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On June 21, the Voting Rights Act, originally signed in 1965, was due to be reauthorized by Congress. The Voting Rights Act was one of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation passed in the 1960s. It codified the absolute rights of African American and other disenfranchised people to vote in state, local and federal elections, taking away racist impediments put up by many Southern state and local governments. It was the result of decades of struggle and was pushed to the fore by the massive African American-led Civil Rights movement.
Because of the historic importance of the Voting Rights Act, its prospects for being renewed seemed assured with leaders of both parties agreeing to an almost perfunctory journey through both houses of Congress.
However, on the day of the vote, a group of House Republicans objected to the law and sidetracked the authorization by claiming that rather than making it easier to vote, the Act was purely punitive at this time. They objected most to two sections of the Act. One allows ballots to be printed in multiple languages. Opposition to this provision stems from anti-immigrant racism. The right-wing is attempting to spread racist xenophobia against Latinos and other immigrants by opposing any government-mandated assistance to people who don’t speak English.
The other section at issue was the biggest roadblock to passage—pre-clearance. Pre-clearance is a provision saying that any state with a history of racism must submit any voting changes to federal authorities prior to writing them into state law. The purpose of this provision was to prevent racist local governments from keeping Black people out of voting booths.
The Southern congressman who objected to the Act, however, declared pre-clearance to be an unnecessary hindrance based purely on the past. Representative John Carter of Texas put it bluntly: “We don’t have racial bias anymore.” He contends, along with others, that the Voting Rights Act provisions in question operate now only as punishment for past crimes.
Yet, racism and access to the ballot box is hardly a thing of the past. A recent report by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights proves this. It states that Texas, Carter’s home state, has enacted more discriminatory voting changes into law than any other state except one. Large-scale disenfranchisement in Ohio during the 2004 presidential election and in Florida in 2000 also highlights the continuing relevance of pre-clearance.
The longstanding legacy of racism against Black people translates into racism in many spheres of life, including at the ballot box. This racism permeates every single state in the United States, but especially those that came out of Jim Crow apartheid less than 50 years ago.
Capitalism and racism
The derailment of the Voting Rights Act is more then just an attempt to whip up racist sentiment during an election year by a few right-wing congressmen. It is truly an attempt to turn back the clock on civil rights. Without renewal, pre-clearance and other provisions will expire in 2007, leaving minority voters open to disenfranchisement on a massive scale.
A coalition of liberal African American advocacy groups, like the NAACP and the Urban League, are speaking out against this outrage. Beginning on July 12, these groups will sponsor an ongoing vigil on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. They say it will continue until Congress passes an extension of the Act. (Louisiana Weekly, July 10)
The current debate over the Voting Rights Act underscores the fact that the rights of oppressed minorities—African American, Latinos and others—can never be safe under capitalism. Capitalism and racism go hand in hand.
The Voting Rights Act was an important democratic victory won by the blood and struggle of millions of Black Americans and their anti-racist allies. It was the product of struggle and can only be maintained by a movement rooted in militant defense of civil rights gains and against all forms of racism and bigotry.
It is essential that socialists participate in and lead the struggles for democratic rights at every turn. But while we struggle for democratic advances, revolutionary Marxists know that only when the racist capitalist class has been dislodged from power can we truly begin to right the historical wrongs of racism.
