[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Con. Res. 424 Introduced in House (IH)]
110th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. CON. RES. 424
Calling on the Attorney General to protect the right to vote of every
person in the United States by promptly and thoroughly investigating
complaints of violations of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the National
Voter Registration Act of 1993, and the Help America Vote Act of 2002.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
September 23, 2008
Ms. Waters (for herself, Mr. Conyers, Mr. Watt, Mr. Scott of Virginia,
Ms. Corrine Brown of Florida, Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas, Ms. Lee, Mr.
Butterfield, Mr. Payne, Mr. Grijalva, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, Mr. Meeks
of New York, Ms. Moore of Wisconsin, Ms. Norton, Mr. Serrano, Mr. Clay,
Mr. Cleaver, Mr. Jackson of Illinois, Mr. Davis of Illinois, Mrs.
Capps, Mr. Farr, Mr. Lewis of Georgia, Ms. Woolsey, Mr. Rush, Mrs.
Christensen, Mr. Johnson of Georgia, Mr. Ellison, Mr. McGovern, Ms. Zoe
Lofgren of California, and Mr. Al Green of Texas) submitted the
following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on
the Judiciary
_______________________________________________________________________
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Calling on the Attorney General to protect the right to vote of every
person in the United States by promptly and thoroughly investigating
complaints of violations of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the National
Voter Registration Act of 1993, and the Help America Vote Act of 2002.
Whereas the 15th amendment to the Constitution provides the right to vote to
citizens and prohibits the denial or abridgement of this right based on
race, color, or previous condition of servitude;
Whereas section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 provides that no person,
acting under color of law or otherwise, shall intimidate, threaten, or
coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for
voting or attempting to vote or otherwise intimidating or denying any
eligible person from voting;
Whereas the Voting Rights Act of 1965 forbids any State or political subdivision
to enact any election law to deny or abridge voting rights based on race
or color;
Whereas the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits any person, whether acting under
color of law or otherwise, from failing or refusing to permit any
qualified person from voting in general, special, or primary Federal
elections, refusing to count the vote of a qualified person, or
intimidating anyone attempting to vote or any one who is assisting a
person in voting under provisions of the Voting Rights Act;
Whereas the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended in 1970, provides that a
person otherwise qualified to vote shall not be denied the right to vote
in a presidential election because of an extended duration residency
requirement;
Whereas the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended in 1975, added section 203 to
increase the participation of language minorities by requiring bilingual
elections in certain circumstances;
Whereas as originally enacted, section 2 forbade any jurisdiction in the country
to enact an election law that denies or abridges voting rights on
account of race or color;
Whereas the 1975 amendments added minorities to this section as a protected
class;
Whereas the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended in 1982, effectively
overturned a 1980 United States Supreme Court ruling in Mobile v.
Bolden, and modified the standard of legal review to allow certain
voting rights violations under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of
1965 to be proven by showing that an election law or procedure was
adopted with a discriminatory purpose or had a discriminatory effect;
Whereas the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 prohibits voters from being
removed from rolls of registered voters as an election is approaching
and also prohibits States from engaging in any effort to systematically
remove voters from the list of eligible voters unless that action was
completed more than 90 days before the date of a Federal election and is
applied in a nondiscriminatory manner that complies with the Voting
Rights Act of 1965;
Whereas the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights
Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 affirmed the existing
statutory requirements and also prohibited any person, whether acting
under color of law or otherwise, from failing or refusing to permit any
qualified person from voting in general, special, or primary Federal
elections, refusing to count the vote of a qualified person, or
intimidating anyone attempting to vote or anyone who is assisting a
person who is voting under provisions of the Act;
Whereas he Voting Rights Reauthorization and Amendments of 2006 clarified the
standard under section 5 for determining whether certain covered States
or jurisdictions have enacted or seek to administer any voting
qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, or practice, or
procedure with respect to voting that either has the purpose or will
have the effect of denying or diminishing the voting rights of United
States citizens on account of race or color;
Whereas the revision also instituted a cause of action in the United States
District Court for the District of Columbia for declaratory judgment;
Whereas under the Help America Vote Act of 2002, failure to provide a ballot to
a voter seeking to exercise the right to vote is a violation of Federal
law;
Whereas reports from throughout the United States indicate organized, systematic
efforts targeting vulnerable populations, including residents displaced
by foreclosure and victims of natural disasters, are underway to attempt
to exclude, prevent, deter, and discourage eligible voters from
exercising his or her right to vote;
Whereas complaints have been reported in Virginia, a State that is covered, in
part, under section 5, alleging voter suppression schemes that have
disseminated erroneous information regarding the impact of voter
registration on students' eligibility for financial aid where they are
enrolled in school;
Whereas such a systematic scheme by party or local officials to frustrate
voters' ability to exercise his or her right to vote runs afoul of the
goals of the Voting Rights Act of 1965;
Whereas complaints have been reported in Michigan of a plan to systematically
challenge voters whose names appear on State lists of foreclosed
properties in a voter suppression scheme referred to as ``Lose Your
Home, Lose Your Vote'';
Whereas such a scheme would harass voters and potentially impair the rights of
thousands of voters, many of whom are racial minorities;
Whereas evidence shows that a disproportionate number of persons impacted by the
current foreclosure and housing crisis are African-American, Latino,
minority, and low-income;
Whereas in 2008, there have been at least 739,000 people in the United States
who have entered foreclosure proceedings that may have affected their
residential status;
Whereas many of these people were targeted for predatory loans that loan
originators knew or should have known were unaffordable to them over the
life of the loan, particularly where the rate on the loan was scheduled
to adjust after an initial teaser rate;
Whereas others, particularly the elderly, were targeted for reverse mortgages
and refinancings that threatened the ownership of the homes in which
they have resided for many years;
Whereas in 2008, thousands of people in the United States have had their
residential status affected by Hurricanes and Tropical Storms Bertha,
Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gustav, Hanna, and Ike, as well as related floods
and other natural disasters;
Whereas the payment of insurance claims and delivery of government assistance
are often delayed for months, even years, and leaves displaced residents
unable to return to their homes;
Whereas in Mississippi, efforts were made to place the selection for the special
election for a United States Senate race near the bottom of the ballot
among candidates for local office rather than near the top among the
Federal races such as President and the other United States Senate race
as required by State law in an attempt to cause the special election
race to be overlooked;
Whereas a State judge has ruled that the race be placed higher on the ballot, in
order to not disenfranchise voters, but that decision was appealed to
the State Supreme Court, which subsequently ruled such ballot placement
did not comply with the law;
Whereas complaints were reported in Maryland of fliers distributed in minority
communities with erroneous election information, including incorrect
election dates, for the purpose of suppressing minority voting
participation;
Whereas numerous complaints of deceptive practices and voter intimidation have
been reported in Florida in recent presidential elections, including--
(1) purging the names, disproportionately of African-Americans, from
certain county voting lists;
(2) eliminating, in error, thousands of individuals from registration
lists on grounds that they were felons;
(3) failing to provide bilingual ballots or access to translators and
language assistance;
(4) intimidating voters on their way to the polls by using unauthorized
traffic checkpoints near a voting precinct;
(5) intimidating voters with inaccurate information that if they have
not paid taxes or child support that they cannot vote;
(6) changing designated polling places without advance notice or
without adequate notice to the community;
(7) sending voters from one precinct to another only for the
individuals to find they were not on the registration lists or that it was
too late to vote; and
(8) failing to send requested absentee ballots to individuals and then
refusing to let these same individuals vote when they appeared at the
precinct to vote;
Whereas in 2008, new complaints have been reported in Florida of a ``No Match,
No Vote'' law which requires election officials to verify applicants'
drivers license numbers or the last four digits of their Social Security
numbers by using government data bases and any errors, including simple
typos, clerical errors, or even middle name changes, could lead to
identification mismatches resulting in the invalidation of votes;
Whereas press reports indicate that this new Florida ``No Match, No Vote'' law
will be enforced less than 30 days prior to the State's October 6, 2008,
registration deadline for the November 4, 2008, elections, and because
Florida is subject to section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a pre-
clearance review under section 5 should be undertaken by the Department
of Justice before this new law is enforced to ensure that thousands of
voters, including minorities and the working poor, are not adversely
affected or disenfranchised by this new law; and
Whereas, voter caging, or the selection of lists or databases of voters compiled
for the purpose or intent of challenging voters, and other schemes
relying on inaccurate, incomplete, incorrect, or otherwise misleading
subject matter used to systematically challenge voters, when done in a
discriminatory manner, is a violation of section 2 of the Voting Rights
Act of 1965: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring),
That Congress calls on the Attorney General to--
(1) protect the right to vote of every person in the United
States by promptly and thoroughly investigating complaints of
violations of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the National Voter
Registration Act of 1993, and the Help America Vote Act of
2002;
(2) exercise all the authorities and utilize all the
resources provided by Congress to fully enforce Federal voting
and civil rights statutes;
(3) enjoin any efforts by individuals or organizations to
violate Federal voting and civil rights statutes by means of
intimidation, suppression, or deceptive practices and to ensure
that no eligible voter is denied the right to vote on November
4, 2008, or in any early voting periods prior to November 4,
2008, including voting by mail and absentee ballots; and
(4) prosecute those who violate Federal voting and civil
rights statutes to the fullest extent of the law.
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