What’s going on with Voting Rights Legislation

The Voting Rights Legislation was first signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the civil rights movement on August 6, 1965, and Congress later amended the Act five times to expand its protections. It’s known as The Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The Fifteenth Amendment (Amendment XV) to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government and each state from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen’s “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” It was ratified on February 3, 1870, as the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments.
In the final years of the American Civil War and the Reconstruction Era that followed, Congress repeatedly debated the rights of the millions of former black slaves. By 1869, amendments had been passed to abolish slavery and provide citizenship and equal protection under the laws, but the election of Ulysses S. Grant to the presidency in 1868 convinced a majority of Republicans that protecting the franchise of black male voters was important for the party’s future. On February 26, 1869, after rejecting more sweeping versions of a suffrage amendment, Congress proposed a compromise amendment banning franchise restrictions on the basis of race, color, or previous servitude. After surviving a difficult ratification fight, the amendment was certified as duly ratified and part of the Constitution on March 30, 1870.
In the twentieth century, the Court began to interpret the amendment more broadly, striking down grandfather clauses in Guinn v. the United States (1915) and dismantling the white primary system in the “Texas primary cases” (1927–1953). Voting rights were further incorporated into the Constitution in the Nineteenth Amendment (voting rights for women) and the Twenty-fourth Amendment (prohibiting poll taxes in federal elections). The Voting Rights Act of 1965 provided federal oversight of elections in discriminatory jurisdictions, banned literacy tests, and similar discriminatory devices, and created legal remedies for people affected by voting discrimination. The Court also found poll taxes in state elections unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966).
In 1865, Congress passed what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1866, guaranteeing citizenship without regard to race, color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude. The bill also guaranteed equal benefits and access to the law, a direct assault on the Black Codes passed by many post-war Southern states. The Black Codes attempted to return ex-slaves to something like their former condition by, among other things, restricting their movement, forcing them to enter into year-long labor contracts, prohibiting them from owning firearms, and preventing them from suing or testifying in court.[7] Although strongly urged by moderates in Congress to sign the bill, President Johnson vetoed it on March 27, 1866. In his veto message, he objected to the measure because it conferred citizenship on the freedmen at a time when 11 out of 36 states were unrepresented in Congress and that it discriminated in favor of African Americans and against whites. Three weeks later, Johnson’s veto was overridden, and the measure became law. This was the first time in American history that Congress was able to muster the votes necessary to override a presidential veto. Despite this victory, even some Republicans who had supported the goals of the Civil Rights Act began to doubt that Congress possessed the constitutional power to turn those goals into laws.
Did you know? In 1965, at the time of the passage of the Voting Rights Act, there were six African American members of the U.S. House of Representatives and no Black people in the U.S. Senate. By 1971, there were 13 members of the House and one Black member of the Senate.
Fast forward to now, the year 2021, and we’re still fighting to keep the Voting Rights Law. It’s constantly under attack by Republicans who would see hundreds of thousands of voters kicked off the voter roll if they could have their way.
The Voting Rights Act (VRA), one of our nation’s proudest civil rights achievements, was used to protect voters from targeted voter suppression tactics. Under the VRA, states and counties with a history of discrimination had to get federal approval for new voting laws, which stopped thousands of dangerous provisions from taking effect. But in 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted that requirement, giving the green light to politicians to attack voters’ rights and pass new laws that never would have stood up to the original concept of the Voting Rights Law.
Since then, partisan politicians have taken advantage of the situation, adding new voting restrictions like strict voter ID, rollbacks of early and mail-in voting, and even purges of eligible voters from the voter rolls.
Let me ask this question is it 1950 again, or is it 2021.
As things develop with the Voting Rights Act, we’ll have updates in our Civics 10-1 column.