[PDF] Amendments To The Voting Rights Act Of 1965 eBook

Author : Garrine P. Laney
Publisher : Nova Publishers
Page : 94 pages
File Size : 20,21 MB
Release : 2003
Category : Law
ISBN : 9781590336717

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By passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Congress challenged the widespread evidence of disfranchisement of black citizens in certain southern states. This Act protects citizens' right to vote by forbidding covered states from using any tests that would determine eligibility to vote, by requiring these states to obtain federal approval before enacting any election laws and by assigning federal officials to monitor the registration process in certain localities. In 1970, Congress extended the Voting Rights Act for an additional 5 years and its coverage to other jurisdictions when evidence presented at congressional hearings revealed continued racial discrimination in voting. Throughout the next three decades, further legislation was added to the Act, to more wholly protect the individual citizen of this country. This book delves into the history of the Voting Rights Act as well as the current challenges and issues that face Congress. Contents: Introduction; The Voting Rights Act of 1965; The Voting Rights Amendments of 1970; The Voting Rights Amendments of 1975; The Voting Rights Amendments of 1982; The Voting Rights Amendments of 1992; Current Major Provisions of the Act; Presiden

Author : Chandler Davidson
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 522 pages
File Size : 11,14 MB
Release : 1994-06-16
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780691021089

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This work is the first systematic attempt to measure the impact of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, commonly regarded as the most effective civil rights legislation of the century. Marshaling a wealth of detailed evidence, the contributors to this volume show how blacks and Mexican Americans in the South, along with the Justice Department, have used the act and the U.S. Constitution to overcome the resistance of white officials to minority mobilization. The book tells the story of the black struggle for equal political participation in eight core southern states from the end of the Civil War to the 1980s--with special emphasis on the period since 1965. The contributors use a variety of quantitative methods to show how the act dramatically increased black registration and black and Mexican-American office holding. They also explain modern voting rights law as it pertains to minority citizens, discussing important legal cases and giving numerous examples of how the law is applied. Destined to become a standard source of information on the history of the Voting Rights Act, Quiet Revolution in the South has implications for the controversies that are sure to continue over the direction in which the voting rights of American ethnic minorities have evolved since the 1960s.

Author : Kevin J. Coleman
Publisher : CreateSpace
Page : 32 pages
File Size : 30,72 MB
Release : 2015-01-02
Category : Election law
ISBN : 9781505554328

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The Voting Rights Act (VRA) was successfully challenged in a June 2013 case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder. The suit challenged the constitutionality of Sections 4 and 5 of the VRA, under which certain jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting-mostly in the South-were required to "pre-clear" changes to the election process with the Justice Department (the U.S. Attorney General) or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The preclearance provision (Section 5) was based on a formula (Section 4) that considered voting practices and patterns in 1964, 1968, or 1972. At issue in Shelby County was whether Congress exceeded its constitutional authority when it reauthorized the VRA in 2006-with the existing formula-thereby infringing on the rights of the states. In its ruling, the Court struck down Section 4 as outdated and not "grounded in current conditions." As a consequence, Section 5 is intact, but inoperable, unless or until Congress prescribes a new Section 4 formula.

Author : United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 42,81 MB
Release : 1970
Category : Literacy tests (Election law)
ISBN :

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Considers S. 818 and identical S. 2456 and S. 2029, to amend Voting Rights Act of 1965 to extend the section prohibiting certain states' use of literacy tests for voter qualification; and S. 2507, to ban the use of voter qualification literacy tests from all states.

Author : Bernard N. Grofman
Publisher : Brookings Institution Press
Page : 404 pages
File Size : 44,12 MB
Release : 2011-01-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780815707257

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Widely regarded as one of the most successful pieces of modern legislation, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has transformed the nature of minority participation and representation in the United States. But with success came controversy as some scholars claim the Act has outlived its usefulness or been subverted in its aim. This volume brings together leading scholars to offer a twenty-five year perspective on the consequences of this landmark act. The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, stated that the right of U.S. citizens to vote "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or condition of previous servitude." The South, however, virtually ignored this right, disfranchising blacks through violence, intimidation, literacy tests, and poll taxes. The primary purpose of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was to break down these barriers to minority voting. Beginning with chapters covering the key provisions of the Act, the book discusses the way the Act has transformed American politics and looks at the role played by major civil rights groups in lobbying for extensions and amendments to it and in insuring that its provisions would be enforced.