Voting Rights Act Gets ACLU Push to Renew

[undergroundrailroad]

Voting Rights Act Gets ACLU Push to Renew

By WILL LESTER
Associated Press Writer

March 7, 2006, 9:31 PM EST

WASHINGTON -- The Voting Rights Act would be severely weakened if provisions such as federal clearance of some local election changes and protections for voters who do not speak English are not renewed, activists say.

That's why the American Civil Liberties Union is involved in a nationwide campaign to raise public awareness about the importance of the historic act, passed in 1965, and to encourage Congress to reauthorize expiring sections of the law. The provisions in the law expire in the summer of 2007, but Congress is already starting to consider the reauthorization.

"If there's not a major push for the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, many of the advances we've seen in the past two decades will be severely undermined," LaShawn Warren, legislative council for the ACLU, said Tuesday.

Some conservative lawmakers have voiced opposition to renewing the clearance provision of the Voting Rights Act.

[msgadget]

1. So far we've got Jesse Jackson, jr., Obama, and now the ACLU

but so much else going on that this issue isn't getting a helluva lotta press. Thanks, Ms Mina!