On July 13, I was honored to join my colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives in passing the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006.

This important legislation, known as the VRA, was first enacted in 1965. During the 1960s, many brave men and women fought against bigotry and injustice to secure the right to vote for all Americans. The price paid by those allied with the Civil Rights Movement was high: churches were burned and bombed, people were beaten and shot, and some were killed.

Among the brave people fighting for voting rights was Fannie Lou Hamer of Mississippi. She was a sharecropper and the granddaughter of slaves. In 1962, at age 44, she was surprised to learn from civil rights workers that African Americans actually had a constitutional right to vote. When the workers asked for volunteers to go to the courthouse to register to vote, Hamer was the first to raise her hand. After she got to the courthouse, she was jailed and beaten by police. She began to receive death threats and was even shot at. But, undeterred, Hamer became a civil rights activist and spent the next three years traveling around the country speaking out on voting rights.

Since the passage of the VRA, many discriminatory practices and barriers to political participation have been eliminated, enfranchising millions of racial, ethnic, and language minority citizens.

Sadly, in spite of these advances, this landmark legislation is still needed today. The fact remains that hate groups continue to exist in this country and unscrupulous politicians, for their own political advantage, continue efforts to disenfranchise vulnerable voters.

Just last month, on June 28, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in GI Forum v. Texas that a 2003 redistricting plan in Texas Congressional District 23 violated the voting rights of Latino voters. The Supreme Court ruling was a resounding affirmation of the need for the Voting Rights Act.

The National Commission on the Voting Rights Act recently released a report which highlighted a troubling pattern of voter discrimination against minority citizens across the nation. Without a complete reauthorization of the VRA, key provisions that protect against these abuses will expire in 2007.

One key provision that will expire is Section 203. Voting instructions and ballot information can be confusing even for the native-born, fluent in English. Section 203 ensures that tax-paying American citizens, who are not fluent English speakers, receive the language assistance they need in order to participate in the election process through well-informed choices. The ability to vote in an informed way will also encourage greater voter participation.

Another key provision set to expire in 2007 is Section 5. Section 5 requires certain states, with a history of discriminatory practices, to get permission from the Justice Department prior to changing their election process. This is a necessary safeguard against the potential disenfranchisement of poor and minority voters living in these states.

The Voting Rights Act continues to be as relevant today as it was in 1965. Discrimination today may take a different form than it did in 1965, but the fact remains that discrimination still exists in 2006. As the model of Democracy for the world, we cannot afford to lose one of the fundamental expressions of our democracy - open, free and unencumbered elections.

Now that the House has acted, I urge my colleagues in the U.S. Senate to support the full reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act. While substantial progress has been made in the area of voting rights over the last 41 years, we must continue our efforts to protect the rights of every American voter.

(Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard's office offers a wide variety of services to the community, including financial aid workshops, a service academy workshop, a scholarship directory and constituent casework services to assist district residents in resolving problems with federal agencies such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. More information about federal services can be obtained by visiting Congresswoman Roybal-Allard's web site at www.house.gov/roybal-allard or by calling her district office at (213) 628-9230.)
 

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