Author: mopress

It’s a sign that times have indeed changed. The Waco newspaper is not impressed with “Dixie obstructionists,” such as local Congressman John Carter, who are blocking the Voting Rights Act. The only helpful thing we could see in Carter’s action is a little truth-in-advertising regarding the stakes of his re-election. As for the truth expressed by the Waco editorial, we could hardly say it better ourselves:

Editorial: Extend Voting Rights Act

Friday, June 23, 2006

Someone tell us what’s been so oppressive about the Voting Rights Act — certainly in contrast to the oppression that went before.
Before the 1965 act, a tyrannical majority under Jim Crow conspired in overt or subtle ways to disenfranchise minorities with poll taxes, literacy tests and reliance on at-large districts.

The act remains the most fundamental and far-reaching achievement of the civil rights era. For with power at the polls comes opportunity.

The act will expire next year. The House was prepared to vote for reauthorization this week when Southern Republicans, including the Texas delegation, stopped the action in its tracks.

Some of these Dixie obstructionists want the law abolished. Some say it shouldn’t just apply to the nine states affected but instead to all.

We can’t argue with the latter proposition. If it’s right for the South, it’s right for all. But that’s a can of worms unnecessarily splayed on the table. The South has managed to serve democracy right under the Voting Rights Act. It is not overly onerous. It has been incorporated into the way affected states govern. It is now, rightfully, a way of life for states that once made the exclusion of minorities a way of life.

The need, unfortunately, is not ancient history. Texas’ adventures in congressional redistricting, with a Supreme Court ruling imminent, showed the necessity for the Voting Rights Act.

The Voting Rights Act requires that redistricting not dilute the power of minority voters, something that’s easy to do by simply splitting them into subservient parcels of white-majority districts. Democrats have asserted that the GOP plan in Texas did just that. The GOP points out that it created some districts in which minorities have strong representation. The court will decide. If not for the Voting Rights Act, it might be hard for any African American in the South to be elected to Congress or the statehouse, or to serve on many local governing boards.

One of the disssenting Texas Republicans, Rep. John Carter of Round Rock, said his intention is not to abolish the Voting rights Act but to tweak it. It’s unclear what changes he desires.

“I don’t think we have racial bias in Texas anymore,” Carter said . Would that it were so.

The Voting Rights Act continues to stand between a tyrannical majority and those who otherwise would have little, or no, political power.

We don’t spend much time on political horse races, but a recent newsletter from Mary Beth Harrell provides a worthy expression of principle.

You may well be embarrassed – possibly stunned – even outraged, when I tell you…while my oldest boy is in Iraq right now serving our country – making personal sacrifices to champion the precious and fundamental rights that we hold dear, my opponent and incumbent Congressman John Carter is fighting to bring back literacy tests as a requisite for voting.

Why? “I simply believe you should be able to read, write and speak English to be a voter in the United States,” said Carter. A literacy test? The Austin-American Statesman declared that “is a curious statement from a member of Congress and former judge, because citizenship is the requisite for voting, not literacy…”Carter is 64, surely he remembers how literacy tests, poll taxes and grandfather clauses were used to strip non-whites of their voting rights in Texas. That’s why LBJ championed the Voting Rights Act.

But, Carter told the press there, is “no longer any racial bias in Texas” and so he stopped cold a vote to renew the Voting Rights Act. As the Houston Chronicle observed, Carter “has either been marooned on Mars most of his life or is frighteningly oblivious to reality.” Only a couple of weeks ago, in Carter’s own town, just north of Austin, a bailiff was fired for allegedly using the word “wetback, within earshot of students hauled into court for skipping school to attend pro-immigration rallies.”

My oldest boy is in Iraq right now fighting for our fundamental freedoms, our fundamental right to vote, our fundamental sense of fair play – not literacy tests.

I will champion the Voting Rights Act in Congress. I will champion America’s brighter future and continued greatness. But only with you help! Isn’t time to show your support for an independent and reasoned voice in Congress that will make you proud – not embarrassed…Then please make your campaign contribution now – don’t wait – do it now.

While we respectfully dissent from the connection Harrell makes between the Iraq war and American freedom, we do agree that the existence of that occupation raises crucial questions about the legitimacy of a mission that would export democracy as we know it.

“Bring ’em home,” we’d sing. And when they get home, show ’em what democracy looks like without barriers.

“The juice ain’t worth the squeeze,” says a report about new Medicaid rules that will require everyone to prove citizenship beginning July 1.

Because there is very little evidence of citizenship fraud in Medicaid, new federal regulations requiring strict citizenship documentation may very well increase the overall cost of the service, says a report from the Center for Public Policy Priorities.

http://www.cppp.org/research.php?aid=536

KXAN-TV has the best available coverage of yesterday’s arrests involving an alleged smuggling operation:

http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=5082228