Greg Abbott vowed to continue to fight for the state's voter ID law. In a victory for Latino community advocates, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday ruled that a Texas Voter ID law is discriminatory and violates the Voting Rights Act. Meanwhile, a number of states, mostly with Republican-controlled legislatures and governors have, since the 2012 elections, enacted laws requiring certain types of identification to vote, cut back on early voting days and limited who can register voters. Holder.Īmong other things, the section required certain states and jurisdictions to get approval in advance from the Department of Justice when it made any electoral changes, such as changing requirements for voting.Ĭongress has drafted a bipartisan fix but the bill has gone nowhere. In 2013, the Supreme Court essentially gutted the Voting Rights Act by nullifying the Section 5 protections in the act from discrimination in the case Shelby County v. “In fact, we have seen jurisdictions that have presented more hurdles to voting and because of a weakened Voting Rights Act are able to do so.”
#Latin for power to the people full
“I think it’s certainly a bittersweet anniversary, in the sense that we’ve now have had this law for 50 years, but bittersweet in that the law is not at its full force,” said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Eric Gay / APĪ half-century after Latinos began to feel the impact of the Voting Rights Act's protections, there are big questions whether there will be much to celebrate come the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act and the 50th of the 1975 extension.
That history "becomes interesting when one sees over the last three years how Texas has been at the forefront of lawsuits for challenging the constitutionality of Voting Rights Act," Fraga said. The number of Latinos in elected or appointed office has grown to 6,124 and the share of eligible voters who are Latino has hit 11 percent. The significance is tangible today as the Latino vote has become a “must have” for any candidate wanting to get elected to the White House. Ford Library) David Hume Kennerly / The White House via AP (AP Photo/White House Photograph Courtesy Gerald R. Ford, who declared "Our long national nightmare is over" as he replaced Richard Nixon but may have doomed his own chances of election by pardoning his disgraced predecessor, has died Tuesday Dec. “This law in 1975 was an absolutely critical contributor to all the success and growth we’ve seen in Latino political empowerment,” he said. It also gave power to Latinos to begin to build political influence, to bring court challenges against discriminatory redistricting and election systems that kept Latinos from electing Latinos to public office, Fraga said.
#Latin for power to the people registration
Signed by then President Gerald Ford, a Republican, the extension ended discrimination against so-called “language minorities,” the Mexican Americans of Texas and California, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Alaskans, Hawaiians and others who continued to be kept from voting for at least a decade after the Voting Rights Act became law.Įxtending voting rights protections to Latinos made it possible to translate registration materials into Spanish, launching larger Latino voter registration drives. “This law in 1975 was an absolutely critical contributor to all the success and growth we’ve seen in Latino political empowerment,” Luis Fraga, University of Notre Dame professor. “But for the Latino community, the 40th anniversary of the 1975 extension of the act is just as important.”
“It is important to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act,” said Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDEF.
Thursday marks the 50th anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a gem of the civil rights movement, but now arguably weaker than when it was signed by President Lyndon Johnson.īut for Latinos – often a footnote in the nation’s recall of voting rights discrimination – what is more significant is that Thursday also is the anniversary of the 1975 extension of the Voting Rights Act, also signed on Aug. “The Voting Rights Act is only as good as somebody who is willing to challenge the laws and make a case,” Molina, no longer in office, told NBC News.
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