Alabama: is the VRA still needed in Alabama?
The Mobile Register reports: "After four decades of tremendous progress, for which we can all be thankful, it is time to recognize that Section 5 (preclearance) has served its purpose and oftentimes unnecessarily restricts the ability of the states to regulate their own elections," Alabama Attorney General Troy King, a Republican, said in a prepared statement last week.
But Spencer Overton, a law professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., said Alabama doesn't measure up so well in ensuring voting rights, at least when compared to other states.
Citing preliminary data collected for a forthcoming book, Overton said Alabama ranked 11th nationally from 1995 to this year in the number of voting rights violations and third in the number of Justice Department investigations.
Add in other signs of racially polarized voting, such as the lack of any black officeholders elected statewide, and "there is a strong argument that of all states, perhaps Alabama should be covered" by the Voting Rights Act, Overton said.
The act does have a "bail-out" provision allowing communities to end federal oversight if they satisfy several yardsticks, such as being in full compliance with pre-clearance requirements for at least a decade. As part of the process of making that case, however, they have to take the potentially costly step of filing a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C.
While some suggest that Congress should ease bail-out standards, Bullock said he has heard no talk of that happening. No Alabama city or county has sought to bail out, a Justice Department spokesman said via e-mail. -- Voting Rights Act debate still resonates in state