Pondering the Voting Rights Act

Congress must decide whether to extend it anew

"It is the single most important piece of civil rights legislation, other than the constitutional amendments, in the history of the country." So says Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson, referring to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. First proposed by Lyndon Johnson, the act was passed overwhelmingly by Congress after a voting rights drive in Selma, Ala., led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had ended in violent clashes between blacks and white police. The landmark law, which was renewed in 1970 and 1975, abolished literacy tests, forbade any other barriers to the registration of black voters and required six Southern states with a long history of discrimination to clear with the Justice Department any changes in their election laws.

This week hearings begin in the House Judiciary Committee on renewing key provisions of the law yet again; without a fresh mandate from Congress, they will expire next year. "This is going to be one of the toughest civil rights fights of all time," says liberal Washington Lawyer Joseph Rauh, 70, a veteran of many such battles. Opponents of renewal argue that the law's goal of enfranchising blacks has been reached. Says South Carolina's Strom Thurmond, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee: "After 17 years, the states ought to be given a chance to get out from under the act." Responds Senator Edward Kennedy, who along with Republican Senator Charles Mathias of Maryland and Democratic Congressman Peter Rodino of New Jersey is proposing a ten-year extension of the law: "The most successful civil rights law in history is in danger of falling victim to its own success."

No one questions that the Voting Rights Act has changed the face of American politics, particularly in the South. As late as 1960 only 5.2% of Mississippi's blacks were registered. By 1976 that figure was 60.7%. The number of black elected officials in the Southern states covered by the act has risen from 156 to 1,813 in the past twelve years.

Civil rights groups argue that there is still a long way to go, that for all their gains, blacks are still far from the summit of their potential political power. Mississippi, which is 37% black, has no black in any statewide elective office; of the state's 25 counties with black majorities, twelve still have all-white county boards. Nationwide, there are no black Senators, Governors or Lieutenant Governors.

The most important provision of the Voting Rights Act, and the one subject to the toughest challenge, is the requirement that localities with a history of discrimination submit any election law change to the Justice Department for clearance to ensure that it is not discriminatory. This chapter of the 1965 law mainly applied to states—most of them in the Deep South —where literacy tests had limited voter turnouts to less than half of the eligible population.* After the law was extended in 1970 and 1975, this requirement covered all or parts of 24 states including Texas and sections of California and New York. Nonetheless, the main opposition to the law comes from Southerners who feel that the clearance procedure is invidiously applied to their region. Says Republican Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi: "Local officials have to go to Washington, get on their knees, kiss the ring and tug their forelock to all these third-rate bureaucrats."