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The National Voting Rights Act of 1965 ()1 outlawed the requirement that would-be voters in the United States take Literacy tests to qualify to register to vote, and it provided for federal registration of voters in areas that had less than 50% of eligible minority voters registered. The Act also provided for Department Of Justice oversight to registration, and the Department's approval for any change in voting law in districts that had used a "device" to limit voting and in which less than 50% of the population was registered to vote in 1964. It was signed in 1965 , and signed for a 25 year extension by President George W. Bush on July 27 , 2006 . While the Act is often considered a landmark in civil rights legislation, it has been criticized by some (especially during talks of renewal in 2006) as a bill that has achieved its goal of minority voting and now has become an overreach of federal power or too demanding of certain states.2 BACKGROUND The Thirteenth Amendment ratified in 1865 after the United States Civil War , abolished and prohibited slavery and secured a minimal degree of citizenship to former slaves. The Fourteenth Amendment ratified in 1868, granted citizenship to all people “born or naturalized in the United States,” and includes the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. This amendment failed to explicitly prohibit vote discrimination on racial grounds. The prohibition of voting rights discrimination on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of slavery was first codified by the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1870. Soon after the failure of Reconstruction , southern states found other means besides those enumerated in the Fifteenth Amendment to deny the vote to blacks, through violence, intimidation, via Jim Crow Law s that included Literacy Test s, Poll Tax es, and also Grandfather Clause s that permitted otherwise disqualified voters whose grandfathers voted (thus allowing some white illiterates to vote), all with the aim and effect of re-imposing racially motivated restrictions on the voting process that prevented blacks from having political and economic power. Although the Fifteenth Amendment established particular voting rights, and gave Congress the authority to enforce those rights and regulate the voting process, the vote was still allowed to be withheld from most southern blacks and from non-white minorities throughout the U.S., from the Post-Reconstruction Era through the 1960s. In 1909, the and the murder of Viola Liuzzo , after which President Lyndon Baines Johnson , in a dramatic joint-session address, called upon Congress to enact a strong voting rights bill. Johnson's administration drafted a bill intended to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, aiming to eliminate various previously legal strategies to prevent blacks and other minorities from voting. LEGISLATIVE HISTORY The Act was sent to Congress by President Lyndon Johnson on March 17 , 1965 . The Senate passed the bill on May 11 (after a successful Cloture vote on March 23 ); the House passed it on July 10 . After differences between the two bills were resolved in conference, the House passed the Conference Report on August 3 , the Senate on August 4 . President Johnson signed the Act on August 6 , 1965 . signs the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act as lawmakers look on.]] Vote count ''The two numbers in each line of this list refer to the number of representatives voting in favor and against the act, respectively.'' Senate: 77–19
House: 333–85
Conference Report: Senate: 79–18
House: 328–74
Some votes were not included due to some members' absence. PERIODIC RENEWAL Some temporary amendments of the Voting Rights Act (none involving the outlawing of poll taxes or literacy tests, on which the ban is permanent)3 have been renewed four times and remain in force. They were renewed in 1970 , 1975 , 1982 , and 2006 . In the 1982 action, Congress amended the Act to make some sections (perhaps most importantly section 2) permanent while renewing the remainder (perhaps most importantly section 5) for 25 years, until ( July 1 , 2007 ). In July 2006, 41 years after the Voting Rights Act passed, renewal of the temporary provisions enjoyed bi-partisan support. However, a number of Republican lawmakers acted to amend, delay or defeat renewal of the Act for various reasons. One group of lawmakers led by Georgia congressman Lynn Westmoreland came from some pre-clearance states, and claimed that it is no longer fair to target their states given the passage of time since 1965 and the changes that have taken place since then. Another group of 80 legislators supported an amendment offered by Steve King of Iowa , seeking to strip provisions from the Act that require that translators or multilingual ballots be provided for U.S. citizens who do not speak English. The "King letter" said that providing ballots or interpreters in multiple languages is a costly, unfunded mandate. |
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