Happy Birthday VRA!

By Dr. Henry Flores, NewsTaco

It seems like only yesterday when the Voting Rights Act (VRA) was passed but this week we mark the fiftieth anniversary of its passage and signing into law by President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ). The VRA was the signature and most important of all the civil rights acts passed at the beginning of the Johnson Administration’s war on social inequality. It’s important to spend a moment and celebrate this landmark piece of legislation because it has been responsible for increasing the political participation of groups of Americans who traditionally have been excluded from voting and holding elected office.

The VRA and Latinos

Latinos were not protected by the VRA until 1982 when they were added as a language minority group although they had been able to sue for voting rights under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. Nevertheless, since our incorporation under the VRA the number of Latino elected officials at all levels of government has skyrocketed throughout the United States. The increase in Latino voter participation has reached such heights that both political parties now understand that our vote is essential to winning any presidential election. Although we represent only a small percentage of the electorate approximately 90% of Latino registered voters reside in states that control almost enough electoral votes to elect the president. In short, we have the potential of controlling the election of the next and future presidents of the United States. Now all we need to do is vote.

Racial Discrimination, the VRA and Latinos

Latinos were included under the protection of the VRA because, frankly, Anglos in various states were trying their “darnest” to control our votes. In some areas of the Southwest Latinos were placed in corrals, like cattle, and herded to the polls to vote the way rich ranchers wanted them to vote. In other communities, Latinos were just intimidated away from the polls. As times became more sophisticated, poll taxes were passed requiring you to show a receipt that you had paid your tax to vote before being allowed to vote. My abuela, who was a proud immigrant and felt that the right to vote was a sacred trust, lined her children up on election-day and made them all show her their poll tax receipt; then she marched them to the polls to vote before they went to work. I witnessed this more than once as a child.

In some communities physical intimidation was used to keep Latinos from voting including stationing big Anglo guys dressed up like la migra at polling places and placing signs indicating that casting illegal votes was a felony offense. This practice was still going on in the 1970s and 1980s in Texas. In at least one case, that I’m aware of, one election judge in the 2004 presidential election, also in Texas, actually told an African American woman that congress had rescinded her right to vote because she was black!

I could go on and on but throughout the 19th and 20th centuries across the Southwestern part of the United States all sorts of mechanisms were used to deny or inhibit the right of Latinos to cast their ballots. Personally, I’ve been aware of changing polling places without proper notification, not placing enough computers in places to handle voter registration identification, closing polling places early, denying voters the right to vote because of improper identification (this happened to me), and so forth. In short, these examples among others were presented to congress as justification for including Latinos under the VRA’s protection.

Today’s Situation

I like celebrating cumpleaños so I’d like to take this opportunity to wish the VRA “¡Feliz Cumnpleños!” and many more! However, I want you to know that the VRA is under attack and it may not make it to its sixtieth birthday if Republicans and the Supreme Court have anything to say about it. Last year the Supreme Court struck down Section 5 of the VRA which required political jurisdictions that were under watch by the Justice Department (DOJ) to submit any election changes to DOJ to insure that the changes were not discriminatory. Now there is discussion that Section 2, which gives us the right to sue for our voting rights, may be unconstitutional as well!

Why is this being done, you ask? The answer is simple. Since Republicans know that Latinos generally support Democratic candidates for office they have concluded that one way of keeping electoral power is to deny the vote to those who will not support their agenda. This means diluting the votes of Latinos as well as African Americans, young and older voters and women. Without the VRA all of these vulnerable groups will not have the right to challenge such voting barriers as draconian Voter ID laws that seem to be proliferating throughout our country.

Henry Flores, PhD, is a Distinguished University Research Professor, Institute of Public Administration and Public Service; Director, Masters in Public Administration (MPA); Professor of International Relations and Political Science at St. Mary’s University.

[Photo courtesy of Wikipedia]

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