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Alabama's
new Jim
Crow
Voter
Suppression
Law is
far from
subtle
Op-Ed by
Jesse
Jackson
Sr.
CHICAGO
- In
Alabama,
50 years
after
Selma,
voting
rights
are once
more
under
assault.
Even as
Alabama
finally
took
down its
confederate
flags
this
year, it
has
raised
new
obstacles
to
voting.The
Supreme
Court’s
decision
in
Shelby
County
v.
Holder
to gut
the
Voting
Rights
Act,
supported
by the
five
conservative
justices
alone,
opened
the
floodgates
to
legislation
in over
21
states
erecting
new
obstacles
to make
voting
more
difficult.
These
have
included
limiting
the days
for
early
voting,
eliminating
Sunday
voting,
requiring
various
forms of
ID,
shutting
down
voting
sites
and
more.
Alabama
— the
home of
Selma
and the
Bloody
Sunday
police
riot
that
spurred
the
passage
of the
original
Voting
Rights
Act 50
years
ago — is
one of
the
leaders
in the
new
forms of
voter
suppression.
Alabama
passed a
bill
requiring
for the
first
time a
photo ID
for
voting,
hitting
African-Americans,
the
poor,
the
young
and the
old
disproportionately.Now
Alabama
is using
a budget
squeeze
to shut
down 31
satellite
offices
that
issue
driver’s
licenses,
the most
popular
form of
voter
ID. This
new Jim
Crow
isn’t
subtle.
Al.com
columnist
John
Archibald
reported
that
eight of
the 10
Alabama
counties
with the
highest
percentage
of
nonwhite
registered
voters
saw
their
driver’s
license
offices
closed.
“Every
single
county
in which
blacks
make up
more
than 75
percent
of
registered
voters
will see
their
driver
license
office
closed,”
Archibald
wrote,
“Every
one.”First
the
state
demands
that you
get a
photo
ID, and
then it
makes it
harder
to do
so,
particularly
in areas
heavily
populated
by
African-Americans.
Not
surprisingly,
civil
rights
activists
are
asking
the
Justice
Department
to
intervene.Rep.
Terri A.
Sewell,
who
represents
Selma
and is
the only
Democratic
member
of the
Alabama
congressional
delegation,
called
the
restrictions
“eerily
reminiscent
of past,
discriminatory
practices
such as
poll
taxes
and
literacy
tests
that
restricted
the
black
vote.”
State
officials
claim
that
other
ways of
obtaining
photo
IDs are
available
for
voters.
But this
is
Alabama,
infamous
for its
segregationist
history,
for its
rejectionist
Gov.
George
Wallace,
for
bloody
Sunday
in
Selma,
for the
murder
of four
little
girls in
the
bombing
of the
Birmingham
church.
Under
the
original
Voting
Rights
Act,
Alabama’s
measures
would
have
required
preclearance
from the
Justice
Department.With
the
bipartisan
leadership
of Rep.
John
Conyers,
Sen. Pat
Leahy,
and Rep.
Jim
Sensenbrenner,
a bill
to
resuscitate
the
Voting
Rights
Act is
now
pending
in
Congress,
although
it has
yet to
get a
vote. It
revives
preclearance
measures,
applying
them to
states
with
five
violations
of
federal
law to
their
voting
changes
over the
past 15
years.
While
the old
law
applied
to nine
Southern
States
and
parts of
several
others,
this
standard
would
apply
only to
Georgia,
Louisiana,
Mississippi
and
Texas.
Yes,
Alabama
would
still be
exempt
from
preclearance,
as would
other
states
with an
extensive
history
of
voting
discrimination
such as
North
Carolina,
South
Carolina,
Florida,
Arizona
and
Virginia.
The
right to
vote is
fundamental
to any
Republic.
Voting
should
be
facilitated,
not
obstructed.
We
should
register
citizens
automatically.
Early
voting
should
be
extended
and
easy.
Voting
day
should
be a
holiday,
so
workers
have
time to
cast
their
votes.
American
voting
rates
are
scandalously
low,
largely
because
we make
registration
and
voting
so
difficult.
It is
particularly
outrageous
that 50
years
after
Selma,
when the
country
celebrates
the
courage
of the
civil
rights
marchers,
we still
witness
efforts
to
suppress
the
vote,
skewed
to
discriminate
against
minorities.
Alabama’s
actions
demand a
Justice
Department
investigation.
And that
demand
should
be met
immediately.
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