Former Sen. Mathias calls from VRA renewal
The Capital reports: Key provisions of the federal Voting Rights Act must be renewed, said a former Republican senator from Maryland heading a panel created to document the need for the measures.
Sen. Charles Mathias Jr., the honorary chairman of a nonpartisan commission investigating voting rights abuses nationwide, said Friday the Voting Rights Act in 1965 changed the status of black voters in American society.
"The Voting Rights Act was really the whole core of the civil rights movement. It made a tremendous improvement," Mr. Mathias said in an interview with Capital News Service. "There was a new recognition of black citizenship."
The National Commission on the Voting Rights Act, an eight-member panel backed by the nonprofit Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, has been gathering testimony on discrimination against minority voters and held its first of 10 hearings in Montgomery, Ala., in March. -- HometownAnnapolis.com, Government - Former Sen. Mathias calls for Voting Rights Act renewal