It made me think a lot about how progress can take a long time. I think we know that and that is the acknowledgment that is made and the need to be authorized this act and how incredibly important it is to do that. I want to go to those practical questions which you. I think we have recently seen some new barriers to voting and seen and insensitive decision with some states. There are things like strict voter i. D. Requirements, things like shortening time periods people can register to vote or can vote early. Can you talk about that and how here and now we are starting to see some major problems . That is absolutely right. There are new threats to the ability for every eligible american to vote and have that vote counted and count and havent counted meaningfully. There is no doubt about that. There is an awful lot that congress can and perhaps should do in order to remedy that3. In particular, addressing these new practices and even the local versions their of that discriminate on the basis of race and ethnicity is a special point of urgency for congress. Can you elaborate on that . Sure, some of the practices that have gotten the most attention are not necessarily ones that are causing the most damage based on race or ethnicity local jurisdictions. Changing the line for a county commissioner for or a justice of the selection, changing the language excess materials that are sent out any particular election, moving an election date, as senator durbin mentioned, that you know will have lester and moving that date as soon as the voting age population of africanamericans his 50 in the relevant jurisdiction. That is changing the rules in response to a new perceived threat from minority citizens of when, really, the minority citizens are exercising their right as americans. That is a particularly pernicious problem and that is the reason there are constitutional amendments devoted entirely to the subject and i think it is important for congress to focus on those issues here and now in response to Shelby County. As a republican local official, i appreciate you coming because we want to focus on this bipartisan solution. What do you think of what professor levitt just said . Thank you for the opportunity. Touch on that front on the ground perspective of section2 vs section5. Absent section 5, what has happened in florida with citizenship clerks, would have continued. We would have stood to lose over 100,000 votes. A large number of that having been from miamidade county. Section two alone is not suspicious prints section 5 has no peer. I cannot stress that enough. It is an after the fact policy. It is cost prohibitive. Is in evidenceexhaustive policy. Not to mention the fact that preclearance is still section 2 cases and only two in might written testimony but i can bore you with a whole lot of Different Cases and im sure mr. Levitt familiar with them and they have failed. A sloganing could have that without preclearance, without section 5 and only section two for voting practices. The last thing i wanted to ask about was this idea of setting their registration. They dont have it in florida but the number of states have a including a number of states with republican governors. Is of the things i noticed it should make it easier for people to vote. Five of the six top states for voting percentages have sameday registration. They are states like iowa, new hampshire, states like maine, i dont see this as a partisan issue. How can we make it easier to vote . Rep ellison in the house and i along with senator tester and die have a bill to have sameday registration across the country. How can that help . You are absolutely right. Minnesota as been a leader in the election administration. It means eligible americans are able to participate. Sameday registration is one of the very important tools. This affects all americans, not just those not registered but those who have moved in to update the registration, not just those who are not registered but those who find there is a problem with the registration somewhere that there is a typo in the registration, not us not just those who find that when the get to the polls for whatever reason, something has gone wrong. Election day registration provides a failsafe mechanism to make sure those who are truly eligible can participate on the same terms as everyone else. It is an important safety net and it has been used, as you say, in states both republican and democratic administrators and of voters have consistently restored election day registration rather has been threats to it. There are states that have had and the voters like it and it is obvious why. Thank you. I would add to that at the bottom states with voter turnout, none of the 18 states with the lowest voter turnout have sameday registration. Does that surprise you . It does not. It is a great safety net and makes sure that those who want to and are eligible to vote can and do so securely. Thank you. Senator franken. Thank you all. I was disappointed with the Supreme Court decision in the Shelby County case particularly troubled by the suggestion that oral argument that Congress Passed the Voting Rights act only because it has a nice name. And not because of the mountains of evidence before congress or because of this bodys long standing bipartisan commitment to the promise of the 15th amendment. The Voting Rights act is one of the greatest and most consequential achievements of the Civil Rights Movement as representative sensebrenner says. It has improved our process tremendously and i believe the law remains necessary today. The Shelby County decision was a setback was a setback. Throwingnsberg wrote out preclear is what it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because youre not getting wet. I was disappointed with the decision but i am also optimistic that we can fix this. Nobody really disputes that the Voting Rights act is still made it. Is still needed. Justice roberts credited the Voting Rights act with Great Strides that we have taken as a discrimination still exist and no one doubts that. It seems to me that the question here is not whether we need the Voting Rights act at all. Questions is what form to lock should put lot take . I am looking forward to working with all my colleagues, the district the Judiciary Committee and we have reenacted it we have reenacted a Voting Rights act and a bipartisan basis on five occasions and hopefully we can do it again in 2013. We haver levitt, touched on preclearance. I want to get your response to this quote this is from the house Judiciary Committees report on the 1965 act regarding preclearance. The burden is too heavy. The wrong to our citizens is too serious. Damage to our Natural National consciousness to great not to adopt more effective measures than exist today. Do you believe that statement is still true . I do, i think it was right. Matters have improved all over the country unquestionably, there are still problems were that existing tools to not adequately address and for those problems, the burden is still too heavy for the existing tools to do the work they need to do to make sure that there is no discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity in the right to vote or have that meaningful participation have that counted or in the country. Justice should not be too expensive or too slow or never depend on an army of lawyers to begin to help. That is the situation that we have now. Are dependent on the ability to find help whenever we can. Congress has, in the past, always recognized that our most fundamental right is not enough. I take it that congress is here today, this committee is here today, to start the process of another bipartisan effort to restore the recognition that waiting for help is not enough. Thats exactly why we are here. From a constitutional law standpoint, one of the most important points made in Justice Ginsburgs dissent is that the majority departed from established precedent with respect to the standard of review under the 15th amendment. The court said that congress may use any rational means to a effectuate the constitutional prohibition of Racial Discrimination in voting. In other words, to overturn a statute enacted under congresss 10th amendment powers, the court must find that the statute is irrational. That seems like a deferential standard and i agree with Justice Ginsburg that the court did not apply it in Shelby County. What are your thoughts on this and what standard of review should we expect the court to use when it analyzes potential amendments to the Voting Rights act . You are right, it is difficult to know what standards the court used in Shelby County. Did not tell us. The prevailing standard has been very deferential to congress and the court tossed out all of the work that congress had done in 15,000 pages of record. The prevailing standard had been that it recognition that congress is the body empowered in the first instance to enforce the 15th amendment and that the legislation passed should be viewed rationally. And any rational basis would suffice and the court seemed not to apply that. It seems to depart from that. They did not tell us what standards they were applauding. What they did say was that any step that Congress Takes house to reflect Current Conditions. Although i think the old standard met that test, they did not. I think that congress has the ability to compile a record of Current Conditions that would more than authorized steps to supplant steps to supplement the very important protections that exist today with more protections designed to ensure that there is no discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity. I think congress has plenty of latitude to establish a record supporting what ever steps Congress Takes to provide the protection we still desperately need. Thank you and im sorry i went over time. Maybe we get 16,000 pages. Time. Go longer this i yield. Thank you, mr. Chairman mao would like to thank all three witnesses for being here testifying today. I would like to ask a couple of questions of mr. Carter. You and i have known each other a long time. Indeed, my first job as a practicing lawyer was working for you in a very small law firm. Two things number one, to tell no tales from those days and number two, to all of you harmless for any mistakes i may make in this committee or elsewhere in the senate. I would like to ask your legal judgment on what is required in response to the Shelby County decision. Supreme court in Shelby County noted that congress had thousands of pages of record and the last exchange and the court went on to say regardlessof how to look at the record, no one can fairly say it shows anything approaching the pervasive, a flagrant, widespread and rampant discrimination that faced congress in 1965 and that clearly distinguished the cover jurisdictions from the rest of the nations at that time. The question i want to start off with is what record would Congress Need to create in order to come up with a new coverage formula that would be constitutional . Congress madet two basic mistakes in 2006 and i dont know if they are remediable. Gathered 15,000 pages of evidence about which jurisdictions are bad but they did not use that evidence to designate the jurisdictions that are covered by section 5. They relied on electoral information from 19681972 which would be akin to the 1965 Congress Looking back at the Calvin Coolidge election to figure out who should be covered in 1965. The first thing you need to do is look at what ever current information you have and get rid of this updated formula. The second finding they never problem is section two isg that section not a complete prophylactic for . I doubt seriously connect that argument. The one argument made today that is demonstrably not true is that there is this theory that section two litigation has to wait three or four electoral cycles before anybody brings a lawsuit and we know those lawsuits are brought before the first election as in your home state of texas. The professors example makes my point about talking about a challenge to and at large system. The first point is section 5 cannot get at large systems because it only deals with voting changes. It had nothing to do with getting rid of the principal vote dilution technique that was employed in the deep south. This was a challenge to the city of charleston that they could have brought any time but that brought the case in january 2001 move for a preliminary injunction until 15 months later. It is not that section 12 is not give you the opportunity, sometimes people dont take advantage of it. What congressman have to do and what i dont think they can show is that there is such a compromise and difference between the jurisdictions that are being covered that they need Justice Department oversight and the districts not move for a preliminary injunction until 15 months later. It is not that section 12 is not give you the being overcome further maybe a handful of districts that need that kind of extra supplement for section two but congress has not come close to identify what those would be since the covered jurisdictions are actually doing better today in terms of minority vote participation then beat not covered jurisdictions. Thank you. Sectiontly noted that two of the Voting Rights act remains in full force. Protections are entirely in place. What id like to ask you is your practical experience for you have led to get a number of Voting Rights cases, you have alongside, and after the fact elected officials dealing with section 5. Ande section 5 was in place while the departments of justice had the authority to preclear or not the decisions of elected officials of states, to what extent did section 5 effectively require elected officials to make decisions based upon race . It has been well documented that in the 1990s that the Justice Department had what they quite candidly labeled the black max policy. The label certain districts which is why you had district in North Carolina that were struck down by the court as unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. The first in that section 5 was used for was these political row motivated gerrymanders. I was involved with that in the 1990s and aided the republican party, no bones about that. Everything i am telling you today is contrary to the republican partys partisan interest. In the latest round of redistricting, they have injected even more politics to the discussion because they now say this new ability to elect status that was enacted by congress in 2006 protect white district in 9 black review cannot diminish and the democrats ability to get reelected if they are the party that is predominantly supported by minorities. But section 5 has done is taken a guarantee of equal racial opportunities and converted it into a partisan preference. Results ofbeneficial Shelby County is that he will be decreasing the amount of politically motivated racial gerrymanders and decreasing the amount that race has to be considered now in every district from where there is a 9 minority population to a 60 minority population which is driven redistricting over the last 30 years. Thank you. Enter blumenthal. , mr. Chairman. Cruzsto follow senator questions which elicited something that i found very about the Supreme Courts opinion when i heard you describing what would be irremediable. Observation by the about Congress Making a mistake and is pretty much the reason that the chief justice gave for striking down the formula and i am quoting congress did not use the record compiled to shape the coverage conditions. Rrent isnt that a legislative judgment . How to use a record whether it is 15,000 pages or 30,000 pages, we are not talking about the absence of a record. Are talking about the evidence from which congress could draw a conclusion as Justice Ginsburg said, maybe things have improved but one of the purposes of guard against backsliding. Wasview is that the court legislating in the most inappropriate and worst way. Put aside whether you disagree, dont you agree, prof. V carbvin, dont you think it was legislative . If they had reweighted evidence, i would agree with you. Chief justice said that did not use the evidence. How can he reach that conclusion . They had evidence. If you would say about a jury coming out with the verdict that they had evidence but they did not use it, courts dont do that. They say there was not evidence at all about this element of the crimes and the jury could have concluded reasonably. The coverage formula was not based on that evidence. He was saying you need to have some reasonable grounds for distinguishing between the state you are covering and the state youre not for you cannot pass a law that says ever went east of the mississippi is covered. When the coverage formula was criticized, it did not reflect the current reality. The answer was that we looked at 15,000 pages of testimony. Wehink Justice Roberts said will defer like crazy you relied on the evidence for the coverage formula. Since you did not rely on that, there was literally nothing to defer to. Usurp a jury or congress and say you did not rely on it without having some inquiry into what was going on in the jurors minds . Was there improper influence here . Dont we open the door to courts saying that for all of your fact finding, mr. Congress, i will look at that evidence. I dont see enough of it to sustain this element of the law or this part of the decision and therefore, we will strike it down. We defer to administrative agencies every day. It should be done here. Lets assume the epa looked at co2 when it should have been looking at age two. It would not do them any good to say we base the formula on co2. We could have had a different formula based on h20. Andut the absence of h20 the presence of co2 is what justifies this decision. I know we could go back and forth for some time and i am limited but i want to ask the two other witnesses beginning with professor lwevitt, if by , how do we fixay this formula . The court did not strike down the preclearance decisions it is simply struck down the formula which may be, in fact, get adiable if we can i Bipartisan Coalition together. Perhaps the court counted on that, striking down that part of law and upholding the pre clearance procedure but really, the task ahead of this committee and the senate is to try to arrive at a bipartisan substitute. I think there are lots of [indiscernible] and i am happy this committee is convening to start down that path. There are lots of potential things that will help. Basic premise is the existing tools to not do the job but there are lots of ways to modify the existing tools or return the tools that did exist. That will do the job or for the job. Vigilance has to continue. Some of that involves different ways to get information about where discrimination is actually occurring, the sorts of things you dont get with having to go out into the world to file a lawsuit but you did get from the preclearance process. Some of what im sure will be discussed are different ways to identify where there is the most risk and whether that is based on current violations or based on Political Polarization or based on the other danger signs, you will have to look to where the most risk currently has. Other things can be done in order to make this section two process less burdensome and less expensive. All of that will help. It may well be that some combination of all of the above is what congress will meet and other Creative Ideas that have not even put in been put that yet to make sure congress is able to effectively stop the problem. That is really the task that congress has. It is the task the constitution gives to congress. I look forward to the months ahead and there will be lots of different ideas, most of which may be in combination and sufficient to the task. That you very much and i want to thank you, mr. Chairman and thank all of our witnesses or bring it to us a very important insight and intelligence that you have given. I apologize for cutting you carvion. Mr. We would appreciate any more specific answers to the question you we had about the formula, thank you. I am interested in the question of deference as well. Here you had a bill, lets stick with the senate side that i am familiar with. You have a bill that passed the you verysenate 980. You were dealing with congress at the height of its powers under the steelyard cases. You are dealing with a very extensive legislative record and we concede that the record was abundant. The Supreme Court made the decision that within the halls of congress, congress had not looked at that record in the right way. That is a point that one could argue and debate. The people me that who actually get elected around here knew and demonstrated by their vote that this bill was necessary. Including the senators from all of the states that were subject to the preclearance procedure. Do you think it should not be relevant to the court even if you are looking at an admission against interest theory as long as you once the courts start secondguessing how Congress Makes decisions, it opens a whole arena of new areas. You would think one might be you could follow an interest. And say, if both senators from every state subject to this and voted for this, they must know something about elections in their state. These are not stupid people. These and not people not familiar with the elective process and their state and they have, by their vote, suggested that this is necessary. Why would that vote by those home state senator is not be something entitled to discussion or wait by the court . I fully agree with you. It is up to congress to weigh conflicting evidence for i. When the court struck down the defense of marriage act was not because senator biden spoke in support of it and it was signed by president clinton. That was different. Was it . It was different because the challenge was more or less on the face of law. Sure, you had a congressional record and the courts decision was that congress, in reviewing its record, did not review it in the right way. They are actually not looking at the statute here. They are looking at the behavior of congress and that is what is a little bit different. Youre going to look at the behavior congress, why not look at the behavior of congress in the form of the actual vote by the actual senators from the actual state who all conceded this bill is necessary. Fair enough, if they had looked at the evidence, that would have exceeded the judicial role but the new Congress Looking at because Congress Told them. It was looking in 19681972 elections and that determined whether you had a jurisdiction subject to this preclearance for it i dont think anyone pretended that the situation that existed in 1968 mississippi was reflective of the situation that existed in all the other jurisdictions. They thought the judgment one could argue that the censors from those actual states involved in those elections and know more about elections in those states then a Supreme Court judge ito was not elected to anything particularly in that state, they appeared to agree. I thought we had agreed that psychoanalyzing senatorial vote for doma or anything else is not how courts analyze these things. Thats exactly what the court did in this case. They try to psychoanalyzed congress as the arctic as a body and failed miserably. When we come in congress, sure about election concerns, one that we hear an enormous amount about is a voter fraud. We have had voter i. D. Laws and all sorts of discussions about. He problem of voter fraud my experience is that it is a problem that is so minimal that it is imaginary grid it almost never comes up. Requires somebody to not vote and have somebody come in and pretend to be them and vote in their place. Clearly, there is some harm and the very infinitesimally rare cases in which that happens. For that tiny, tiny bridger occasion, we have had an enormous effort across the country. There has been an enormous amount of q and cry politically. Here, you have people show up to ,ote for it they are told sorry, wrong day, they changed the day. Devices are used that actually prevent people who want to vote from having that opportunity. When you look at the two of them side by side, it strikes me that the level of concern, relative to the rarity of somebody having their boat taken away by a fraudulent person pretending to be them, compared to the kind of wholesale discriminatory election practice of the disenfranchised, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people, and the court did not seem to be as concerned about that aspect. In your electoral experience, how would you balance the rest of the electoral process of voter fraud versus disenfranchisement through laws designed to manipulate and deter voting . Sayingve trouble disenfranchisement, too. Very little is, found in voter fraud. What we have experienced just last year in florida the voter i. D. Issues i love to hear the fact that people recognize that there are those who love to come out and vote and dont get too. Voter fraud is that as significant an issue. Here is the deal with the decision having been passed, it is a done deal. Congress now has an Incredible Opportunity to review what the coverage formula should be and i have given you examples briefly in my testimony and many others in a written testimony about how we are personally underground dealing with our voters in our states. I am very scared as an elected official from my constituents and the millions of folks in florida and the millions of residents in the united states. The discriminatory practices of the 1960s, which gave birth to the Voting Rights act, have extremely sneaky, extremely sophisticated, and extremely smarter. It really behooves congress at this time to take that into consideration it is not only my five counties in florida that are under preclearance coverage, the noncovered counties that have tried to change the election laws that are in question and im sure my state of florida is not along with the other 49 states, trying to come up with these sneaky, and smarter, and more sophisticated practices per it is a great time for congress to revisit. We might not end up with what we had in the preclearance formula. I hope that bill roby a whole lot of better Legal Protections for voters across the state and all across the country for those specific instances where people have been sneaky about it. Thank you. Let me ask one more question. Carvin cruz asked mr. About what lesson congress should take from the courts discussion of the role of congress and all of us and how we should improve our record on a Going Forward basis. We have another scholar here was an expert in this particular field lot. Professor levitt, let me ask you to provide an answer to that same question. What lessons should be taken the Shelby County decision and how can we meet the test that the court has imposed upon us . The only real clarity that the court has offered is that what congress does have to be justified by Current Conditions. I think there is ample evidence that was before congress and there is ample evidence that congress can now compile about Current Conditions requiring more than the tools that presently exists. The fact that the existing responsive reactive expensive cumbersome tools are powerful but not good enough. There is ample room for congress to legislate, to respond to the fact that the existing tools are not good enough, to have proactive and far more nimble protections to make sure that the most discriminatory laws are stopped before they ever go into effect. I think that is what congress will have to focus on industry to come and there are many ways to achieve that but that is the primary task that congress has before it this has always been a test that congress has embraced on a bipartisan basis in the past. I think our is great hope that congress will do again in the future. Every single reauthorization of the Voting Rights act came with a recognition that section 2 on its own is not enough and every single time, substantial majorities of both republicans and democrats voted to confirm that i look forward to Congress Creating that record once again. Let me recognize our distinguished ranking member, senator grassley but before he begins, let me ask unanimous consent that this be added to the record. Without objection. The reason i was not here except for the first witness i had to be over on the floor, i apologize. Weinberg and prof. Levitt, other than the abstract concepts that the professor mentioned in his testimony, what specific ideas do you have and how congress should fix the statute . Fix is a good word. Differentbeen a few groups that have had conversations. I think congress should consider carefully as in my previous comments there is the fact that these certain areas that are covered counties but also the noncovered counties, there has been instances in states and counties where there have been practices that have attempted to be put in place. Congress must look at the overall picture of what those secondly,e transpired i wanted to take the opportunity to thank the members of the committee and their recent work on the copper adds of Immigration Reform because that ultimately leads to on the comprehensive Immigration Reform. That is the only concern from my perspective that i can see for what congress can do Going Forward. We are more than happy to work with congress in a bipartisan way to help come up with the best coverage formula. Professor levitt . Thank you. I think there are a number of things that congress can and should look at including some of those mentioned by commissioner weinberg. Some of them i have spoken about and summer in my written remarks. In addition to the big, shiny statewide actions that statewidecarvin has been focusing on that will in fact draw lawyers, i would urge the committee to consider carefully how it may best prevent remedy discrimination in smaller jurisdictions, where the ability to attract this is not so great. Some of what congress should consider will be information, Getting Better information out on the impacts of new practices and what they may tell us about discrimination on going. Some of what congress should consider maybe about easing the costs and burdens of the very same response of litigation that mr. Carvin as mentioned. I would think they would consider in the jurisdictions where we have the most concern, stopping discrimination before it takes effect. And those directly targeted by the Shelby County decision. All of those in some combination will be more adequate to fulfill the 15th amendment in opportunity and obligation to ensure that discrimination based on race or ethnicity is not found in america. Sadly, we have made a lot of progress but we are not there yet and i dont think the existing tools will help us get there adequately. I think theres an awful lot congress can do to further that goal. A part ofvin, maximizing racial gerrymandering, is there with the Justice Department has a pride applied preclearance decisions that should inform our decision of whether or how we might legislate tax yes, i think the Justice Department has a regrettable track record of not seeking to enforce non discrimination are equal opportunity. But partisan preference. You refer to the partisan gerrymandering which we have discussed in the texas case, they successfully took a very aggressive approach that would affect white democrats even in places where no minority democrat could be elected. Referenced the question of efforts to identify citizens is prohibited by section 5. I represented the state of florida which was using the federal database to identify people who would be committing a federal felony by voting, non citizens but they were on the voting rolls and the Justice Department incredibly came in and said it would violate section 5 to deprive people of the ability to commit a felony by being a noncitizen that was voting. In many ways, it dilutes voting power because every time you elect you allow a fraudulent vote by noncitizen, you negate the votes of others. The case i brought to challenge constitutionality of section 5 is another example. It was a majority black jurisdiction that made the sensible decision that in local elections, they wanted to switch from partisans in nonpartisan elections. Justice department came in and said for some reason that the black community in that area did not know what was good for black voters and struck it down under section 5 on the theory that it would hurt the election of democrats. A very poor track record of distorting the equal opportunity mandate of section five into one of preferences, particularly preferences with a partisan results. Professor levitt, page 10 of from 1982ony says 2006, you say objections since 2000 which occurred at a lower rate and you did not cite any figures of objections since we authorized the law. The Supreme Court ruled this year that the cause of selective intrusions on state powers of section 5 represents can always be justified by Current Conditions and must connect the coverage formula to the problem it targets. In citing data from 1982 which andofe than 30 years old a post2006 data, how does your testimony provide contemporary evidence that the Supreme Court has determined is necessary for constitutional coverage formula . To be clear, the written testimony including the parts you mentioned included objections after 2000, not merely limited to 2006 that any point after 2000. That is within the last 13 years, this millennium, not ancient history. I dont think that the current state of objections alone is the full state of the record. Still a significant problem that section two cannot allow address. Sincee had 73 objections 2000. In addition to that, there have been changes that were submitted that were then withdrawn at the department of justice asked for more information. Those are often an indication that they were going to draw an objection. Thee requests were added to record. Beyond that here we have a problem relied of section 5 alone one of the largest impacts of the Voting Rights act has actually concerned changes deterred, specifically because the preclearance regime exists. Ms. Weinberg chant that the fact that it was in place to stop some jurisdictions from making changes they otherwise would have put in place. Despite that, i think you have ample signs that the existing problems in recent history, not ancient history, are not soluble by the tools that we have today. There are problems with the existing tools that congress will need to fix. That requires a record not only of objections since 2000 but also of discriminatory behavior is, some of which were in briefs submitted to the Supreme Court. We have seen some truly regrettable that not insufficiently it is not a sufficiently strong word to describe some behaviors not an asian history but as recently as 2011. You had members of the state legislature referring to africanamericans as aborigines. That is the environment we are in. That is the environment that still needs amply robust tools beyond the tools that currently exist to help combat the discrimination that inevitably results. I think are lots of examples that i could give you. I would be happy to supply further examples but i dont know i have the time at the moment in counties and local jurisdictions all over the place that have practices that would not be cured by todays wes that we laws desperately need congress to supply us tools to combat. Much, mr. You very chairman. One thing we have not focused on much is the waiting in line of all 102yearold woman who was in the state of the yoke in and waited for hours to vote. These are not just at a desperate in the 2012 election, 22 of africanamericans and 24 of hispanics had to wait more than 30 minutes or longer to vote but only 9 of what voters had to wait 30 minutes or longer. Commissioner, what do you see as the cause of this disparity and what can be done . Thankyou, for us personally in miami dade county, i am not smiling because it was funny, it is just incredibly embarrassing what happened in miami dade county. I think it is a gross understatement. I personally waited over two hours. I continue to vote every election but i would have walked away had i not had that commitment. As for miami dade county, there were several factors. The statistics are true and the unfortunate. These districts that are predominately minorities are either not properly staffed. Withof them have to deal early voting hours execution last year. Theres was an extremely long ballot on issues that have been held off on and could have been voted on earlier. You put together an extremely long ballot, improperly staffed, improperly Trained Personnel to assist those languageprovision needs of those communities then youve got yourself a formula for hours and hours of wait. If someone has an hourlong lunch break and they see that light, they would be likely to . These are communities who work hourly wage jobs. They do you eliminate early voting and there is no real day for these communities to go to. One hour lunch is very generous. Most of these committees have half an hour lunches if they are lucky. If you have to wait three hours and a half an hour lunch, what will you do . To forgo your right to vote . Prof. Levitt, is this the kind of evidence youre talking about . Yes, and i completely agree. The 30 minute averages only an average on the tail of that swing and that goes way up, eight hours in 2004, 11 hours in 2008, seven hours in 2012. That is a system that does not accommodate its own system choosing their own representatives and that system is broken. In some ways, lines are like fevers. They are caused by a lot of different factors and the factors vary from place to place. That were the factors primarily at issue in florida. I would add a reduction in the opportunities to vote early in florida contributed to the damage. That is something the members of this committee have investigated before. These are not on solvable problems. Starbucks has figured out not how not to make you wait seven hours in line to get a cup of coffee. It may be a long way but is not seven hours. That is because they a lot of attention. I will speak on saturday to the National Association of state collection of directors about this issue. They have had a lot of attention to what is known in the academic literature as queuing theory how many people are arriving in how many points you have to serve them and how long each one takes out all of those are things that are practices that can help alleviate the burdens of actual citizens waiting on line to cast their ballot. If i had won Silver Bullet to try and get much of this problem solved, it would be a massive reform to the registration system. That is at the root of a lot of this fever. You find various ways whether it is people arriving at the long wrong place are not finding themselves on the rolls when they arrive or staff that have to deal with registration problems on the ground and dont know how to do it, you have problems over provisional ballots the Different Things that lead to lines have their roots in the registration system. There are other problems besides and lots of things that can be done but if i had one change that i could make in order to relieve some of that fever, it would be changes to the registration system. We have talked about the same day registration has helped many states. Long lines are bad but they dont have anything to do with Racial Discrimination or section 5. Dade county where the long lines were is not a covered jurisdiction. The absence or presence of section 5 as well look at the potential reauthorization and new problems that have been created over the years or got worse over the years, this is certainly something we could look at. We dont just have to be stuck in the old ways. A of us would like to see the preclearance and to work with that we could also look at other things we could do. It seems these long lines are brought the last president ial counsel together to look at what we could do ending corporate that work. Fair enough, i was suggest you may want to look at romney and obama councils decision. The lines or the longest in areas which were run by a prime predominantly minority citizens grid to turn this into a civil rights issue is sort of backwards. I was looking at how we can get more people to vote and you can call it whatever you want but when people are waiting in these lines, we have problems. We are trying to come up with Practical Solutions after the Court Decision to fall to solve some of these problems. I dont disagree but the topic of this hearing is section 5 and the damage done and shall be counted. Congress should always look a long lines whether it has anything to do with this or not. I wanted to make the point that any such Good Government regulation of that sort would have nothing to do with any problem caused by Shelby County or resurrected section 5. The last thing i want to focus on oh professor levitt and commissioner weinberg, the reasons you put forth for why section two was not enough and white we need to look deeper into that one of the main things i see as an issue is deterrence. If people think is going to take four years to litigate a case or hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire a law firm, does not really a deterrent. Can you talk about that . You are right, there are jurisdictions as i mentioned before that have discriminatory laws in place right now that are not being challenged under section 2 because the people in those jurisdictions cannot gather the data as efficiently or cannot get the money together to hire a lawyer sufficiently and dont have the resources or the time to do what is necessary. Other jurisdictions are locked in current litigation that had not seen a resolution to their problems as time passes and the individuals collected under those on just systems continue to make policy. I talked about the opportunity before for swarms of lawyers to descend and get preliminary interactive releases and i wish it were as simple and straightforward and easy as was described. Sometimes it works and thats great. Not occur in does part that is because the supreme rt has told courts in 2006 do not jump to conclusions. We do not want you offering preliminary release a particular before an election if the facts are still disputed. Often in these cases, as you can imagine, the facts are disputed which is why preliminary release like mr. Cabvin is talking about is not offer that often. I believe the Supreme Court the solicitor general mentioned that fewer than 1 4 of cases end up in a preliminary injunction. That closer that figure might be closer to 5 or less for it when discriminatory laws are noted, jurisdictions are deterred from passing those laws by the potential prospect of maybe a cumbersome lawsuit that they are not paying for. You can seetion that we have strong support here from republican congressman sensenbrenner moving forward. Suggest we build this Coalition Given the push back we have seen tax what will work with our republican colleagues to move forward . I think the focus is to remain on the side of americans. It is the moment that we start cutting it down into the prevalent fact that in some areas in parts of this country it is a racial issue. That itto keep in mind is an all american issue. As we reach out to the members of my party from that perspective in an ideal world, that should be sufficient, looking at the overall picture of why we are doing this and not for whom are we doing this. Very well put. The note of an ideal world is a good note to in this particular hearing on. It is perhaps an ironic note. We will adjourn the record of the hearing and it will stay open for 1 additional weeks of anybody wants to add material, i think the witnesses and the senators who participated in the hearing. Thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] today on cspan, [captioning performed by national captioning institute] is next. That is followed by our live coverage of the u. S. House. Later, the president will talk about the Affordable Care act and we will go back to the house when they return at noon to work on an education bill. Bipartisan minutes, efforts to make government more efficient. Another congressman will talk about yesterdays house vote to delay the employer mandate in the Affordable Care act. And delicate efforts to find american pows and mias we will talk to a political reporter. Host today congress will be working on Student Loans and holding a hearing on the irs scandal. President obama will talk about implementing health care legislation. Ben bernanke will testify in the senate about monetary policy. Our show this morning begins in boston. Here is the cover of stone next month. Quite a bit of controversy. We want to get your reaction to this