Changes Loom With End of Voting Rights Act in NC

[ihpguy]

It is always so sad to see racism rearing its ugly head. I know Paula Deen can't help, stujpid is as stupid does and she does it so well with the smile. I think we all thought she was smarter than she was. Kind of like Marta admitting to scissor-sex and three-ways on WWHL.

In North Carolina, voting procedure changes loom GOP leaders are looking to pass a voter ID law and to end provisions popular with black voters after a high court ruling, moves that could affect black voting.

June 29, 2013, 10:20 p.m.

DURHAM, N.C. — To Allison Riggs, a voting rights lawyer, North Carolina's 1st Congressional District looks like an octopus with its arms stretched menacingly in all directions.

Each arm, Riggs says, sucks in black voters to pack them into the district and dilutes their voting strength in nearby districts — "a cynical strategy to disenfranchise blacks."

With Republicans adding the governor's mansion last fall to their control, on top of the North Carolina Legislature, Riggs and other civil rights activists have counted on protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act to prevent GOP geographical empire-building through redistricting. Nine states and parts of six others, including 40 of North Carolina's 100 counties, were covered by a provision of the legislation that required federal approval of any changes in election laws.

But a U.S. Supreme Court decision Tuesday gutted the law, striking down the so-called preclearance provisions, and Republican leaders here already are revving up to push through voting procedure changes.

The GOP chairman of the state Senate rules committee, Sen. Tom Apodaca, said he would move quickly to pass a voter ID law that Republicans say would bolster the integrity of the balloting process. GOP leaders also began engineering an end to the state's early voting, Sunday voting and same-day registration provisions, all popular with black voters. Civil rights groups say the moves are designed to restrict poll access by blacks, who vote reliably Democratic.

The moves are only the first indication that the ruling will have "a demonstrably negative impact on voters of color," said Riggs, staff attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. The group already has a 2-year-old lawsuit pending that alleges racial discrimination in the 1st District and three dozen other North Carolina districts redrawn by Republicans.

Apodaca said the previous requirements for federal preclearance caused "legal headaches" in passing such measures as voter ID in response to legitimate concerns over voter fraud. It's time, he told reporters, to bring the Voting Rights Act "into this century, not the last century."

North Carolina NAACP President William J. Barber II, who has seen generations of black candidates elected thanks to the landmark civil rights-era law, objected to Apodaca's dismissal of federal protections that had become part of the civil rights fabric of the South. "He refers to a law to undo 250 years of slavery and another 100 years or more of Jim Crow … as a headache," Barber said.

Rosanell Eaton, 92, remembers the humiliation for blacks who sought to cast ballots in North Carolina before the Voting Rights Act. In 1939, she said, she hitched a mule to a wagon and rode to the courthouse in Franklin County, N.C., to register. Three white men, probably illiterate, demanded that she recite the preamble to the U.S. Constitution.

Eaton, the valedictorian at her rural high school, recited the preamble word for word.

"They were so ignorant they didn't know if I said it right or not — but they registered me," she said.

Last week's Supreme Court decision "starts taking us right back to the old days," she said. "Now it's easier for these Republicans to do anything they want to us, without the controls we had."

The Voting Rights Act changed the South by expanding black voting and black officeholders. In 1965, the 11 Southern states of the Confederacy had three black state legislators. By 2009, the number was 321 of 628 nationwide, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice

Graphic by Doug Stevens

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in his opinion last week noted that black voter registration in Mississippi was 6.4% in 1965, versus 7% today. But preclearance, he wrote, was "based on 40-year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day."

The reverberations of the ruling already are being felt across the country. In Texas, the state attorney general said a voter ID law, held up by court challenges under the Voting Rights Act, will now be implemented. In Alaska, a state covered by the preclearance provision because of past discrimination against Alaska Natives, Republicans said a proposed voter ID law and redistricting efforts could now proceed more easily.

North Carolina's 1st District, where Eaton voted before her neighborhood was moved in 2011 into a redrawn district won by a Republican, has elected black candidates since 1991. U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, an African American who has represented the district since 2004, said he would not have been elected without the Voting Rights Act because of "racially polarized voting — a significant number of white voters refuse to vote for any African American candidate," he said.

The lawsuit filed by Riggs' coalition accuses Republicans of "racial gerrymandering" by packing blacks into the 1st District and other similarly concentrated districts to "segregate those voters and to reduce their proven ability to form cross-racial coalitions." In 2012, Democratic congressional candidates won 51% of the vote in North Carolina, but Republicans won nine of 13 U.S. House seats.

(Democrats of course, did their own gerrymandering when they held power. In the 1990s, courts in North Carolina prohibited "racial gerrymandering" by Democrats who created largely black districts to facilitate the election of black candidates.)

Butterfield said Republicans carved out black enclaves in three counties within his district in 2011, but shifted the rest of the counties to adjacent districts "that became more white, more conservative and more Republican." Without federal preclearance, he said, "people who want to engage in mischief now have a free hand to do it."

The 1st District is now "an absurd shape, skinny and spindly," Riggs said. It stretches for 7,200 square miles from the Inner Banks coastal lowlands to downtown Durham and Duke University in the center of the state. Much of the district lies in the soybean and tobacco farms of rural eastern North Carolina, but slender tentacles stretch to capture blacks concentrated in midsized cities. The district is 51% black and 44% white.

Pitt County in eastern North Carolina has also been a battleground. The Southern Coalition for Social Justice recently persuaded the Justice Department to block a state law that would in effect cut black representation from three seats to two on the county school board.

Since then, the state Legislature has introduced another proposal that would also cost one black seat on the board. With the Supreme Court decision, "it will be much more difficult, if not impossible, to obtain a remedy under the Voting Rights Act," Riggs said.

The new moves by state officials to adopt ID requirements and other changes in the voting laws can have a critical impact on black voting strength, civil rights leaders say. Blacks represented 22% of North Carolina's registered voters in 2012 but accounted for 34% of voters without a driver's license or state-issued ID this year, according to Democracy North Carolina, a liberal advocacy group. The group says blacks in 2012 made up 29% of early voters and 34% of same-day registration voters.

Since taking control in North Carolina, Republicans have passed or proposed legislation that Democrats say discriminates against minorities. This month, Republicans repealed the Racial Justice Act, passed by a Democratic Legislature and governor. The act allowed death row inmates to be re-sentenced to life in prison without parole if they proved racial discrimination in jury selection or sentencing.

Neither Sen. Apodaca nor the North Carolina Republican Party responded to requests for comment. Susan Myrick, a policy analyst with the Civitas Institute, a conservative think tank in Raleigh, said the court was correct in eliminating the preclearance section. She said it forced local officials to "go hat in hand in Washington, begging for permission" when they needed to change something as simple as moving a polling place or revising a ballot.

"Its time was over," she said.

[AdamSmith]

Thanks for posting this. Just one of the myriad things the newly Republican NC legislature + governor are doing to cast us back into the 1800s.

[AdamSmith]

Yet more progress here in the Old North State...

Senate votes to restrict abortion as witnesses yell 'shame'

Published: July 3, 2013

By Lynn Bonner and Craig Jarvis — lbonner@newsobserver.com cjarvis@newsobserver.com

The News & Observer

A crowd shouts "shame shame shame" as law enforcement officers stand outside the Legislative building after the Senate gave its approval to a series of abortion restrictions Wednesday July 3, 2013. The bill, when originally introduced prohibited the recognition of foreign law, such as Islamic Sharia law, in family courts, was changed Tuesday with little public notice and the new bill titled the Family, Faith and Freedom Protection Act, added anti-abortion legislation. Senators voted 29-12 to approve House Bill 695.

RALEIGH — The Senate, after a long debate that invoked faith, constitutional rights and health statistics, approved a bill that would restrict abortions by stepping up requirements for clinics and doctors.

The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 29-12 as opponents filled the gallery above and hundreds more waited outside. The bill now goes to the House.

After the vote, people in the hall began chanting, “Shame, shame, shame.” A woman in the gallery who yelled “Shame on you” was arrested.

Lt. Gov. Dan Forest ordered the gallery cleared moments before the Senate adjourned.

Supporters said the new regulations are needed for safety, while opponents said the real intent is to deny access to abortions.

“This is an atrocious, shameful bill,” said Sen. Earline Parmon, a Winston-Salem Democrat. “It’s about dictating to women about very personal medical decisions that should be left to a woman and her doctor. This is going to cause more back-alley abortions whether you want to admit it or not.”

Sen. Warren Daniel, a Morganton Republican, said the bill was about keeping women safe.

“We’re not here today taking away the rights of women," he said. "We’re taking away the rights of an industry to have substandard conditions.”

An estimated 600 people showed up to protest new abortion restrictions, filling the gallery in the Senate chamber, and spilling outside the gallery onto the third floor. Many were wearing pink. At times during the debate they raised their arms and waved their hands in what they called “silent cheering.”

At one point Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, a Chapel Hill Democrat, thanked them for their “silent protest.”

Many of the women gathered outside said they were outraged by the surprise Senate vote Tuesday night to add more restrictions on surgical and medical abortions. The provisions, tacked onto an unrelated bill about Islamic law, requires abortion clinics to meet standards similar to those for outpatient surgery clinics. It also requires doctors to be present when women take pills that induce abortions.

The bill’s supporters say it’s about safety, but opponents said the real reason is to restrict abortions. A legislative staff member said only one abortion clinic in the state would meet the new licensing standards. A spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood said she knew of none.

Women who found out about the vote on Facebook and Twitter last night came to the legislature on about 12 hours notice. By 9 a.m. the gallery was standing room only and hundreds more gathered outside throughout the morning.

“I’m outraged," said Donna Bailey of Raleigh, who has been to two moral Mondays. “This is outrageous. I feel like we’re fighting the fight from 40 years ago.”

“I’ve seen this happening elsewhere in the country,” said Valerie Evans of Raleigh. “I feel like we have to stand up and push back.”

Evans said she knew the Senate would probably approve the measure, but she wanted them to know that many people disapprove.

“It’s sneaky,” Tanya Olson of Durham said of the surprise Senate action. “It’s not right. They have to know that people know this.”

Bill supporters were in the crowd too, but they were far outnumbered by opponents who could be identified by their pink shirts.

“We want to protect unborn babies,” said Amy Huffman, of Alamance County Right to Life.

Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of the NC Values Coalition, surveying the scene, said: “The bill today is about protecting women’s health. It’s about making abortion clinics safe. We don’t want to become the Gosnell of the South. We’re firmly behind the bill.”

The Gosnell reference alluded to Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia doctor, who is serving three consecutive life terms for killing infants during illegal late-term abortions.

The Philadelphia case has been referenced repeatedly by GOP supporters of the bill during the morning debate. While opponents of the bill argued that the state’s oversight of abortions was strict and that North Carolina was not in danger of becoming Philadelphia.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/07/03/3007643/opponents-of-nc-abortion-bill.html#storylink=cpy

[AdamSmith]

[AdamSmith]

Editorial

The Decline of North Carolina

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

The New York Times

Published: July 9, 2013

Every Monday since April, thousands of North Carolina residents have gathered at the State Capitol to protest the grotesque damage that a new Republican majority has been doing to a tradition of caring for the least fortunate. Nearly 700 people have been arrested in the “Moral Monday” demonstrations, as they are known. But the bad news keeps on coming from the Legislature, and pretty soon a single day of the week may not be enough to contain the outrage.

In January, after the election of Pat McCrory as governor, Republicans took control of both the executive and legislative branches for the first time since Reconstruction. Since then, state government has become a demolition derby, tearing down years of progress in public education, tax policy, racial equality in the courtroom and access to the ballot.

The cruelest decision by lawmakers went into effect last week: ending federal unemployment benefits for 70,000 residents. Another 100,000 will lose their checks in a few months. Those still receiving benefits will find that they have been cut by a third, to a maximum of $350 weekly from $535, and the length of time they can receive benefits has been slashed from 26 weeks to as few as 12 weeks.

The state has the fifth-highest unemployment rate in the country, and many Republicans insulted workers by blaming their joblessness on generous benefits. In fact, though, North Carolina is the only state that has lost long-term federal benefits, because it did not want to pay back $2.5 billion it owed to Washington for the program. The State Chamber of Commerce argued that cutting weekly benefits would be better than forcing businesses to pay more in taxes to pay off the debt, and lawmakers blindly went along, dropping out of the federal program.

At the same time, the state is also making it harder for future generations of workers to get jobs, cutting back sharply on spending for public schools. Though North Carolina has been growing rapidly, it is spending less on schools now than it did in 2007, ranking 46th in the nation in per-capita education dollars. Teacher pay is falling, 10,000 prekindergarten slots are scheduled to be removed, and even services to disabled children are being chopped.

“We are losing ground,” Superintendent June Atkinson said recently, warning of a teacher exodus after lawmakers proposed ending extra pay for teachers with master’s degrees, cutting teacher assistants and removing limits on class sizes.

Republicans repealed the Racial Justice Act, a 2009 law that was the first in the country to give death-row inmates a chance to prove they were victims of discrimination. They have refused to expand Medicaid and want to cut income taxes for the rich while raising sales taxes on everyone else. The Senate passed a bill that would close most of the state’s abortion clinics.

And, naturally, the Legislature is rushing to impose voter ID requirements and cut back on early voting and Sunday voting, which have been popular among Democratic voters. One particularly transparent move would end a tax deduction for dependents if students vote at college instead of their hometowns, a blatant effort to reduce Democratic voting strength in college towns like Chapel Hill and Durham.

North Carolina was once considered a beacon of farsightedness in the South, an exception in a region of poor education, intolerance and tightfistedness. In a few short months, Republicans have begun to dismantle a reputation that took years to build.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/opinion/the-decline-of-north-carolina.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

[AdamSmith]