Former Sec. State Miller supports court’s voting rights ruling

Congresswoman Candice Miller has a track record from her eight years as Michigan secretary of state of attempting to make voting easier and the process more open. But this afternoon she released a statement saying she has essentially changed her position on the Voting Rights Act and supports the Supreme Court’s controversial ruling announced today that struck down a key portion of the landmark 1965 law.

Miller was one of hundreds of Republicans who voted for the 2006 reauthorization of the VRA, which was credited with substantially reducing voter discrimination in the South. After months of congressional hearings, the law was renewed in ’06 by a combined House and Senate vote of 488-33. President George Bush signed the bipartisan reauthorization into law.

Here’s what Miller said earlier today:

“Having served eight years as Michigan’s Secretary of State, I understand the importance of access and fairness at the polls.  I believe that our democracy works best when our citizens – regardless of race or color – participate in our electoral process, which is why I voted to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act in 2006.

“Today, however, the Supreme Court ruled that the formula that determines which jurisdictions the preclearance requirements apply to, while valid when enacted, is unconstitutional in light of current conditions. While I have supported this provision of the Voting Rights Act in the past, I respect the Court’s decision and am heartened that the Court has left the rest of this landmark civil rights legislation intact.”

An obscure fact associated with the VRA is that its federal oversight applies to two Michigan communities – Clyde and Buena Vista townships. Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 established the formula that determines what jurisdictions are subject to the “preclearance requirements” in Section 5 of the law. That formula was struck down by the high court’s 5-4 decision which said that portion of the law is outdated and unconstitutional.

 Impacted jurisdictions are required to seek and receive clearance from the Department of Justice in advance of making any changes, no matter how small, to election procedures. 

The Obama administration and civil rights groups had argued that there is a continuing need for the provision and pointed to the Justice Department's efforts to block voter ID laws in South Carolina and Texas last year, as well as a redistricting plan in Texas that a federal court found discriminated against the state's large and growing Hispanic population.

Advance approval was put into the law to give federal officials a potent tool to defeat persistent efforts to keep blacks from voting.

The provision was a huge success because it shifted the legal burden and required governments that were covered to demonstrate that their proposed changes would not discriminate. Congress periodically has renewed it over the years. The most recent extension was overwhelmingly approved by a Republican-led Congress and signed by President George W. Bush.

The requirement currently applies to the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. It also covers certain counties in California, Florida, New York, North Carolina and South Dakota, and some local jurisdictions in Michigan. Coverage has been triggered by past discrimination not only against blacks, but also against American Indians, Asian-Americans, Alaska Natives and Hispanics.

Jocelyn Benson, dean of the Wayne State University Law School, said her time spent in the Deep South as a college student convinced her of the need for continuing federal oversight.

In a message on Facebook, Benson said:
“The court’s decision was a striking act of judicial activism that ignored a voluminous legislative record steeped in examples of ongoing acts of voting discrimination in certain parts of our country.”

Benson, the 2010 Democratic candidate for Michigan secretary of state, added this:
“The five justices in the majority assumed that because threats to our democracy do not come in the dramatic form of tear gas and billy clubs, they are somehow less real. But democracy is threatened any time an eligible voter is disenfranchised, every time a law is enacted on specious grounds that extend the time required to register or to cast a ballot, and any time gerrymandering results in districts that silence a community’s voice.”

The Washington Post has an excellent interactive map here that shows the impact of the high court decision.