Time for Congress to Stop Pandering to Minorities

GOP Rebellion Stops Voting Rights Act
Complaints Include Bilingual Ballots and Scope of Justice Dept. Role in South

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 22, 2006; Page A07

House leaders abruptly canceled a vote to renew the 1965 Voting Rights Act yesterday after rank-and-file Republicans revolted over provisions that require bilingual ballots in many places and continued federal oversight of voting practices in Southern states.

The intensity of the complaints, raised in a closed meeting of GOP lawmakers, surprised Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and his lieutenants, who thought the path was clear to renew the act's key provisions for 25 years. The act is widely considered a civil rights landmark that helped thousands of African Americans gain access to the ballot box. Its renewal seemed assured when House and Senate Republican and Democratic leaders embraced it in a May 2 kickoff on the Capitol steps.

But many Southerners feel the law has achieved its purpose and become more nuisance than necessity in several respects. They have aired those arguments for years, but yesterday they got a boost from Republicans scattered throughout the nation who are increasingly raising a different concern: They insist that immigrants learn and use English.

Hastert's office said the Republican leadership "is committed to passing the Voting Rights Act legislation as soon as possible." Several House members, acknowledging that the GOP leadership had been caught flat-footed by the intraparty ruckus, said it was unclear whether the issue will be revisited before the week-long Independence Day recess.

The postponed vote is the latest example of divisions within the GOP that have complicated House and Senate leaders' efforts to move legislation backed by President Bush. Social Security revisions died in 2005, and a proposed overhaul of immigration laws is in peril despite the backing of Bush, who also supports extension of the Voting Rights Act.

The aims of the original Voting Rights Act have long ago been achieved. This law is now merely a chance for those Legislators in the North to bash the South, and pander to the "Black Vote." If there is still a concern that voting laws are not being equally applied to all people, perhaps the Voting Rights Act needs to be expanded to include all states, not just those states in the South. Bigotry is alive and well in America. Problem is, it is not a bigotry of Whites against Blacks, it's the long standing bigotry of those who live in the North against those of us who live in the South.
The arrogance of Northerners as a contemptible holdover from the days when Democrats dominated Southern Politics. The South is now predominantly Republican and racial discrimination down here is no more prevalent than it is in South Boston or New York City.

For Yankees, Southerners are still uneducated country bumpkins who are incapable of reading and who need watching lest we rise up and secede from the nation again. Given the second-class treatment we get down here, may be that's not a bad idea.

There is nothing more laughable than the self-congratulatory myth of the relative sophistication of Northerners compared to Southerners. Believe it or not, we actually have indoor plumbing down here, and some of us actually read.

The Voting Rights Act is a sad declaration of bigotry against the South, the with the addition of mandatory bilingual ballots, it is an insult to every American. It is past time to drive a stake into the heart of this hateful bill.

Full Story: Yankee Arrogance

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