06.26.06
Is John Carter An Embarrassment?
The AAS finally weighs in on John Carter and the Voting Rights Act, Carter’s embarrassing tirade helps stop an important law:
Texas Republican congressional leaders should take a closer look at their state and history. If they did, they might not blurt out embarrassing comments like those uttered in Congress last week.
[…]
“I simply believe you should be able to read, write and speak English to be a voter in the United States,” Carter declared. That is a curious comment from a member of Congress and former judge, because citizenship is the requisite for voting, not literacy, and certainly not the ability to communicate in English.”
Carter, 64, is old enough to remember the time when Texas and other states used literacy tests and other arbitrary and capriciously applied measures to prevent minorities from voting.
We would like to remind him that it was a Texan, President Lyndon B. Johnson, who championed the Voting Rights Act after violence erupted throughout Southern states as whites tried to prevent blacks from voting. One of the worst of those incidents was in Selma, Ala., where state troopers beat peaceful black marchers as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
It’s great that the AAS has finally editorialized on Rep. Carter’s embarrassing comments. The AAS being the largest print media in Rep. Carter’s neck-of-the-woods it makes one wonder what took the Central Texas “SCLM” so long to weigh-in? The HChron has been all over this story for several days now, maybe that had something to do with the AAS finally printing something? The HChron is not letting up either, Voting fights:
“I don’t think we have racial bias in Texas anymore,” asserts the optimistic U.S. Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock. Really? The controversial redistricting of Texas congressional districts (deemed objectionable by the Justice Department’s career lawyers) and recent attempts by the Legislature to require voter IDs suggest otherwise.
If Carter and his like-minded colleagues think Texas has outgrown the need for voter protection, there’s a good way to get out of Section 5 coverage. Embedded in the Voting Rights Act is a measure that lets states prove they no longer deserve preclearance. Texas has never tried to make that case.
House Republicans say they want to maximize justice in Texas. If they dropped their attack on the Voting Rights Act and worked to show Texas no longer discriminates, they would achieve their goal. Minority voters would continue to be protected by federal oversight — until the state provides the welcome proof that federal oversight is unneeded.
The wing-nuts are starting to notice, Chron weighs in on Voting Rights Act - what they don’t realize is that the HChron has been weighing in for a while (see below). The wing-nuts think it’s only partisanship that drives this and that the HChron is trying to paint the Texas GOP as racist. Who do you think is right?
Eye on Williamson » Voting Rights Act Finally Renewed, Rep. Carter Votes For Passage said,
July 15, 2006 at 11:32 am
[…] Carter’s votes raise puzzling questions about his motives in taking a public stand on June 21 to delay renewing the VRA. He said he wanted to wait until hearing from the Supreme Court. Perhaps he overestimated the chances of a Supreme Court rebuke. Or maybe he underestimated the negative reaction. He might have mistakenly thought others who joined him behind closed doors would have stood with him in making public comments. Or, perhaps he knew he would be left to hang out to dry; but did so willingly to curry favor with party leaders who have remained cool to Carter since ally Tom DeLay’s departure. […]