National Urban League Statement for the Judiciary Committee Hearing Record:
The Voting Rights Amendment Act, S.1945: Updating the Voting Rights Act in Response to Shelby v. Holder”
Today, on the one year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder, the National Urban League submitted written testimony for the record during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Voting Rights Amendment Act (VRAA), “The Voting Rights Amendment Act, S.1945: Updating the Voting Rights Act in Response to Shelby County v. Holder”
The statement condemned the decision as a “crushing blow” to our “fundamental right to vote,” and cited new research by the Brennan Center for Justice that underscores the urgent need to restore crucial voting protections. The report, The State of Voting in 2014, details the ongoing and aggressive effort to impose new restrictions on the right to vote including limits on the kind of acceptable identification, cutbacks in polling places and early voting and onerous registration requirements.
The statement reads, in part:
“The National Urban League believes that the provisions in the bicameral, bipartisan Voting Rights Amendment Act include many key elements of a nationwide, modern, flexible and forward-looking VRA and offer a commonsense approach in response to the Shelby decision. The legislation would provide new tools to get ahead of voting discrimination before it occurs and ensure that any proposed election changes are transparent. Through this Senate hearing, we look forward to a robust discussion of the problems voters across the country still face in the wake of the Shelby decision. In light of the raw reality that discrimination in voting is not a thing of the past, there is the “urgency of now” that calls upon Congress to act before we risk keeping more and more voters from the polls and inflicting additional damage to our democracy.
