This is but of the part of the Republicans' not-so-stealthy drive in preparation for the next election. There are also the voter ID laws winning passage in state after state. Through such measures they will do much better than expected (and, in fact, much better than they really did).
The hideous irony of all this is that the champions of both maneuvers--stripping Section 5 out of the Voting Rights Act, and passing voter ID laws--are using the election of Barack Obama to justify their actions. After all, since America has elected a black president, why do we need a Voting Rights Act, anyway? And the advocates of voter ID legislations are contending, incredibly, that such laws actually increased the turnout on Election Day. (Hans von Spakovsky actually made this case, in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Jan. 30.) The Democrats had better get their act together; and that means way more than the Holt Bill, even if the latter could be much improved (about which more in a moment). MCM Wall Street Journal MARCH 28, 2009 A Showdown on Voting Rights In Texas Case, a Divide Over How Far Minorities Have Come By JESS BRAVIN Blake Gordon for The Wall Street Journal <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123820648702763441.html>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123820648702763441.html AUSTIN, Texas -- Don Zimmerman got elected to the local utility board in 2002. One of his goals was to move the polling station from a neighbor's inconveniently located garage to an elementary school three blocks away. His effort barely registered among the 3,500 residents of Mr. Zimmerman's suburb, Canyon Creek. But it turned out to have much broader ramifications. It prompted a case now before the Supreme Court that could bring the biggest change in election law since 1965, when Congress passed the Voting Rights Act. The case, which the high court will hear on April 29, focuses on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The clause requires state and local governments deemed to have historically suppressed minority votes to obtain Justice Department approval before altering election practices -- even something as minor as moving a polling station. Conservative legal activists, looking to strike down Section 5, recruited Mr. Zimmerman's agency, the Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1, as plaintiff in a suit to challenge it. They argue the era of Southern sheriffs attacking civil-rights marchers with bullwhips and billy clubs is long gone, and the Constitution no longer permits the extraordinary measures Congress adopted two generations ago to ensure minorities could take part in the democratic process. The case is all the more resonant coming just months after the nation's election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president. "This law is basically stuck in the 1960s," says Greg Coleman, a conservative attorney whose Austin firm, Yetter Warden & Coleman, is representing the utility district free, thanks in part to financing from a foundation that opposes government programs favoring minorities. "The America that elected Obama is far different from the America in which Section 5 was originally enacted." [Waiting to vote in Alabama in 1965, after the Voting Rights Act was passed.] Corbis Waiting to vote in Alabama in 1965, after the Voting Rights Act was passed. Liberal groups argue that the clause's protections are still needed. "Out of those states covered by Section 5, how many did Barack Obama win? He didn't win Texas," says Gary Bledsoe, president of the Texas State Conference of NAACP Branches, which is helping to defend Section 5. Nine states are fully under Section 5 supervision; of those, only Virginia supported Mr. Obama. Certain cities and counties in seven other states also fall under Section 5, largely because of 1975 amendments that extended coverage to linguistic minorities. Some of those areas lie far outside the former Confederacy, from Monterey County, Calif., to the New York City boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx. Court observers expect the vote to be close, with four solid conservatives inclined to void Section 5 while four liberals seem certain to uphold it. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who sometimes splits from his fellow conservatives but has been skeptical of race-conscious laws, is likely to cast the deciding vote. If the court voids Section 5, it will remove one of the most potent pieces of civil-rights legislation in the government's arsenal. The 15th Amendment, ratified five years after the Civil War, guarantees the right to vote regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude" and grants Congress enforcement power. For most of the following century, Washington did little as many Southern states deployed literacy tests, character requirements and other pretexts to prevent blacks from voting. In the early 1960s, when the federal government began obtaining court orders against such practices, defiant Southern officials often would simply devise new barriers. By requiring certain state and local governments to "preclear" changes in election procedures, Section 5 aimed to stop that practice. The Supreme Court upheld the provision in 1966. Today, the Justice Department describes the Voting Rights Act as "the most successful piece of civil-rights legislation ever adopted." In Alabama, for instance, black-voter registration soared to 73% in 2006 from 19% in 1965. Although originally set to expire after five years, Section 5 has been renewed repeatedly, most recently in 2006, when President George W. Bush signed legislation extending it to 2031. Although thousands of government agencies are covered by Section 5, none joined the Canyon Creek board's lawsuit. State or local governments in eight affected states, including Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina, have filed briefs arguing that the law be upheld. Among them is Travis County, Texas, which now administers the utility board's elections. Renea Hicks, an attorney representing Travis County, says Texas has a long history of voting discrimination. The state maintained whites-only primaries until the Supreme Court found them unconstitutional in 1944. In the 1950s, after the local NAACP president nearly won a city council seat, Austin adopted at-large elections to ensure black voters would be outnumbered by whites. "It isn't as though racism magically disappears," Mr. Hicks says. "You can never predict what's going to trigger it again." The law, however, was a surprise to Mr. Zimmerman, a computer engineer who moved to Austin to take a job during the Internet bubble and eventually decided to run for the utility district board. The district conducted its elections apart from those of other agencies. In March 2002, it put its single ballot box on a card table in the garage of a local man, Jack Stueber. Jess Bravin for the Wall Street Journal Jack Stueber's garage, where the polling station used to be. "We had a lot of complaints about people having to walk to different places in order to vote," says Mr. Stueber, a retired oil-company accountant. The county clerk's office ran the elections for other offices, putting its polling station at Canyon Creek Elementary School. Mr. Zimmerman spent that election day outside the school, handing out maps to the garage, so residents could walk over and vote for him. When he later proposed consolidating utility board elections with the others, the district's lawyer explained that Justice Department permission was required. The department quickly approved the request, but the process galled Mr. Zimmerman. "The whole thing is utterly ridiculous," he says. "We've never had any voting problems in our neighborhood. Why are you imposing it on us?" Mr. Zimmerman, 48 years old, grew up in San Antonio, where his parents were active Republicans. "I went to integrated high schools," he adds. Mr. Zimmerman says his political idol is Rep. Ron Paul, the Texas Republican known for libertarian leanings. Over recent years, Mr. Zimmerman says, he came to realize that politics is his calling, too. In Canyon Creek, he found a receptive outlet for his activism. Austin is a college city known for its freewheeling music scene, Wild West architecture and relatively liberal politics. The Canyon Creek suburb is a quieter place. Built on former ranchland in the late 1980s, it is a development of gated communities and cul-de-sac streets. Many residents work in the high-tech industry, and median income, according to 2000 census data, is $103,200, nearly twice that of the city. Its population is 80% white, compared with 53% citywide. Last November, John McCain edged Barack Obama in Canyon Creek, 50% to 48%. Travis County as a whole went for Mr. Obama, 64% to 35%. The Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 doesn't provide electric service. Canyon Creek's developer arranged the district's creation as a mechanism to float bonds to pay for infrastructure. Beyond collecting a tax to pay off the bonds, the district's sole function is managing a community park. An elected board -- whose members each receive $100 for attending the monthly meeting -- oversees these responsibilities. View Full Image Canyon Creek Elementary School, the new polling location. Jess Bravin for the Wall Street Journal Like many homeowners here, Mr. Zimmerman grumbled about having to pay a tax to the city of Austin in addition to that of the utility district. After joining the board, he looked for a lawyer willing to challenge the city tax. A friend introduced him to Mr. Coleman, who agreed to take the case. "I always like to have one or two public-interest cases, and it sounded like there people were being cheated by the city," says Mr. Coleman, 45, who clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and later served as the Texas solicitor general. Messrs. Coleman and Zimmerman, who both attended Texas A&M University, became allies. When Mr. Zimmerman unsuccessfully ran in the 2006 Republican primary for state representative, Mr. Coleman contributed $1,000. "He has a strong interest in public service," Mr. Coleman says of Mr. Zimmerman. Mr. Zimmerman, likewise, admires Mr. Coleman. "He practically walks on water for me," he says. During their conversations in 2002 or 2003, the utility board's experience with Section 5 came up. "I mentioned this to Greg as an annoyance, but no way was I asking him to take that on," Mr. Zimmerman says. Mr. Coleman considers Section 5 an overreach of federal power. "It's a scarlet letter, a badge of shame," he says. "You have people in Boston or Detroit who pretend that they're free of these kind of [discrimination] issues and point the finger at areas covered by the preclearance regime." When it became clear that Congress would renew Section 5 in 2006, some conservative groups began planning a lawsuit. "For months, I tried unsuccessfully to recruit a plaintiff to challenge the reauthorized act," says Edward Blum, director of the Project on Fair Representation, a Washington advocacy group. Mr. Coleman, who knew Mr. Blum through previous lawsuits against affirmative action and school-integration programs in Houston, suggested the Canyon Creek district. Mr. Coleman approached Mr. Zimmerman. "He said, 'Hey, remember that Department of Justice issue you had?' " Mr. Zimmerman recalls. At a utility board meeting, Mr. Coleman -- assured of financial support from Mr. Blum's group -- offered to challenge Section 5 at no charge. "I told them there was no way that I would vote to spend taxpayer dollars on the case because it's such an expensive thing," Mr. Zimmerman says. "You can't afford to fight every cause, but we can afford this one, because it's free." The all-white board voted unanimously to authorize the lawsuit. Meeting minutes report that two residents were in attendance. "I was unaware of the law until he explained it," says board member Rob Ratcliff, a software consultant who has lived in Canyon Creek since 2001. "I didn't like the fact that they stigmatize the South," he says. "The Bible Belt states, specifically." [Map] The utility board treated Mr. Coleman's proposal as a typical agenda item, providing no special notice or opportunities for residents to discuss the issue. Mr. Zimmerman says the legal issues were too complex for lay persons to contribute to the debate. Besides, "apathy is the rule of the day in my neighborhood," he says. "If we called a forum, there'd be a handful of radicals pouring in" to oppose the suit, but "there's no handful of people on my side" certain to attend. Some residents, though, were disturbed to discover that their utility board had filed suit to invalidate part of the Voting Rights Act. "No one knew about it. It was a stealth action," says Chris Bowers, 40, a computer-engineering manager who has lived in Canyon Creek for eight years. He began attending board meetings to question members about the decision. "The response was very much, 'We were elected and this is what we're doing, so too bad,' " Mr. Bowers says. Concerned that publicity about the case could damage property values, Mr. Bowers, a Democrat, decided to run for the utility board on an anti-lawsuit platform. In the May 2008 election, he got 179 votes -- first place among the three candidates vying for two seats. Later that month, a federal court in Washington rejected the district's suit. Minorities "have made significant progress," U.S Circuit Judge David Tatel wrote, but "racial discrimination in voting continues throughout covered jurisdictions -- on some measures, at a higher rate than in noncovered jurisdictions despite section 5's deterrent effects." Congress, the court found, had acted within its 15th Amendment powers. The board's next meeting, in June, drew an outsize crowd -- seven residents showed up, according to the sign-in sheet. Mr. Coleman was eager to appeal to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Roberts, as a Reagan administration attorney in the 1980s, had raised concerns about aspects of the Voting Rights Act. After agenda items on trail maintenance, a tennis-court proposal and efforts to eradicate feral hogs, Mr. Bowers moved to drop the appeal to the Supreme Court. He displayed PowerPoint slides outlining the history of voting discrimination and questioning the board's rationale for going forward. The motion failed, 4 to 1. Messrs. Zimmerman and Bowers both say they'll attend the April arguments at the Supreme Court. Write to Jess Bravin at <mailto:jess.bra...@wsj.com>jess.bra...@wsj.com Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A1 Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. 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