
The immigration debate, which has preoccupied Congress for much of the year, included complaints that too many immigrants fail to learn English; the Senate version of the legislation declared English the “national language.” House GOP leaders said the issues are unrelated, because only those immigrants who have become U.S. citizens are allowed to vote, while the immigration debate focuses on illegal immigrants.
But nearly 80 House Republicans signed a letter by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) objecting to the Voting Rights Act’s provisions that require state and local governments to print ballots in foreign languages — or provide interpreters — in precincts showing a need for such services. The requirement is a costly unfunded mandate for many counties and municipalities, the letter said, adding: “The multilingual ballot mandate encourages the linguistic division of our nation and contradicts the ‘Melting Pot’ ideal that has made us the most successful multi-ethnic nation on earth.”
First off – it is interesting that the Republicans, who constantly chant for a “fair up or down vote” has now decided that they will hide from their “principals” in order to block this. We also know that the immigration debate is basically dead, in a big part because Republican leaders from the House and Senate can not agree on the language.
So could that be the real reason they are blocking it? Let’s see what the Washington Posts’s Eugene Robinson has to say about it:
In what was described as a contentious caucus meeting, Southern Republicans complained that their states were being singled out by the act, which was originally intended to do away with the poll taxes, literacy tests and other measures that were used to deprive black voters of their rights during the Jim Crow era. Having grown up in South Carolina during the “last throes” (to quote Dick Cheney in another context) of racial segregation, I can testify that the states in question went far out of their way to earn the enhanced scrutiny the Voting Rights Act forces them to endure.
Most members of Congress agree, and there probably would have been no problem if other members of the caucus hadn’t raised a separate issue: the act’s requirement that bilingual ballots be made available in localities where significant numbers of voters speak a language other than English.
Hmmm. Let me take a wild guess: Any chance the issue might be voters who speak, say, Spanish? Any chance this is just a warm-up for the rabid demagoguery we’re going to hear from Republicans on the immigration issue this fall?
So there we have it. In one breathtaking moment of clarity, we see that a significant portion of the House Republican caucus is determined to deep-six, or at least fatally weaken, a landmark law designed to make it possible for the nation’s largest minority groups to exercise their franchise at the polls — and designed to make it difficult for anyone with nefarious intent to keep these minority citizens from voting.
Now I know there are some that would justify that as a legitimate reason to halt the vote. I might even agree, until I think about the other legislation that did get passed yesterday – the reduction of the “estate tax”. After thinking about that, I remembered an interesting post on Think Progress a couple weeks ago:
The last time Congress voted to phase-out the estate tax (aka the Paris Hilton Tax) in 2001, Robert L. Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television, enthusiastically called for repeal. He took out full-page ads in national newspapers, granted interviews, even gave speeches claiming that a repeal “will help close the wealth gap…between African-American families and white families.”
But Johnson’s argument is seriously misguided. Roughly 38 million blacks live in the United States. Of those, an estimated 59 — yes, 59 — will pay estate taxes this year, and that number will drop to just 33 in 2009, according to American Progress economist John Irons (using estimates derived from The State Of The Estate Tax As Of 2006). The truth is the wealth gap between whites and blacks will only exacerbate when there are fewer tax credits and services offered to the rest of us who start out with zero inheritance.
So the House Republicans could not vote to pass one of the greatest pieces of legislation, which insures every person in this country is part of the democratic process, but they could find the time to cut taxes to the rich, white people. Looking at each issue separately it may not seem racist but when you consider both of these actions, which took place on the very same day, then that view can quickly change.