[EL] Fwd: common assertion about redistricting isn't true

[Abigail Thernstrom]

	A post-script.  I suppose I should add -- given how often critics  
have distorted my arguments -- that I have never suggested the purpose  
of section 5 should have remained as limited as it initially was.   
Allen was obviously correctly decided.  Mississippi and other states  
had acted quickly to amend state law to reduce the impact of the new  
black vote, and the Supreme Court could not turn a blind eye to such  
racist maneuvers.

	Abby

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Abigail Thernstrom <thernstr at fas.harvard.edu>
> Date: June 12, 2011 9:47:26 PM EDT
> To: Brian Landsberg <blandsberg at pacific.edu>
> Cc: "law-election at uci.edu" <law-election at uci.edu>
> Subject: Re: [EL] common assertion about redistricting isn't true
>
>
> 	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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