Voting Rights Act TOTALLY Passes!

[Bill Bored]

Last night, on a 98-0 vote, the Senate passed the bill reauthorizing the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (S. 2703).

The wackos in the House already passed it a few days ago. They must be scared shitless about the upcoming election! Serves 'em right.

Anyway, I thought it would be nice to take a break from all this e-voting crap and celebrate a little! This is a great election reform victory!

(Too bad a couple of good ol' boys from Georgia still get to right the federal voting system standards, disenfranchising voters with 21st century technology: <http://www.epic.org/foia_notes/note11.html>
...whoops, that's e-voting again -- never mind.)

[derby378]

1. And now for the signing statement

Hold on to your butts - it's Nero time!

[MADem]

3. Oh, GOOD LORD....let's speculate on what might be in THAT!!!!!

PS: 'Cept yew kin not let them negroes vote, 'cuz they wuz mean to me when ah went to give 'em a talk.

PS: If the states wanna go back ta the days before the wimmins got ta vote, that's hunky-dory with me!!!!

PS: Do whatcha want with them there votin' machines, so long as ya clear it with Karl first!!!!

PS: If they's Messican-lookin', feel free ta chase 'em outta the polling place with an axe-handle, an' be sure ta holler "I'll get the MIGRA after yew, boy!"

[mom cat]

7. Lets put invisible ink in the signing statement pen!

:evilgrin:

[bullimiami]

2. but the blatant illegal actions in recent elections go unpunished

and i guess it will continue.

they will pass it and ignore it.

[JAYJDF]

4. Although this is a good thing, it's not a win

It had to pass, Busch just promised it would in his speech.

[Jokerman]

5. Great, now it needs to be ENFORCED.

If the justice department doesn't enforce the law it doesn't do much good.

[ananda]

6. as we learned in..

.. the Texas redistricting case.

"If the justice department doesn't enforce the law it doesn't do much good."

[Canuckistanian]

8. I don't get this...

A few weeks ago, it didn't look like this was going to pass at all.

See here:

Last Wednesday, the Republican caucus of the US House of Representatives stopped the House Republican leadership from bringing to a vote a reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a reauthorization that would have surely passed with broad Democratic support. As Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post wrote (Bigotry Beneath the Fog, by Eugene Robinson, Friday, June 23, 2006; Page A25:


"In one breathtaking moment of clarity, we see that a significant portion of the House Republican caucus is determined to deep-six, or at least fatally weaken, a landmark law designed to make it possible for the nation's largest minority groups to exercise their franchise at the polls -- and designed to make it difficult for anyone with nefarious intent to keep these minority citizens from voting."

http://www.johnbonifaz.com/blog/20060625

As we discussed here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=436770

Now, it passes on a 98-0 vote? What gives?
:wtf:

[klook]

9. This is for show; the Republicans have no intent of enforcing it.

from Gregpalast.com--

Voting Rights Act — This was a big applause line. Bush gloated about his convincing the White Sheets Caucus of the Republican Party to go along with the renewal of the Voting Rights Act. But he forgot to mention the fine print. The Southern GOP only went along with renewing the law on the understanding that the law would never be enforced. Think I’m kidding? Check this: in July 2004, the US Civil Rights Commission voted to open a civil and criminal investigation of his brother’s Administration in Florida for knowingly renewing a racially-biased scrub of voter rolls. In April 2004, Governor Jeb Bush, of the “family committed to civil rights,” personally ordered this new purge of “felons” from voter rolls, despite promising never to repeat the infamous scrub of 2000. The new purge violated a settlement he signed with the, uh, NAACP.

It also violated the Voting Rights Act. The Civil Rights Commission turned the case over to the US Justice Department which, two years on, has yet to begin the investigation. That’s not to say President Bush did nothing. He swiftly replaced every member of the Commission who voted to investigate his brother.
--from "They Don't Call It The White House For Nothing"

Still, it's good that the law is still on the books, in case Democrats regain control of our government again.

[Bill Bored]

10. Exactly! A year ago Conyers and many others were very concerned. nt