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6.23.2006 ||> Southern Republicans are not racist, damnit!
From the Washington Post yesterday:
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...In the 1960's, they thought African Americans should learn to read complex constitutional law too. And pay a poll tax. And not be "uppity."
[snip]
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.
For the record, it never bothered me as an Arizonan to have ballots written in Spanish and English. I doubt it really bothers anyone else, except perhaps politicians who want to exclude citizens from the voting process. It's not even Republicans that oppose this bill. Clearly, the Voting Rights Act enjoys bi-partisan support.
That this idiotic debate is being used as an excuse to get rid of rights fought for so hard by the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr. makes me very angry. Maybe next, the crazies in opposition to the VRA will go for the 13th Amendment?
Labels: politics
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