Lynn A. Westmoreland: “I rise once again to argue for strengthening the Voting Rights Act. When I first heard about the rewrite, I was shocked…”

“I rise once again to argue for strengthening the Voting Rights Act. When I first heard about the rewrite, I was shocked to learn that we were going to put the same States that had problems in 1964, 1968 and 1972 under coverage for an additional 25 years without solid evidence that they continue to have State-sponsored discrimination different than any other State. Chairman Sensenbrenner has talked about that; we do not have enough history if we just do it for 10 years. We have had 41 years of history, and we cannot make a judgment on that, of the States that are not under section 5. We do not know how many violations they have. Some here today have cited the number of objections in Georgia. One of the recent objections in Georgia came from Dougherty County in Albany, Georgia, where a black majority city council had their objections that were sufficient for the Justice Department to rule. Let me just read about some of the other objections in Georgia we keep hearing about. Six of these were creation of additional judicial slots in superior and State courts, objections for which the Federal courts found no merit since they approved these additional judgeships. Another four objections went to redistricting plans. The first three forced Georgia to draw districts that courts later found to be unconstitutional under Miller v. Johnson. The fourth involved the post- Miller plans to correct for racially drawn State legislative districts.…”