URGENT: VRA May Be Stalled Once Again! (And How The VRA Helped Lead To Hubert Vo’s Election)

CQ is reporting that Thursday’s expected action on the renewal and reauthorization of the VRA may be stalled again because disagreements persist about VRA language:

House Majority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, said, “I want this bill finished this week. But to tell you everything is settled and everyone is happy would not be the truth.”Boehner appeared discouraged after a two-hour meeting where, he said, there was “complete disagreement” among lawyers brought in to explain the effect of a provision in the bill that addresses a 2003 Supreme Court decision in Georgia v. Ashcroft that involved districts drawn to increase minority representation in so-called minority-majority districts.

“Members know there is very big disagreement among the lawyers over the language,” Boehner said. “How much progress have we made? Some.”

If “some” progress had been acceptable to Lyndon Johnson, we wouldn’t be voting to reauthorize the VRA because we wouldn’t have the VRA.

The Republican Radicals seeking to hold up the VRA reauthoriation include three of Texas’ own who want to betray the legacy of Lyndon Johnson. NOW IS THE TIME to look up at the masthead of this site and call those three congressmen and tell them their continued stalling is unacceptable, that you are disgusted by this news, and that America still needs the VRA.

And, as if these and other errant Congressmen needed any further evidence that we need the VRA with all of its provisions (including the language provisions) intact, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund has recently released a report showing how the VRA halps that group exercise its right to vote.

We don’t often think of the Asian American vote in Texas, but the fact is we have the provisions of the VRA that required Harris County to print ballots in Vietnameese to thank for increased Asian voter turnout in that county. And, we all know that turnout helped Hubert Vo in 2004. The AALDEF concurs in its report:

Similarly, in Harris County, Texas, Vietnamese American voters doubled their turnout in 2003 after the Justice Department enforced language assistance on the county’s electronic voting machines. In the 2004 Elections, Harris County voters elected the first Vietnamese American to the state legislature.

DOUBLED THEIR TURNOUT. In 2003. THAT’S AN OFF-YEAR ELECTION IN TEXAS, FOLKS. The next year, Hubert Vo was elected. Tell me you can’t see how the VRA is helping voters make gains right here in Texas.

It’s time for Congress to get off its duff.