McEachin diminishes himself over Cuccinelli’s Voting Rights comments
By JR Hoeft | Thursday, December 9th, 2010 | PolicyIn 1965, Virginia was given a list of conditions by the federal government on how it should do its redistricting. This bit of federal oversight was imposed for, oh, I don’t know, perhaps a 300-plus-year history of slavery and racism that existed in the Commonwealth up through that time of the law being enacted?
So, through the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and extended further in 2006 for another 25 years by a Republican-led Congress, Virginia is to be held to strict standards regarding redistricting and voting rights. Hence, every ten years (for at least the next two redistricting cycles) Virginia is required to submit to the Justice Department its plans for drawing the lines.
From the House of Delegates’ Fact Sheet on redistricting:
The federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 imposes other requirements on redistricting to prohibit the adoption of a plan that would have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote for racial and language minorities. Since Virginia is a covered jurisdiction, its redistricting plan must be precleared by the U.S. Department of Justice to ensure that it does not reduce the opportunity of minorities to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice
You can read more about the specific requirements of the Voting Rights Act here.
While I personally find no problem with Virginia remaining a covered jurisdiction under the Voting Rights Act, I do have a problem with the same, predictable, liberal, progressive Democrats who scream “racist” or think someone is trying to deny another person’s rights because they choose to openly question whether or not a Civil Rights era policy is still in the best interests of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Recently, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said:
“I do not think, in this day and age, that we need pre-clearance from [the Department of Justice],” Cuccinelli said, referring to a provision in the Voting Rights Act that has required the commonwealth Virginia and other Southern states to submit their plans to the Department of Justice since 1965.
“Remember who has to be discriminating here — the General Assembly, the Senate or the House, and the governor,” Cuccinelli said during AP Day at the Capitol, an annual gathering of journalists a month before the General Assembly session.
“And I don’t see any of those bodies now or any time in the future returning to the kind of history that Virginia is rather infamous for.
“I don’t for a moment mean to suggest that we don’t still have to contend in our society and in Virginia with bigotry. We do. … I just don’t think Virginia needs that oversight at this point.”
What the heck is wrong with that? It’s an intellectual question where Cuccinelli is effectively making a cost-benefit statement regarding the federal oversight.
He’s only asking a question and wondering aloud – ok, asserting aloud – that in the next review of the Voting Rights Act, it might be time for Virginia to be removed from being a covered jurisdiction.
That’s called an argument. He’s building a case that Virginia has moved to what we all are hoping for: a post-racial world.
But some people harbor and hold on to the cause of racism, seeing it even where none exists. For example, State Senator Donald McEachin:
The governor stands idly by as Attorney General Cuccinelli says Virginia has outgrown the Voting Rights Act. Again, the governor’s silence is deafening. In the lifetimes of many of us, minority voters had to pay a poll tax or pass a literacy test or even risk physical harm to register to vote. In recognition of these serious concerns that took a century to overcome, the Voting Rights Act was passed and recently renewed with overwhelming bipartisan support.
“I would remind the governor that, as the leader of the Commonwealth and the head of his Party, his words and actions can and do carry a lot of weight. He missed his opportunity on bipartisan redistricting when the bill was before the legislature and now he is missing the opportunity to repudiate the Attorney General’s inappropriate, risky and reckless suggestion.”
Repudiate what? Are we really even remotely close in Virginia to going back to the days where the General Assembly passes and the governor signs into law paying poll taxes, passing literacy tests or threatening physical harm to people for registering to vote or voting (well, maybe if you encounter the Black Panthers)?
Unless McEachin truly feels his colleagues are racists. And, if that’s the case, does this say more about McEachin and his view of the world?
We elect leaders to think and to ask questions. If we truly want to move to a post-racial world, we have to be open and rational in our collective dialogue about how effective current policies are – especially those that were enacted nearly five decades ago in a different era. Do they make sense today and what are the costs and benefits?
What we don’t need to do in our debates is demonize and engage in demagoguery…especially if we want to truly move to an era that leaves a more painful one well-behind.
McEachin’s efforts to score political points by over-exaggerating the nature of Cuccinell’s comments and attempting to reduce McDonnell through “association” only diminishes himself and marginalizes an important discussion that we should be having in our society.
When can we truly have an honest conversation about race in America? When the progressive left stops holding onto it as a political weapon.
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About the author
Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. E-mail J.R.. Follow J.R. on Twitter.
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9 Responses to "McEachin diminishes himself over Cuccinelli’s Voting Rights comments"
McEachin should be forthcoming with the specific goals Virginia needs to achieve socially in order to finally be considered a “color blind” society.
Not a perfect society — the poor will always be among us (poor in intellect, judgement, etc) — but at what point have we finally redeemed ourselves?
At some point, continuing to drive home the interests of one group of people over another drifts away from civil rights and into protected classes — as an electorate we should be highly sensitive when that barrier appears to be crossed.
Not an easy issue… but one would hope that an educated and self-assured generation of Virginians would one day hear of VRA exemption and just shrug. That we aren’t there yet speaks to the failings of the current crop of leaders.
McEachin, unfortunately, is participating in the problem.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jason Kenney, Bearing Drift. Bearing Drift said: Web: McEachin diminishes himself over Cuccinelli’s Voting Rights comments http://bit.ly/hAWpZO [...]
A minority politician who represents a large minority constituency playing the race card? I’m shocked, yes shocked! Next, you will try to tell me that Bobby Scott was actually defending Charles Rangel. What? He was? Well, that just puts him in the same company as Barney Fwank.
Shaun, I could not agree with you more. You would think that anyone with McEachin’s education and experience (UVA Law, law firm partner, elected legislator) would recognize the progress we have made in Virginia over the past half century and not stoop to equating relief from a bureaucratic Federal review with a return to poll taxes, literacy tests, and Klan violence. He serves only his own aggrandisement and not the interests of the Commonwealth with such reckless statements. The people of the 9th Senate District should be ashamed that their elected leader thinks that their participation in democracy is so precarious.
Obviously, what we are dealing with here is a Doug Wilder wannabe.
This is just precious. If you’d sincerely like a political conversation with less bigotry in it, I suggest focusing on your own party long before you get around to Don McEachin. There’s a lot more work to be done there (and better done from the inside, as it’s been amply demonstrated that no outside criticism can be taken as anything more than confirmation about how misunderstood and victimized the GOP is these days).
MB,
I don’t see any bigotry in this conversation, unless you consider calling out a politician for pandering is bigotry. In that case, guilty as charged.
And not to change the subject, but if you want to see some misunderstood and victimized politicians, take a look at the Democrats in Congress who are wailing and gnashing their teeth because their own President struck a compromise on taxes and unemployment benefits.
For the record, I just want to say with all due respect to Senator McEachin, there is no such thing as bi-partisan or nonpartisan redistricting. As long as human beings are involved in the process, it will be partisan and to pretend otherwise is inane.
So funny that Cooch presses this after he tried to impose a poll tax of $50 on Republican convention delegates.
MB -
This post has nothing to do with bigotry.
It has to do with baseless claims by a politician seeking to use race for political purposes.
McEachin’s claims that Cuccinell’s proposal is “risky and reckless” doesn’t seek to advance any serious conversation or policy positions about race in Virginia.
It’s an effort to be divisive and is grasping at straws to maintain black Virginians voting in bloc for the Democratic party.
This whole controversy is incredible. The Voting Rights Act, by its own terms, allows for “covered jurisdictions,” such as Virginia and its counties and cities to “bail out” from the Preclearance Requirements of the Act. Not from the Act, just from the requirement that ANY change in voting practices or procedures (this is not just redistricting, it’s changing the doorway through which voters enter a precinct and everything in between).
In fact, over the last 15 years, 17 of Virginia’s counties and cities have “bailed out” of the Preclearance Requirements with the full support of the Department of Justice through a declaratory judgment by the US District Court for DC (not one of Virginia’s districts mind you, but DC).
The demagoguery by Moran and McEachin should embarass them both. Both attorneys, one a former candidate for Governor and the other a former candidate for Attorney General, both having served in Virginia’s legislature, you think they might read a law before going off on an important topic like this.
Cuccinelli has not proposed repealing the Voting Rights Act, imposing a poll tax (the reason Virginia was made a covered jurisdiction in 1965), disenfranchising anyone, or even limiting the ability of a citizen to sue to vindicate his or her rights. He merely suggested that Virginia’s record of clean and fair elections over the last decade (and more, but the “bail out” provision only requires looking at the last decade) should be recognized. That the state be allowed to have control over its own voting laws, practices, and procedures without asking the permission of federal bureaucrats to make changes. Both the Department of Justice and individual citizens would still have the right to sue under the Voting Rights Act.
What a tempest in a teapot.
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