| Subject: Electionlawblog news and commentary 7/6/06 |
| From: DANIEL TOKAJI |
| Date: 7/6/2006, 6:19 AM |
| To: election-law |
The AP has this report, on a radio campaign linking illegal immigration and voter identification requirements. The ad, from a group called North Carolina Conservatives United, reportedly states: "Now we need to pass a law that prevents illegal immigrants from getting a driver's license and requires a photo ID to vote, because a nation of immigrants must also be a nation of laws." In related news, the Rocky Mountain News has this report on a Colorado bill that would reportedly require proof of citizenship to register and ID to vote.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer has this report on the debate between Cuyahoga County election officials and Diebold over who's responsible for the problems that occurred in the implementation of new voting equipment during the May primary.
The Arizona Daily Star has this report on the division of opinion among that state's top three elected officials over renewal of the preclearance requirement of the VRA. Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano and Republican Secretary of State Jan Brewer both support it, while Democratic Attorney General Terry Goddard "said he believes the law should be renewed only if amended to allow Arizona a reasonable way to get out from under federal scrutiny." Goddard believes that preclearance "has put Arizona into a straightjacket."
Today's San Jose Mercury-News has this op-ed from Angelo Ancheta of the Santa Clara University School of Law, and the Albany Times Union this one from Debo Adegbile of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, both supporting renewal.
Early Ofari Hutchinson offers this perspective on the renewal debate.
Civil rights groups filed a motion for a preliminary injunction yesterday in Common Cause/Georgia v. Billups, seeking to stop a law passed by the Georgia legislature earlier this year requiring voters to show photo identification in order to have their votes counted. The PI brief may be found here. As I've previously discussed here and here, this follows the district court's order last October, issuing a preliminary injunction against a prior version of Georgia's ID bill. The Georgia legislature passed the new version in January of this year, and it was subsequently precleared by the Justice Department.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights has this report on "Voting Rights in Texas, 1982-2006." According to the press release, the report was "released in the wake of the derailment by a small group of House Republicans, led by Lynn Westmoreland, R.Ga., of an important vote to renew key protections in a law largely considered the most successful civil rights legislation ever enacted." Its findings are summarized as follows:
[T] the report found that Texas has the second highest number of Justice Department objections to discriminatory voting changes since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) was last renewed in 1982. It also found that the state has withdrawn more discriminatory changes than any other covered state after the Justice Department asked for clarification of the effects the changes would have, which the report cites as evidence of the VRA's deterrent effect.The report found that many jurisdictions flouted the obligation to provide language assistance to voters, including recent examples in: Harris County in 2002 with respect to its Vietnamese voters; Hale County in 2005 with respect to its Spanish voters; and Ector County in 2006 with respect to its Spanish voters.
As noted in this post the House last week rejected the Stearns Amendment, which would have prevented federal funding for language assistance under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act. The Washington Post has this breakdown of the vote, showing that while the amendment was defeated 254-167, Republicans voted for it by a 164-61 margin. The text of the amendment provided: "None of the funds made available in this Act may be used to carry out any provision of section 203 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (42 U.S.C. 1973aa-1a)." The text may be found at the bottom of this page, and the floor debate by scrolling through the pages that follow.