I must say that of all the provisions in the bill, the 25 year
extensionperiod is, to my mind, the most likely to trigger
rejection by the Court. At
one point I heard that 25 years was the ideal point of those
drafting the
legislation, but they expected it to get whittled down. I'm
surprised that
no amendment was offered to that effect in either chamber. In a
way, this is
playing a game of "chicken" with the Court, but I fear we may be
revisitingthese issues within a couple of years.
On 7/20/06, Rick Hasen <rick.hasen@lls.edu> wrote:
Senate Set to Debate--and Approve VRA--after 8 Hours of Debate
Thursday>
So reports <http://www.rollcall.com/issues/52_9/morning/14389-
1.html> Roll
Call. Sen. Hatch predicted that his Republican colleagues will
offer no
amendments. Also, regarding the addition of Cesar Chavez to the
name of the
bill, the newspaper reports: "Because the Senate Judiciary
Committee agreed
to an amendment adding labor leader Cesar Chavez's name to the
bill, Frist
was forced to bring up the House version, since moving forward
with the
Senate's bill would have required a conference with the House "
At the
markup, Sen. Coburn was critical of the rush to reauthorization
without> adequate debate. We'll see if he---or other Senators---
make any such remarks
on the floor of the Senate. At the hearing where I testified,
Senators> Cornyn and Sessions made many remarks questioning the
current version of the
bill. But political realities seem to have intervened. The
newspaper quotes
Senator Sessions as stating: "There's no interest in the Senate
in making
amendments to the House bill."
So, in the end, there will be no serious debate on either floor of
Congress about the wisdom or constitutionality of a straight-out
25 year
extension, complete with its Georgia v. Aschroft "fix." This is a
victory,> no doubt, for the voting rights leaders who pushed for
this bill. Justice
Kennedy will likely determine if the victory is to be short-lived.
David Epstein wrote:
I just got the word from a friend in Schumer's office.
The bill passed unanimously in committee. All of the Democrats were
present except Finegold, who was managing a bill on the floor.
The only substantive amendment offered was by Coburn, which would
have> changed the definition of "limited English proficiency" to
include only
people who spoke English "not well" or "not at all." It failed on
a voice
vote and then Coburn voted for the bill in the end.
(Funny tidbit -- Specter accidentally mis-annouced the result of
the voice
vote, saying "The Ayes appear to have it." Feinstein broke in
saying "No,
the Nays have it," upon which Schumer quipped "That's why we need
the Voting
Rights Act.")
There was one symbolic amendment which passed, offered by Leahy (I
believe) in Salazar's name, adding Cesar Chavez to the title of
the bill.
This is in fact purely symbolic, since the Senate plans to take
up the House
version of the bill tomorrow (with the original title) so as to
avoid a
conference. (There was some talk about revising the title at some
point in
the fall.)
The room was packed, and when the final vote was taken the room
burst into
applause. It sounds like quite an emotional scene.
There is reportedly a unanimous consent request being floated to
start> debate on the bill tonight, in preparation for a floor vote
tomorrow, but I
don't have confirmation of that.
All in all, an apparently amazingly fast end to what seemed like
stalled> legislation, and a big, big victory for the civil right
community.>
David Epstein
On 7/19/06, Rick Hasen <Rick.Hasen@lls.edu> wrote:
Senate Judiciary Committee Passes VRA Bill with No "Weakening
Amendments"
So states this press
release<http://www.aclu.org/votingrights/gen/26189prs20060719.html>from the ACLU. I don't know if that means no amendments at all. But if it
does, and the full Senate approves the measure with no
amendments, the House
and Senate should be able to avoid a conference.
This result is very interesting. I'm still trying to learn what
happened> > to the concerns raised by some senators on the
committee about renewal.
I expect a race to the courthouse among plaintiffs to challenge
section> > 5 (and possibly section 203) after President Bush signs
the renewed VRA into
law.
Posted by Rick Hasen at 01:23 PM
<http://electionlawblog.org/archives/006263.html>
--
Rick Hasen
William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law
Loyola Law School
919 Albany Street
Los Angeles, CA 90015-1211
(213)736-1466
(213)380-3769 - fax
rick.hasen@lls.edu
http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org
--
**************************************
David Epstein
Professor of Political Science
Columbia University
New York, NY 10027
212-854-7566
http://www.columbia.edu/~de11 <http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ede11>
**************************************
-- Rick Hasen William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law
Loyola Law
School 919 South Albany Street Los Angeles, CA 90015-0019
(213)736-1466 -
voice (213)380-3769 - fax
rick.hasen@lls.edu http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org
--
**************************************
David Epstein
Professor of Political Science
Columbia University
New York, NY 10027
212-854-7566
http://www.columbia.edu/~de11
**************************************