Voter discrimination is still a problem, black lawyers say
Panelists urge renewal of the Voting Rights Act, called `the crown jewel of civil-rights legislation.'

By Arin Gencer, Sentinel Staff Writer

Forty years ago this Saturday, with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. standing behind him, President Lyndon B. Johnson sat down at a dark wooden desk and signed the Voting Rights Act.

At the National Bar Association's 80th annual convention in Orlando on Tuesday, that act -- and the years and events leading up to it -- was the focus of a town-hall meeting about challenges facing the black community.

"The Voting Rights Act is the crown jewel of the civil-rights legislation," said Ted Shaw, a panelist and director-counsel and president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Shaw was one of three panelists who spoke to more than 100 members of the historically black law association about the importance of reauthorizing the landmark legislation, which guaranteed the right to vote without discrimination.

The National Commission on the Voting Rights Act is holding hearings nationwide to examine voting discrimination and the impact of the voting law since 1982, the last time the provisions were renewed.

The Florida hearing will be Thursday, with others to follow in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., this fall.

The act was passed in 1965 after states steeped in segregation continued to erect barriers for black voters, calling for poll taxes and literacy tests to keep them from registering to vote.

Of the act's seven temporary provisions that will expire if Congress doesn't reauthorize them in 2007, two are of particular concern.

One prevents designated areas called "covered jurisdictions" from making changes in how they conduct elections without the Justice Department's approval. The other requires certain localities to help voters who are not fluent in English or literate.

Five counties in Florida are considered covered jurisdictions, and eight entire states -- Texas, Georgia and Alabama, to name a few -- are covered under the law.

"In our country, there still is a dramatic need for this act," said Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Arnwine pointed to the February 2004 controversy in Waller County, Texas, where the district attorney's office sought to cut the number of early voting days at predominantly black Prairie View A&M University.

"We know from experience that there are attempts to discourage black folks from voting, from registering to vote, and when they are registered to vote, from showing up to polls and actually casting a ballot," Shaw said.

On Saturday, a number of organizations -- including the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League -- will march and rally in Atlanta to call for the act's reauthorization.