84R10618 BPG-D
By: RodrÃguez, et al. S.C.R. No. 29
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, Widely recognized as the most effective civil rights
legislation ever enacted, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was used for
nearly a half-century to ensure equal access to the ballot box, but
the 2013 United States Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v.
Holder eviscerated its core protections; and
WHEREAS, The heart of the VRA is Section 5, the preclearance
provision for jurisdictions with a history and ongoing pattern of
discrimination against racial and language minorities; until the
Shelby decision, Section 5 required nine states and portions of six
others to get preclearance from the U.S. Department of Justice or
the federal court in the District of Columbia before they could
implement any voting changes; the coverage formula to determine
which jurisdictions fell under this requirement is contained in
Section 4(b) of the act, and in Shelby, the court ruled this formula
unconstitutional, rendering Section 5 virtually useless; and
WHEREAS, Chief Justice John Roberts readily acknowledged in
Shelby that voting discrimination still exists; nevertheless, the
court invalidated the coverage formula on the basis that it had not
been updated and no longer reflected current conditions of
discrimination; the court left it to Congress to develop, if it so
chose, a new coverage formula and other mechanisms to restore to
citizens the protections granted under Section 5, namely the
ability to stop discriminatory voting changes before their
implementation and the requirement to notify citizens of voting
changes that could disenfranchise them; and
WHEREAS, In 1982, when President Ronald Reagan signed the
reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, he described the right to
vote as "the crown jewel of American liberties"; Congress has
passed every reauthorization and extension of the act with
overwhelmingly bipartisan support, and in 2006, its analysis found
overwhelming evidence of continuing discrimination, including more
than 750 Section 5 objections by the Department of Justice that had
resulted in the blocking of some 2,400 attempts at discriminatory
voting changes; as a result, Congress concluded that the coverage
formula enforced by Section 5 was necessary for at least another 25
years; and
WHEREAS, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cautioned in her dissent
to the Shelby ruling that overturning Section 4(b) was tantamount
to "throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not
getting wet"; her warning has been borne out, as at least 10 of the
15 states previously covered in whole or in part by Section 5 have
considered new restrictive legislation that would make it harder
for minorities to cast a ballot; and
WHEREAS, Texas has a long and continuing history of attempts
to exclude Latino, African American, and other underrepresented
groups from full participation in politics and governance; between
1982 and 2005, the state earned 107 Section 5 objections to voting
policies, among them nearly 100 concerning local laws, which
affected counties that are home to over 70 percent of the state's
nonwhite voting-age population; in the year and a half preceding
the Shelby decision, the Justice Department found that the state's
redistricting plans for congressional and state legislative
elections violated Section 5, and a federal court concurred,
writing that these plans were "enacted with discriminatory
purpose"; troubling developments in the wake of Shelby include
controversial changes to city council elections in Pasadena, as
well as the revival of a redistricting plan for justice of the peace
elections in Galveston County, which was previously blocked by the
DOJ; and
WHEREAS, In the years following its passage, the Voting
Rights Act guaranteed millions of minority citizens the opportunity
to make their voices heard by government at the local, state, and
federal levels, but this progress is being imperiled; although
efforts to narrow the franchise have grown more subtle than in the
days of poll taxes and literacy tests, they have by no means ended;
all of the rights we enjoy as citizens rest on the fundamental
ability to vote, and it is incumbent upon Congress to safeguard
access to the ballot by restoring the full force of the Voting
Rights Act; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the 84th Legislature of the State of Texas
hereby respectfully urge the United States Congress to update the
Voting Rights Act with a set of modern, flexible protections that
stop discrimination, bring transparency to proposed election
changes, and hold accountable jurisdictions that discriminate;
and, be it further
RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official
copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to
the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of
Representatives of the United States Congress, and to all the
members of the Texas delegation to Congress with the request that
this resolution be entered in the Congressional Record as a
memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.