People For the American Way Fighting for the Right to Vote: From the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to Today

Introduction

What is the Voting Rights Act? How did it impact the right to vote?

Bloody Sunday was a turning point in the fight for the right to vote. On March 7, 1965, six hundred foot soldiers of the civil rights movement set out on a march from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama to honor Jimmie Lee Jackson, who had been murdered just days prior, and to continue their long-fought battle for the right to vote for African Americans. As they crossed Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were met by an armed posse mobilized by Dallas County Sherriff Jim Clark. The attack left 58 injured, including then twenty-five-year-old John Lewis, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Two more attempts were made later, and the marchers finally made it to Montgomery on March 25. The primetime news coverage afforded Bloody Sunday shined the brightest light yet on the violent obstacles placed between African Americans and the ballot box. Action was swift. On March 15, 1965, President Johnson spoke about voting rights before a joint session of Congress. Five months later, the President was back at the Capitol for the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Voting Right Act (VRA) provided several tools to remedy voting discrimination against African Americans, and has since come to serve a wide range of minorities and vulnerable populations, including the Latino community, people with disabilities, and students. One of its most important tools has been Section 5, which keeps a watchful eye on states with a discriminatory history. Known as “preclearance,” this section requires certain states with a history of disenfranchising voters to get any new voting changes “precleared” before those changes can go into effect. The government, either the attorney general or a federal court, must say that the proposed changes do not discriminate. This part of the law, along with other temporary provisions including those that provide assistance to voters who have difficulty speaking English, was renewed and extended with broad bipartisan support multiple times, most recently in 2006. Then came 2013 and the devastating Supreme Court ruling in Shelby County that rendered the Voting Rights Act a shell of its former self. In that 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court effectively gutted Section 5 by saying that the formula used to figure out where it applies was unconstitutional. No formula means no preclearance, which means no voters are protected under Section 5 from new voting discrimination. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her dissent, “Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” Congress was tasked by the Court with determining, again, the appropriate coverage areas for preclearance. But this time, in spite of its strong past support for the Voting Rights Act, as well as the broad support of Americans of all political stripes, Congress refused to act. Though legislation known as the Voting Rights Advancement Act was introduced in both the House and Senate in 2015, the 114th Congress adjourned with neither chamber having taken committee or floor action.

Where does the fight for the right to vote stand today?

How is People For fighting for the right to vote?

What can I do to defend democracy?

Conclusion