Barack Obama Calls on Congress to Reinstate Voting Rights Act

By Jana Kasperkevic, Guardian UK

12 August 15

The US president pens a letter in support of new, broader legislation to restore minority protections as voting rights have come under attack in several states

arack Obama has once again called on Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act and make it easier for Americans to vote, in a letter to the New York Times Magazine.

The letter comes more than a week after he marked the 50th anniversary of the 1965 act by asking Congress to pass new, broader legislation to address recent efforts to impede Americans’ voting rights.

“I am where I am today only because men and women like Rosanell Eaton refused to accept anything less than a full measure of equality. Their efforts made our country a better place,” Obama wrote in Wednesday’s letter.

“It is now up to us to continue those efforts. Congress must restore the Voting Rights Act. Our state leaders and legislatures must make it easier – not harder – for more Americans to have their voices heard. Above all, we must exercise our right as citizens to vote, for the truth is that too often we disenfranchise ourselves.”

His letter comes two weeks after the New York Times Magazine published a cover story on voting rights, A Dream Undone: Inside the 50-year campaign to roll back the Voting Rights Act.

Obama wrote that he was inspired “to read about unsung American heroes like Rosanell Eaton”, who was one of the first black voters to register in her county in North Carolina in 1939. Back then, Eaton had passed the literacy test by memorizing the preamble of the US constitution. Now at 94, Eaton is one of the plaintiffs in the North Carolina case looking to repeal a 2013 bill which added new voting restrictions.

The Voting Rights Act put an end to various forms of discrimination like the literacy test that had previously denied some Americans the right to vote, Obama said.

“These efforts are not a sign that we have moved past the shameful history that led to the Voting Rights Act. Too often, they are rooted in that history,” he wrote. “They remind us that progress does not come easy, but that it must be vigorously defended and built upon for ourselves and future generations.”

According to the magazine, it received “an unusual volume of responses to this article, most notably from President Barack Obama”.

Obama has spoken out about voting rights before. Last year, while speaking in New York, he said: “The right to vote is threatened today in a way that it has not been since the Voting Rights Act became law nearly five decades ago.” At the time, he pointed out that the effort pass local laws to restrict voting rights “has not been led by both parties. It’s been led by the Republican party”.

In 2013, the US supreme court struck down the 48-year-old protections for minority voters in states with a history of racial discrimination, Obama called on Congress to pass new protections for minorities.

“As a nation, we’ve made a great deal of progress towards guaranteeing every American the right to vote. But, as the supreme court recognized, voting discrimination still exists.”