Civil Rights: Keeping a Promise

• Share

Conservative Southerners have long resented civil rights legislation and court rulings aimed solely at their region. Richard Nixon acknowledged their feeling last year by giving assurances that he would not support such measures. Last week he kept his promise.

Appearing before Emanuel Celler's House Judiciary Committee, Nixon's Attorney General, John Mitchell, went against bipartisan sentiment on the committee by opposing a five-year extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Instead, he offered a package that would broaden coverage to the whole country but risk weakened enforcement in the South.

Burden of Proof. The 1965 statute was passed because the case-by-case enforcement suits initiated under earlier civil rights acts had proved inadequate to overcome Southern resistance to Negro voting. The law banned literacy tests in seven states where less than half the voting-age population was registered. It also allowed the Attorney General to assign federal examiners to observe elections in counties covered by the act. Most important, it forbade the affected states and counties to adopt new voting laws and procedures without the approval of the U.S. Attorney General, and thus placed on the states the burden of proving that local laws were not discriminatory. The effect on voting was spectacular. Almost 600,000 Negroes were added to voter lists in the seven states. In Mississippi, Negro registration increased by more than 60%.

In one sense, the Nixon Administration's bill would go beyond the 1965 law. It would apply a recent Supreme Court decision by suspending voter literacy tests across the U.S. on the grounds that they discriminate against those who have had an inferior education. It would also abolish residency requirements for voting in presidential elections. But it would eliminate the Justice Department's advance review of voting laws and shift the burden of proof from the states to the Government. The effect of the proposed change would force the Justice Department back to the slower, more costly case-by-case enforcement of voting rights.

Sophisticated Effort. Explaining the Administration's view, Mitchell said: "We have come to the firm conclusion that voting rights are no longer a regional issue. They are a national concern for every American which must be treated on a nationwide basis." His rationale failed to impress committee members, liberal Congressmen and the only other witness to testify last week, Clarence Mitchell of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Chairman Celler, while not opposed to voting-law reform, felt that the Administration's bill was ill-timed. He argued that the existing law should be extended until a more comprehensive —and perhaps controversial—bill like the Administration's could be maneuvered through Congress. The committee's senior Republican, William McCulloch of Ohio, also favors a five-year extension of the 1965 act. So does the N.A.A.C.P.'s Mitchell, who described the Administration's proposal as a "sophisticated, calculated and incredible effort by the chief lawyer of the United States to make it impossible to exercise the tools we have to ensure the right to vote."