Bill Text: TX SCR29 | 2015-2016 | 84th Legislature | Introduced


Bill Title: Urging Congress to update Voting Rights Act provisions to protect against voter discrimination.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 11-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2015-03-23 - Referred to State Affairs [SCR29 Detail]

Download: Texas-2015-SCR29-Introduced.html
  84R10618 BPG-D
 
  By: Rodríguez, 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.
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