now we can go with the full bill, says the republican rules committee chairman in north carolina s republican-controlled senate. why stop just with voter i.d., he says? he predicted an omnibus voting bill would surface in the senate next week that could go beyond voter i.d. to include issues such as reducing early voting, eliminating sunday voting and barring same-day voter registration. they might not have been able to get away with racially discriminatory policies like that before today, but as of 10:00 a.m. today, go for it. the flood gates are open. the flood gates are open. anything these states with a history of racial discrimination could not get away with before, because they were covered under the voting rights act, and the justice department blocked them, now they can go ahead. and they are. day one, they re already rushing forward and there s nothing to stop them. unless congress fixes it. what are the odds of congress fixing it? no, really. what are the odds? the voting r
what s your reaction to this big court ruling on the voting rights act? well, i haven t read it yet. obviously it s an important bill that passed back in the 60s at a time when he had a very different america than we have today. my state is not covered by the voting rights act. there may be others who want to comment on it. at this point i think i m going to have to read it first, but i would say i do think america is very different today from what it was in the 1960s. anybody else want to comment on that? well, nobody wants to talk about it? all the other republican senators standing there with him. nobody. u.s. supreme court ruling today on the voting rights act left in place the basic idea that some states, some counties, have sketchy enough records with regards to racial discrimination and elections that they should have to get pre-approval from the justice department if they want to make changes to election laws. the court threw out existing lists of what those places are
broke the segregationist lock on the ballot box rose from the courage shown on a selma bridge one sunday afternoon in march of 1965. on that day, african-americans including a member of the united states congress, john lewis [ applause ] marched across the edmund pettus bridge in a protest intended to highlight the unfair practice that kept him off the voter rolls. today we renew a bill. my administration will vigorously enforce the provisions of this law and we will defend it in court. i am proud to sign the voting rights act reauthorization and amendments act of 2006. the vote in the senate that made it possible for then-president george w. bush to reauthorize the voting rights
the democratic side have said that we must go back and reauthorize the act the same way that we did in 2006. and i did read a statement that the majority leader, eric cantor, made that because of his trip to selma last march, that was moving to him, it had a profound impact on him, that he would take a serious look at the decision and whether we should reauthorize that section of the voting rights act of 1965. do you agree if congress was able to act, maybe that showing of support from congressman cantor means that republicans might be willing to do it. if congress could act post-haste, could that limit the amount of damage that i know you think has been done to voting rights in the protection of
1965 to prevent racial discrimination, to stop the taxes, literacy taxes and violence rampant across jim crowe south. nine states are required, mostly in the south, to get federal permission before changing their voting procedures. this provision stopped unfair voting changes like districts redrawn to minimize the vote of african-americans. recently, it s been used to block photo id laws in south carolina and texas. and cutbacks in early voting in florida. yet, in 2009, chief justice roberts wrote quote, things have changed in the south. yes, things have changed. clearly not enough. just this past fall we saw new voter id laws and voting lines that were far too long. the voting rights act works and