Members of Congress Introduce New Fix for Voting Rights Act
Source: The Nation
Today Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and John Conyers (D-MI) and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) will introduce legislation to strengthen the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision last June invalidating a critical section of the VRA. The legislation, known as “The Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014,” represents the first attempt by a bipartisan group in Congress to reinstate the vital protections of the VRA that the Supreme Court took away.
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1: The legislation draws a new coverage formula for Section 4, thereby resurrecting Section 5. States with five violations of federal law to their voting changes over the past fifteen years will have to submit future election changes for federal approval. This new formula would currently apply to Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Local jurisdictions would be covered if they commit three or more violations or have one violation and “persistent, extremely low minority turnout” over the past fifteen years.
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2: The legislation strengthens Section 3 of the VRA, which has been described as the Act’s “secret weapon.” Under Section 3, jurisdictions not covered by Section 4 could be “bailed-in” to federal supervision, but plaintiffs had to show evidence of intentional voting discrimination, which is very difficult to do in court. Under the new Section 3 proposal, any violation of the VRA or federal voting rights law – whether intentional or not – can be grounds for a bail-in, which will make it far easier to cover new states. (One major caveat, again, is that court objections to voter ID laws cannot be used as grounds for “bail-in” under Section 3.)
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3: The legislation mandates that jurisdictions in all fifty states have to provide notice in the local media and online of any election procedures related to a) redistricting b) changes within 120 days before a federal election and c) the moving of a polling place. This will make it easier for citizens to identify potentially harmful voting changes in the 46 states not subject to Sections 4 and 5.
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Read more: http://www.thenation.com/blog/177962/members-congress-introduce-new-fix-voting-rights-act#
The new legislation will also make it easier to seek preliminary injunctions against potentially discriminatory laws, and reaffirm and expand the Attorney General's authority to send in observers to monitor elections.
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