Bill Straub: Shouldn’t every American have a right to vote? Isn’t that the American way? But wait. . .

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, of Louisville, has made it clear that his party will filibuster to death any voting rights measure put forward by the Democrats and he intends to lead the charge. The unspoken reason is that any measure to enhance voting is likely to benefit a particular segment of the electorate -– African-Americans – who generally are not included within the holy GOP constituency.

So much for the right to vote.

A little history before the nuts and bolts:

During the Jim Crow era, most Southern states, and even some outside the old Confederacy, were not enthusiastic about African-Americans utilizing their right to vote. So they constructed barriers like literacy tests, poll taxes and limiting the franchise to only property owners.

For some reason it appeared that White voters escaped many of these requirements.

By 1965, Congress and President Lyndon Johnson told those states to knock it off with passage of the Voting Rights Act. The measure prohibited literacy tests, established federal oversight of voter registration in states where less than 50 percent of the African-American population was registered to vote and authorized the U.S. attorney general to look into barriers constructed to prohibit individuals from exercising the franchise.

Sections 4 and 5 of the law established a system identifying states with a history of discriminatory practices, mostly in the old Confederacy, and required them to submit any proposed changes in voting and election laws to the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department for review and “preclearance” — meaning federal approval — before they could take effect.
 
Black participation understandably increased under the Voting Rights Act. One of those who benefitted from the law was the aforementioned John Lewis, elected to Congress from Georgia in 1987, serving until his death last year.

Benefits derived under the act lasted until 2013 when the conservative majority on the Supreme Court — another institution that has not always displayed a whole lot of understanding of the African-American experience – ignored the 15th Amendment as if it never existed and struck down portions of Sections 4 and 5 in Shelby County v. Holder, maintaining the pre-clearance provisions were based on outdated data.

Of course, freed of the burden of federal oversight, several pre-clearance states adopted new laws that had a detrimental impact on Black voters. It wasn’t a coincidence. The whole, messy scenario has given the lie to the high court’s so-called reasoning.

The House-passed bill addresses the Supreme Court kerfuffle by revising pre-clearance to apply to states with “15 or more voting rights violations” in the previous 25 years, or just 10 violations if “at least one was committed by the state itself.” Lawmakers hope the change passes legal muster. But it’s unlikely to get that far.

Under current Senate rules, with the filibuster looming like a vulture circling over roadkill, proponents likely will need 60 votes to even began debate on any voting reform proposal. And McConnell has made it clear the party doesn’t intend to play ball.

In so doing, he’s adopted some of the Jim Crow language that proved hostile to Black voters for decades. That’s right, he’s pulling the old states rights canard.

“This is not a federal issue,” McConnell told reporters recently. “It ought to be left to the states. There’s nothing broken around the country. The system upheld very well during intense stress in the latter part of the previous Congress. There’s no rational basis for federalizing this election. Therefore, there’s no point in having an election — a debate in the U.S. Senate about something we ought not to do.”

Now, it’s reasonable to wonder how it’s not a federal issue when many of the candidates vying for public office – seeking spots in the House of Representatives, the Senate and even the White House – are running for federal positions.

It’s not like the Congress hasn’t gotten involved in the issue before. The Supreme Court didn’t say the whole thing was unconstitutional, just that the available information didn’t justify its continuation.

And there’s the aforementioned 15th Amendment, ratified under President U.S. Grant in 1870, which states in full, “Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

That’s right, to repeat, Congress shall have power to enforce this article.

But what’s really nifty here is what our boy Mitch had to say in the past. Congress reauthorized the Voting Rights Act, including the pre-clearance provisions, in 2006. McConnell took to the Senate floor to express his support, noting that he was serving as an intern for Sen. John Sherman Cooper, R-Somerset, a supporter of the bill, at the time it was signed into law.

“We have, of course, renewed the Voting Rights Act periodically since that time, overwhelmingly, and on a bipartisan basis, year after year after year because members of Congress realize this is a piece of legislation which has worked,” McConnell said. “And one of my favorite sayings that many of us use from time to time is, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

McConnell closed by noting, “This is a good piece of legislation which has served an important purpose over many years.”

Huh.

Apparently he changed his mind. Who cares if Black folks don’t get to vote? They’re not Republicans.