President Obama’s legacy wish list already contains items that often seemed unattainable, such as a nuclear deal with Iran, healthcare reform and gay marriage. Yet he likely will leave office without a trophy of particular significance to African-Americans that, on its face, should have been an easy get.
Two years ago, the Supreme Court stripped the federal government’s power to require certain states to clear changes to voting laws with the Justice Department under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. With the exception of its original enactment, reauthorization has been a cinch. As recently as 2006, the statute that wiped laws created exclusively to deny minorities the right to vote off the books enjoyed broad bipartisan support.
However, addressing the Supreme Court’s issues with the law has drawn scant Republican support and bills aimed at doing so can’t even get scheduled for committee consideration.
Both House and Senate Judiciary chairmen say the rest of the law adequately defends the rights of minority voters and that there’s no need to update it. Obama, Democrats and a few Republicans disagree, but the issue doesn’t look likely to be resolved before Obama leaves office.
That puts next year’s presidential election on track to be the first conducted without the Voting Rights Act’s full protection.
“We just need this constant drumbeat” from the civil rights community, the White House and voters “about strengthening the Voting Rights Act because the leaders in Congress need to recognize that, for many, it is unacceptable that one of the most iconic civil rights laws has been weakened and they are refusing to move on the legislation to fix it,” said Marcia Johnson-Blanco of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
Obama has been calling on Congress to develop a new pre-clearance formula that will pass Supreme Court scrutiny since the High Court struck the existing one in June of 2013.
Lawmakers responded fairly quickly. Last Congress Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., teamed up with Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., to establish a new system by which states would fall into “pre-clearance” if they established a pattern of enacting discriminatory voting rules and laws. But it couldn’t gain traction in the House and after then-Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia lost his primary and left Congress, proponents lost their advocate in GOP leadership.
Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, steadfastly refused to circumvent Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., by bringing it straight to the floor. New Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who looks on deck to replace Boehner when he steps down this month, has made some “encouraging comments,” according to Johnson-Blanco, but did not take up Cantor’s cause in pushing for a vote on the legislation.
Given the “Hastert Rule” — so named for now-disgraced former Speaker Dennis Hastert — that says leadership will not bring to the floor legislation that doesn’t enjoy majority support of the Republican Conference, and that Boehner was much criticized by the rank-and-file for not respecting their input enough, it’s hard to see McCarthy forcing the issue.
Only 12 Republicans have signed on to Sensenbrenner’s Voting Rights Amendment Act, which he and Conyers reintroduced this year. There are no Republican co-sponsors of Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell’s more far-reaching Voting Rights Advancement Act. But Alaskan Sen. Lisa Murkowski made waves last month when she became the first Republican co-sponsor of its Senate companion, which Leahy introduced much to Sensenbrenner’s chagrin over the summer.
“The Voting Rights Act of 1965 brought an end to the ugly Jim Crow period in American history,” Murkowski said Sept. 10 in explaining her support. “It is fundamentally important in our system of government that every American be given the opportunity to vote, regardless of who they are, where they live, and what their race or national origin may be.”
Murkowski’s announcement came the same day the Last Frontier state settled a lawsuit with Alaskan Natives charging that the state didn’t translate ballots in enough Native Alaskan language and otherwise help voters who primarily speak Native Alaskan languages.
On the 50th anniversary of the civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in March, Obama stood next to Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., where five decades earlier he was nearly beaten to death by police for his part in the demonstration. At the event, Obama took Congress to task for not quickly passing a new enforcement formula.
“The Voting Rights Act was one of the crowning achievements of our democracy, the result of Republican and Democratic efforts,” Obama said. “One hundred members of Congress have come here today to honor people who were willing to die for the right to protect it. If we want to honor this day, let that 100 go back to Washington and gather 400 more, and together, pledge to make it their mission to restore that law this year.”
The Justice Department continues to sue states, or sign on to lawsuits, challenging new state voter laws that it thinks are unconstitutional. But litigation can take years, allowing some laws that later get struck down to remain in effect during elections, which happened in the midterm elections, Johnson-Blanco said.
But aside from the bully pulpit, and making proclamations, such as one issued Sept. 22 making it “National Voter Registration” day, there is little else Obama can do.
Even if that wasn’t the case, Pulitzer prize-winning presidential historian Joseph Ellis said winning an updated Voting Rights Act is not as important to Obama as it is to the Democratic Party and its key constituencies.
“I think it’s high on the list of the Democratic Party and the people thinking about the looming election … but within the spectrum of Obama’s larger priorities, I think there are seven or eight things ahead of this one,” Ellis said.
“This is Hillary’s problem,” he said, assuming Hillary Clinton eventually becomes the Democratic presidential nominee.
“This is one he’d like to get but no amount of arm twisting is going to make a difference,” Ellis added.
This article appears in the Oct. 5 edition of the Washington Examiner magazine.
