[EL] common assertion about redistricting isn't true

[Abigail Thernstrom]

	Prior to Allen, the entire focus of enforcement was on basic black  
enfranchisement. In fact, references to section 5 were sparse in the  
1965 congressional hearings, and the Senate Committee report failed  
even to mention the provision in its summary of the bill, while the  
House Report gave it only a cursory and unilluminating glance.

	Attorney General Katzenbach did briefly explain it, however. "Our  
experience in the areas that would be covered by this bill," he said,  
"has been such as to indicate frequently on the part of state  
legislatures a desire in a sense to outguess the courts of the United  
States or even to outguess the Congress of the United States." That  
is, the courts and Congress could ban familiar disfranchising devices  
only to confront novel ones devised by southern states bent on evading  
the law. But for such changes in voting procedure to be rejected,  
Katzenbach went on, they would have to have the effect of denying the  
rights guaranteed by the Fifteenth Amendment. And numerous other  
witnesses at the hearings reassured their audience that those rights,  
which it was the entire purpose of the act to secure, were expected to  
be narrowly defined.

	That is, in 1965 section 5 was seen as nothing more than a corollary  
of section 4—the latter banning literacy tests, the former making sure  
that the effect of that ban stuck. The demand that federal authorities  
preclear any new voting procedure in counties and states in which  
literacy tests had been suspended had an unambiguous and limited aim:  
guarding against renewed disfranchisement, the use of the back door  
once the front one was blocked.

	Abby


On Jun 12, 2011, at 9:15 PM, Brian Landsberg wrote:

> That is correct.
> In  1965 and 1966 DOJ was monitoring registration and elections and  
> had not yet geared up for section 5 enforcement.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Jun 12, 2011, at 5:31 PM, "Abigail Thernstrom" <thernstr at fas.harvard.edu 
> > wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>   I am sure that none were -- although of course I could be wrong.   
>> But
>> prior to Allen, there was no reason for any jurisdiction to believe
>> redistricting had to be submitted for preclearance.
>>
>> Abigail Thernstrom
>> Vice-chair, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
>> Adjunct Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
>> www.thernstrom.com
>>
>>
>>
>> On Jun 12, 2011, at 8:24 PM, john.k.tanner at gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>> And I would question whether any redistricting plans were submitted
>>> for section 5 review pre-Allen
>>> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: jmwice at gmail.com
>>> Sender: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
>>> Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2011 00:21:32
>>> To: <richardwinger at yahoo.com>; <law-election at uci.edu>
>>> Reply-To: jmwice at gmail.com
>>> Subject: Re: [EL] common assertion about redistricting isn't true
>>>
>>> Interesting point. Perhaps we can refer to 2011-2012 the first
>>> regular post decennial census redistricting with a Democrat in the
>>> White House.
>>>
>>> Jeff Wice
>>> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Richard Winger <richardwinger at yahoo.com>
>>> Sender: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
>>> Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2011 17:05:03
>>> To: <law-election at uci.edu>
>>> Reply-To: richardwinger at yahoo.com
>>> Subject: [EL] common assertion about redistricting isn't true
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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