Voting rights wronged on House floor by Dixiecrats

Serghino René

At 16 years old, Riche Zomar Sr. came to the United States in search of greater opportunities. With his parents’ encouragement, he left his hometown of Port-au-Prince, Haiti and immigrated to Pawtucket, R.I., but knew little English. There were no ELS classes then and he was forced to learn the language on his own.

“Back then, they threw you into a pool and you either sank or swam,” said Zomar.

He eventually became a citizen and moved to Boston in 1986. He is now the director of the Haiti Multi-Service Center in Dorchester. With one of the nation’s leading civil rights bills up for reauthorization, Zomar questions how it will affect those new citizens with a language barrier in his community.

“New citizens have the right to vote,” Zomar said. “Although they may be in the midst of learning English, there will be political terminology they may not understand. Citizens have a right to participate in the political process and understand who and what they are voting for.”

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, designed to end discrimination at the polls, is under attack once again. Democrats in the House and Senate agreed earlier this year that it would be reauthorized before the House left town for the Fourth of July. Even President Bush was for it, telling reporters that he’s working with members of Congress to get an extension completed.

“I want this Voting Rights Act extended,” President Bush told reporters.

It appeared to be a done deal until last week when a group of Southern Republicans, led by Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., objected to the provisions up for reauthorization, calling them outdated, unfair and unnecessary.

The provisions Westmoreland and his allies attacked are in Section 5, which requires all 16 states with a history of discrimination to submit any changes in voting procedures to the Department of Justice for pre-clearance before they can take affect. The other provision, Section 203, requires all states to offer multilingual assistance, including foreign language ballots, to voters with limited English skills.

Westmoreland introduced a motion to ease the pre-clearance requirement for those states that practiced racist voting policies decades ago. He argued that times have changed and suggested that the manner by which states obtain approval should be updated every four years and evaluated according to the voter turnout.

States subject to pre-clearance include Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, California, Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina and South Dakota.

The congressmen have argued that renewal of the act unfairly singles out nine states for federal oversight without crediting them for making strides against past discriminatory voting practices.

Westmoreland spokesman Brian Robinson said that his boss is “trying to modernize the Voting Rights Act so we can focus more attention on where there are problems today.”

“Georgia has made tremendous progress and we should be judged on what we’re doing today,” Robinson said. “We should not be judged eternally based on the 1964 presidential election.”

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., has been working with the Voting Rights Act since its inception in the early sixties. During an interview he said he is doing what he can to put the act on the Senate agenda before the August break.

“My passion for this bill has been burning in my soul and I’m going to fight until the end,” said Kennedy. “It distresses me that the U.S. Senate has been spending their time on issues like flag burning and gay marriage. I wish they were overreacting [instead] to the central issue that is fundamental to our democracy.”

The recent redistricting case in Texas underscores the eternal need to fight discrimination, especially when it comes to voting.

Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-San Antonio) attempted to move 100,000 Hispanics out of his district and into the neighboring District 28, which would have allegedly strengthened his re-election chances with white Republican voters from the San Antonio suburbs. The court ruled the new district was illegal because the intent was to deny Mexican Americans a choice for who represented them, a direct violation of the Voting Rights Act, said Kennedy.

Kennedy is not alone in his frustration over the delay.

“Martin Luther King’s bones must be rattling in his grave that in 2006, these Dixiecrats are being possessed by the ghosts of (the late Sens. Strom) Thurmond and (Herman) Talmadge,” the Rev. Joseph Lowery said at a news conference hosted by Concerned Black Clergy.

Ted Shaw, NAACP Legal Defense Fund Director-Counsel and President, was also on point. “We are grateful for broad bipartisan support, and leadership on reauthorization and restoration of the Voting Right Act, the bill has been taken hostage by a small group of radical conservatives.”

The delay on Capitol Hill has rekindled old rumors claiming that the Voting Rights Act was in danger and that blacks would lose their right to vote. That clearly is not the case, but Lenny Alkins, president of the Boston branch of the NAACP, stressed that it is important for blacks to understand the law and the different provisions.

“Many [blacks] were aware that the Voting Rights Act was up for reauthorization, but were confused due to what they read on the Internet, feeling voting rights had the potential to be terminated,” said Alkins. “It’s important to educate each other to what’s truly at stake.”

It is Section 203 that has Zomar is particularly concerned.

Boston has the third largest Haitian population in the United States behind Miami and New York City. About 80,000 Haitians live in Massachusetts and about half of them reside in the Boston area. Many are new citizens and while they understand the importance of learning English, many have not mastered it and feel threatened at voting booths.

“If you have no support in your own environment, why would you want to venture out?” Zomar asked. “It’s wrong to punish American citizens to understand how important it is to learn English.”

And that is exactly the point Kennedy made to his colleagues.

“Understanding voting instructions and the often complex language of ballot provisions requires more than a basic grasp of English,” Kennedy said in a statement. “It’s wrong to punish American citizens by denying them full voting rights until they master the English language. If we’re sincere about the melting pot, there’s no better way to achieve it than through the ballot box, and Section 203 helps make it possible.”