The Meaning Of Their Votes: Texas’ Congressional Republicans Must Reap What They Have Sown

[Yesterday, I complied the votes of the Texas Congressional Delegation on the Voting Rights Act. This post is based on that compilation, which may be found here.]

The battle in the U.S. House today over the re-authorization of the Voting Rights Act has proven one thing:

Texas Republicans can be dangerous.

Consider, if you will, the following:

Of the 95 ‘yes’ Republican votes for the Norwood Amendment, 18 were from Texas. Texas Republicans comprised18.95% of the ‘yes’ votes by Congressional Republicans for this Amendment.

Of the 132 ‘yes’ votes by Republicans for the Gohmert Amendment, 19 were from Texas. Texas Republicans comprised 14.39% of the ‘yes’ votes by Congressional Republicans for this Amendment.

Of the 181 ‘yes’ votes by Republicans for the King Amendment, 19 were from Texas. Texas Republicans comprised 10.50 % of the ‘yes’ votes by Congressional Republicans for this amendment.

Of the 117 total ‘yes’ Republican votes for the Westmorland Amendment, 18 were from Texas. Texas Republicans comprised 15.38% percent of Republican ‘yes’ votes for this amendment.

Of the 33 Republican ‘No’ votes on Final Passage of the VRA Reauthorization, six were from Texas. Texas Republicans comprised 18.18% of the entire ‘no’ vote tally by Congressional Republicans.

What do these votes mean? Let’s explore that.
The Norwood Amendment would have changed the formulas to determine states covered by Section 5’s pre-clearance requirements. In short, it would have likely pulled Texas and a few other states out of the pre-clearance requirements. Texas election law changes, redistricting plans, etc., all have to receive DOJ pre-clearance.

WHAT THE VOTE FOR THE AMENDMENT MEANS: The vote means that 18 out of 19 Texas Republican Congressmen present (Joe Barton (R-Ennis) was evidently absent) would prefer that the state didn’t have to have boundary changes “pre-cleared” by the DOJ. In short, Texas Republicans who benefitted from the 2003 Tom DeLay-engineered Redistricting maps want to make sure that future partisan gerrymanders have as few prying eyes peeking at them as possible.

The King Amendment would have stricken sections 7 and 8 of the bill which relate to multilingual ballots and would require the use of different census data than is used currently to determine what jurisdictions would have to print multi-lingual ballots. In short, there would have been little or no reason or requirement for ballots to be printed in Spanish or Vietnamese (an emerging VRA protected language minority in Texas).

WHAT THE VOTE FOR THE AMENDMENT MEANS: All 19 Republicans present (again, Barton was not) voted for this amendment. This means that Republicans do not want Latino voters (or any other non-native English speakers) to be able to fully exercise their constitutional right to vote. In short, the Republican members of the Texas Congressional Delegation do not care about their roughly 6.6 million Hispanic constituants who make up roughly 32 percent of the population of Texas (according to 2000 Census figures). Republicans have shown a callous disregard for the rights and abilities of first and second generation immigrants who are non-native English speakers when it comes to voting. As Congressman Charles Gonzalez noted in an interview here at Capitol Annex earlier this summer, “Let’s not forget that there is a difference between able to comprehend English at the most basic level and comprehending a ballot.”

The Gohmert Amendment (proffered by Texas’ own Louie Gohmert (R-Tyler) would have limited the reauthorization period to 10 years instead of 25.

WHAT A VOTE FOR THE AMENDMENT MEANS: All 19 present and voting Republican Congressman from Texas voted for this provision (again, Barton did not vote). It may seem as though shortening the period that the so-called “emergency provisions” cover (keep in mind much of the VRA is permanent) is no big deal. It is. It means that it was the Republicans’ (and Gohmert’s) intent that these provisions not be reauthorized in 10 years. Coming to that conclusion takes no real leap. The last reauthorization was 25 years ago. In addition to the mounds and mounds of data that exists to prove that the VRA is still needed, more than 13,000 pages of testimony was taken by the House Judiciary Committee over the need for the reauthorization and the problems that have ocurred in those 25 years. During that 25 year period, Texas ranked number two in the nation in terms of Section 5 cases where the DOJ has had to intervene. By shortening the period to 10 years, Congress would have, in 2017 (the VRA actually expires next year) far less evidence on which to base its actions and recommendations. Thus, the argument of Republicans that these provisions is unnecessary is easier to make. After all, there is simply less data and less time for violations to become fully evident (and, in some cases, make their way through the courts).

Finally, the Westmorland Amendment provided for a controversial “bail out” procedure from pre-clearance requirements. It also required the Department of Justice to assemble a list of all jurisdictions eligible for bailout and to notify the jurisdictions. The DOJ would have been required to consent to the entry of a declaratory judgment allowing bailout if a jurisdiction appears on the list.

WHAT A VOTE FOR THIS AMENDMENT MEANS: As Judiciary Committee James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) said in the last of the debate in the House on this amendment, the provision provided an unconstitutional delegation of powers to the Department of Justice which would have resulted in an unmanagable buracracy and an unmanagable task. Yet, 18 of the 19 voting Republican Congressmen from Texas (again, Barton wasn’t voting) supported that unconstitutional delegation. This would have allowed jurisdictions who were still in need of subscribing to pre-clearance requirements to be exempted from those requirements with government assistance. These 18 Republican Congressmen wanted to actually legislate the Department of Justice into helping disenfranchise minority voters. Where, pray tell, is the justice in that?

Finally, six Republican Congressmen voted against renewing the VRA at all.

WHAT THIS VOTE MEANS: Inasmuch as these six Congressmen will try to justify their votes by saying they voted against the full package because the amendments failed that would have made it a better bill, their votes speak for themselves. They voted against voting rights, period. It is plain, simple, and unarguable. Six Republican Congressmen from the state of Texas voted against the Voting Rights Act. These six will do their best to squirm and wiggle away from their votes, but the fact remains they voted against reauthorizing a bedrock piece of Civil Rights Legislation.

In addition to showing once and for all that the 2003 Redistricting plan that sent many of this Delegation to Congress has endangered the fundamental rights of Texans and indeed all Americans, this vote shows once and for all how out of touch most Texas Republicans are.

We would all like to think that the Republican Party of Texas is comprised of elected officials cast in the mold of State Representative Carter Casteel or some of her more moderate colleagues. The Republican Party wants voters to think this, because they consistently tout how “in-touch” they are with mainstream Texas voters. A state political party is not “in-touch” with the mainstream when almost 100 percent of the serving Congressmen from that state party vote like this. They voted against the will of the people, they voted against their national party, and they voted against their President—who was from the same state.

It should give Republicans no small amout of amusement that Chet Edwards (D-Waco)—the Congressman for the President’s home in Crawford, deemed as “liberal” and “out of touch” and unworthy of being the Congressman for the President’s home congressional district by Republicans—was actually in harmony with the President’s wishes on this—as did every other Democrat from this state.

It was the Texas Republicans who were against their president, the mainstream, and convention when they cast their “yes” votes for those four amendments and when six of their colleagues cast “no” votes on final passage.

Mark yesterday, July 13, 2006 on your calanders and in your memories: it is the day the Republican Congressmen from Texas lost their credibility and sailed so far out of the mainstream they ended up in the middle of the ocean.

These Congressmen will, however, point out that they voted for the reauthorization on final passage (save the six who didn’t).

Who cares? They voted to burn down the barn before the voted to save it. In the case of the Congressmen who voted for the amendments and then for final passage, their final passage votes are not enough to redeem the harm they sought to do.

It’s as if a bully beat the hell out of you, cut your arm off, robbed you and then said, “you should thank me because I didn’t kill you after all!”

Oh, but no. Hell no.

We cannot let the Congressmen who voted for the amendments but against reauthorization derive any beneifits from that vote.

Such behavior might be acceptable (and even expected and tolerated) on a spending bill, an energy bill—whatever. But it is not accepable on this bill; not on this day, not ever.

A civil rights bill is not a spending bill or an energy bill or any other class of legislation. It is legislation designed to protect the very rights we all hold dear as Americans. A vote against a civil rights bill isn’t just a vote against Latinos or Asians or African Americans. It is a vote against all of us. And votes for amendments like those the 19 Texas Congressmen voted for are surely votes against a civil rights bill.

In the past few weeks, I have over and over again brought up a (not too famous) quote of Lyndon Johnson. After yesterday’s vote, I hope this quote has an added significance for some of you:

“They are attempting to thwart the realization of our highest ideals. There are those who seek to turn back the rising tide of human hope by sowing half-truths and untruths wherever they find root.”

19 Texas Congressmen attempted to thwart the realization of our highest ideals. They tried hard and cast their votes, but they were not successful. Those ideals ruled the day.

The sowing of half-truths and untruths, however, has just begun. It will get worse before November, as many of these Congressmen try to justify their amendment votes by pointing out they voted for the bill in the end. The sowing will get much worse for the six who voted against final passage; they will do everything possible to sow just enough half-truths and untruths in hopes of growing a crop of vegitation to hide the weeds lurking in the furrows of their fields which they hope will make their constituants think their vote was justified, and that they fell on the swords of their own collective self-rightousness for a good cause.

We cannot allow them to sow the field with those seeds any further.

As progressives, we must work our hardest to make them reap the full harvest of what they sowed in the House yesterday. We must do all we can to educate the constituants of these 19 Congressmen that their elected representatives have departed from the ideals of fairness, equality and justice, and that they have no place in the government of a state and nation that seeks to realize its highest ideals.

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