ARTICLE WRITTEN BY: STATE SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS
Dear Friend,

This month marks the 48th anniversary of the passage of the Voting Rights Act, landmark federal legislation aimed at preventing discrimination in voting. The Voting Rights Act was passed in response to an era in which many states, particularly in the south, mandated literacy tests, poll taxes, and other devices to institutionalize the disenfranchisement of African Americans.

One of the key tools of the Act is Section 5, which requires states with a history of discrimination at the ballot box – Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia – to receive special preclearance from the U.S. Department of Justice or a federal court prior to changing election and voting laws. For nearly five decades, the Department of Justice and our court system has blocked racially discriminatory voting measures from going into effect in communities across the country.

Friends, do not let the Court’s decision reverse decades of progress we have made to protect our voting rights. The United States Congress must immediately revamp the Voting Rights Act to create a formula which takes into account current and historical discrimination and bias while meeting the requirements the Supreme Court has set out. I urge you to let Congress know that it must act now to protect the voting rights of millions of Texans.

However, this past June, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted this essential protection when it ruled in Shelby County v. Holder that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. Section 4 outlines which states are subject to the extra protections provided by the preclearance requirements of Section 5. So while Section 5 survives, it remains unenforceable until Congress updates the formula for which states and jurisdictions are subject to the preclearance requirements.

Writing for the majority of the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts said, “Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problems speaks to current conditions.” I don’t know what America the justices are living in to pretend deliberate and blatant attempts to disenfranchise people of color at the ballot box do not exist. I believe this decision is outrageous and nonsensical, and the fight to protect our right to vote goes on to this day.

Instead of poll taxes and literacy tests of yesteryear, states now use controversial voter ID laws and gerrymandered districts to suppress the vote. The Texas voter ID law, approved in 2011, will make it significantly more difficult for approximately one million eligible Texans to exercise their right to vote. A federal court has already ruled that the law will have a discriminatory impact on minorities and impose “strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor.” When it comes to redistricting, Texas is now 55 percent minority – and still increasing – yet only one-third of Texas legislative seats provide minorities the opportunity to elect the candidate of their choice. Shamefully, Texas was the only state in the country which adopted redistricting plans following the 2010 Census that have been ruled to be deliberately discriminatory against African American and Latino voters.

Both the voter ID law and the discriminatory redistricting maps were stopped because of the preclearance requirements of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Due to the Supreme Court’s decision, however, these types of voting changes will be much more difficult to prevent from taking effect. The legislature has since passed new redistricting maps, and ongoing litigation continues to sort out the future of the voter ID law. In fact, today the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it would be filing a new lawsuit against Texas over the law.

The fight to protect our right to vote continues, as there are pending lawsuits filed by citizens attempting to pull Texas back into a preclearance requirement based on a different section of the Voting Rights Act. However, unlike Section 5, this provision shifts the burden of proof to the challenger to prove a voting change is discriminatory rather than the state being required to prove it is not. Once again, it is up to the citizens to fight to preserve their voting rights.

Sincerely,

RE Signature

Rodney Ellis