Earlier this month, Roll Call magazine published an online article warning that white Democratic Members of Congress from the Deep South are a vanishing breed. By January 2013, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina and Georgia could have one Democratic Member of Congress. Each of those Members will be black Democrats representing majority African American districts. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) is the mechanism by which the Republican Party of the Deep South will become the party of whites and the Democratic Party will become a minority party predominantly comprised of blacks.
This is not what President Johnson, Dr. King and the bipartisan framers of the Voting Rights Act had in mind. GOP-controlled Southern state legislature have perverted the VRA and, with the support of black accomplices, have enshrined political control of state houses and Congressional delegations.
We have to seriously consider how to challenge this legal resegregation of America. I, for one, can not abide having the VRA turned on its head. I urge you to think seriously about this perverse situation.
Redistricting Spurs Debate Over Voting Rights Act
As new Members take the oath of office in January 2013, something unprecedented may occur: Not a single white Democrat from the Deep South could be a Member of the 113th Congress.
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina already have just a single Democratic Representative in Congress. Each of those Democrats is African-American and represents majority-black districts.
It’s a trend that may extend to a fifth state in the Deep South. Georgia’s Republican-written Congressional redistricting map, which became law in 2011 and was approved by the Department of Justice just before Christmas, undermines the current Democratic bent of Rep. John Barrow’s district. He’s the Peach State’s one white Democratic Member. The new map is likely to leave Georgia’s delegation with only four Democrats — representing the state’s four majority-black districts.
Read the entire article here.
Do you think it’s time to rethink the Voting Rights Act? Leave your comment below.
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A majority of the Court finally acknowledged the tensions in its voting rights jurisprudence. In Easley v. Cromartie (2001) the Court declared majority-minority congressional districts in North Carolina constitutional despite their bizarre shapes because they were the product of a multitude of factors only one of which was race. In so doing, the Court set forth a standard of proof that made it easier for states to avert a Shaw challenge while simultaneously upholding the goals of the VRA.
That’s all well and good. But, in truth and effect, the VRA has been used in many Republican-controlled Southern state legislatures to marginalize the Democratic party by packing black Democrats into majority-minority districts. I don’t see how that advances the spirit of the VRA, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, and the Civil Rights Act. All of which sought to end racial discrimination and legal segregation with the goal of uniting our nation under the banner of freedom and liberty.