Voting Rights Act Renewal Divides GOP
Bush's plan to attract more minorities to the party faces a rebellion by conservatives, who see provisions of the law as an insult to the South.
By Peter Wallsten and Johanna Neuman, Times Staff Writers
July 12, 2006
WASHINGTON — In an intensely competitive election year, this was supposed to be the issue virtually everyone in Congress could agree on: renewing civil rights-era laws protecting minorities' access to the ballot box.
But on the cusp of a vote scheduled for Thursday that White House strategists and other top Republicans once hoped would symbolize a GOP eager to attract more blacks and Latinos, a group of increasingly vocal Capitol Hill conservatives is staging a revolt — arguing that certain provisions of the law are out of sync with party principles and are insulting to the South.
The result is another emotional standoff within a party already fractured over how to deal with illegal immigration.
As in the battle over immigration policy, the flap over the Voting Rights Act pits the "big tent" political aims of President Bush's closest political advisors against conservatives who argue that they are being asked to vote against their values.
And the dispute is erupting at the same time that White House officials are deciding whether Bush this weekend should make his first speech since taking office to the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, the nation's oldest and biggest civil rights organization. The disagreement in the GOP-dominated Congress could spoil Bush's ability to cite renewal of the Voting Rights Act as proof that minorities can trust Republicans....
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-voting12jul12,0,522377.story?coll=la-home-nation
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