American Indians and the Fight for Equal Voting Rights by
The struggle for voting rights was not limited to African Americans in the South. American Indians also faced discrimination at the polls and still do today. This book explores their fight for equal voting rights and carefully documents how non-Indian officials have tried to maintain dominance over Native peoples despite the rights they are guaranteed as American citizens. Laughlin McDonald has participated in numerous lawsuits brought on behalf of Native Americans in Montana, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming. This litigation challenged discriminatory election practices such as at-large elections, redistricting plans crafted to dilute voting strength, unfounded allegations of election fraud on reservations, burdensome identification and registration requirements, lack of language assistance, and noncompliance with the Voting Rights Act. McDonald devotes special attention to the VRA and its amendments, whose protections are central to realizing the goal of equal political participation. McDonald describes past and present-day discrimination against Indians, including land seizures, destruction of bison herds, attempts to eradicate Native language and culture, and efforts to remove and in some cases even exterminate tribes. Because of such treatment, he argues, Indians suffer a severely depressed socioeconomic status, voting is sharply polarized along racial lines, and tribes are isolated and lack meaningful interaction with non-Indians in communities bordering reservations. Far more than a record of litigation, American Indians and the Fight for Equal Voting Rights paints a broad picture of Indian political participation by incorporating expert reports, legislative histories, newspaper accounts, government archives, and hundreds of interviews with tribal members. This in-depth study of Indian voting rights recounts the extraordinary progress American Indians have made and looks toward a more just future.
On Account of Race: The Supreme Court, White Supremacy and the Ravaging of African American Voting Rights by
Winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award An award-winning constitutional law historian examines case-based evidence of the court's longstanding racial bias (often under the guise of "states rights") to reveal how that prejudice has allowed the court to solidify its position as arguably the most powerful branch of the federal government. One promise of democracy is the right of every citizen to vote. And yet, from our founding, strong political forces were determined to limit that right. The Supreme Court, Alexander Hamilton wrote, would protect the weak against this very sort of tyranny. Still, as On Account of Race forcefully demonstrates, through the better part of American history the Court has instead been a protector of white rule. And complex threats against the right to vote persist even today. Beginning in 1876, the Supreme Court systematically dismantled both the equal protection guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment and what seemed to be the right to vote in the Fifteenth. And so a half million African Americans across the South who had risked their lives and property to be allowed to cast ballots were stricken from voting rolls by white supremacists. This vacuum allowed for the rise of Jim Crow. None of this was done in the shadows--those determined to wrest the vote from black Americans could not have been more boastful in either intent or execution. On Account of Race tells the story of an American tragedy, the only occasion in United States history in which a group of citizens who had been granted the right to vote then had it stripped away. It is a warning that the right to vote is fragile and must be carefully guarded and actively preserved lest American democracy perish.
One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying our Democracy by
As featured in the documentary All In: The Fight for Democracy Finalist for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Longlisted for the National Book Award in Nonfiction An NPR Politics Podcast Book Club Choice Named one of the Best Books of the Year by: Washington Post * Boston Globe * NPR* Bustle * BookRiot * New York Public Library From the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of White Rage, the startling--and timely--history of voter suppression in America, with a foreword by Senator Dick Durbin. In her New York Times bestseller White Rage, Carol Anderson laid bare an insidious history of policies that have systematically impeded black progress in America, from 1865 to our combustible present. With One Person, No Vote, she chronicles a related history: the rollbacks to African American participation in the vote since the 2013 Supreme Court decision that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Known as the Shelby ruling, this decision effectively allowed districts with a demonstrated history of racial discrimination to change voting requirements without approval from the Department of Justice. Focusing on the aftermath of Shelby, Anderson follows the astonishing story of government-dictated racial discrimination unfolding before our very eyes as more and more states adopt voter suppression laws. In gripping, enlightening detail she explains how voter suppression works, from photo ID requirements to gerrymandering to poll closures. And with vivid characters, she explores the resistance: the organizing, activism, and court battles to restore the basic right to vote to all Americans.
Uncounted: The Crisis of Voter Suppression in America by
An answer to the assault on voting rights--crucial reading in light of the 2020 presidential election The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is considered one of the most effective pieces of legislation the United States has ever passed. It enfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters, particularly in the American South, and drew attention to the problem of voter suppression. Yet in recent years there has been a continuous assault on access to the ballot box in the form of stricter voter ID requirements, meritless claims of rigged elections, and baseless accusations of voter fraud. In the past these efforts were aimed at eliminating African American voters from the rolls, and today, new laws seek to eliminate voters of color, the poor, and the elderly, groups that historically vote for the Democratic Party. Uncounted examines the phenomenon of disenfranchisement through the lens of history, race, law, and the democratic process. Gilda R. Daniels, who served as Deputy Chief in the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and has more than two decades of voting rights experience, argues that voter suppression works in cycles, constantly adapting and finding new ways to hinder access for an exponentially growing minority population. She warns that a premeditated strategy of restrictive laws and deceptive practices has taken root and is eroding the very basis of American democracy--the right to vote!
Voting in Indian Country: The View from the Trenches by
Voting in Indian Country uses conflicts over voting rights as a lens for understanding the centuries-long fight for Native self-determination. Among the American public, there is a collective amnesia about the U.S. government's shameful policies toward the continent's original inhabitants and their descendants. Only rarely, such as during the Wounded Knee standoff in the 1970s and the recent Dakota Access Pipeline protests, do Native issues reach the public consciousness. But even during those times, there is little understanding of historical context--of the history of promises made and broken over seven generations--that shape current events. Voting in Indian Country uses conflicts over voting rights as a lens for understanding the centuries-long fight for Native self-determination. Weaving together history, politics, and law, Jean Reith Schroedel provides a view of this often-ignored struggle for social justice from the ground up. Differentiating this volume from other voting rights books is its use of ethnographic data, including the case study of a county with a population evenly split between whites and Native Americans, as well as oral histories of the people who have chosen to fight for voting rights. The stories of these lawyers, activists, and plaintiffs illuminate both the complexity and the vividness of their experiences on the front lines and their understanding of a connection to broader Native struggles for self-determination--both to control the lands and resources promised to them in perpetuity through treaties and to freely exercise the political rights and liberties promised to all Americans.
Ballot Blocked: The Political Erosion of the Voting Rights Act by
Voting rights are a perennial topic in American politics. Recent elections and the Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which struck down key enforcement provisions in the Voting Rights Act (VRA), have only placed further emphasis on the debate over voter disenfranchaisement. Over the past five decades, both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have consistently voted to expand the protections offered to vulnerable voters by the Voting Rights Act. And yet, the administration of the VRA has become more fragmented and judicial interpretation of its terms has become much less generous. Why have Republicans consistently adopted administrative and judicial decisions that undermine legislation they repeatedly endorse? Ballot Blocked shows how the divergent trajectories of legislation, administration, and judicial interpretation in voting rights policymaking derive largely from efforts by conservative politicians to narrow the scope of federal enforcement while at the same time preserving their public reputations as supporters of racial equality and minority voting rights. Jesse H. Rhodes argues that conservatives adopt a paradoxical strategy in which they acquiesce to expansive voting rights protections in Congress (where decisions are visible and easily traceable) while simultaneously narrowing the scope of federal enforcement via administrative and judicial maneuvers (which are less visible and harder to trace). Over time, the repeated execution of this strategy has enabled a conservative Supreme Court to exercise preponderant influence over the scope of federal enforcement.
Compromised Compliance: Implementation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act by 
Controversies in Minority Voting: The Voting Rights Act in Perspective by
" Widely regarded as one of the most successful pieces of modern legislation, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has transformed the nature of minority participation and representation in the United States. But with success came controversy as some scholars claim the Act has outlived its usefulness or been subverted in its aim. This volume brings together leading scholars to offer a twenty-five year perspective on the consequences of this landmark act. The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, stated that the right of U.S. citizens to vote ""shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or condition of previous servitude."" The South, however, virtually ignored this right, disfranchising blacks through violence, intimidation, literacy tests, and poll taxes. The primary purpose of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was to break down these barriers to minority voting. Beginning with chapters covering the key provisions of the Act, the book discusses the way the Act has transformed American politics and looks at the role played by major civil rights groups in lobbying for extensions and amendments to it and in insuring that its provisions would be enforced. "
The Law Is Good: The Voting Rights Act, Redistricting, and Black Regime Politics by
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is the most important civil rights law in U.S. history, facilitating unprecedented levels of minority political participation and achieving the promise of equality for all Americans. Despite a controversial series of decisions in the 1990s in which the U.S. Supreme Court cast doubt on the constitutionality of race-conscious electoral districts drawn to satisfy the VRA, such districts remain important determinants of minority electoral success. Today, governing regimes in communities throughout the South are headed by black officials elected from districts drawn with federal oversight and approval. There has been tremendous progress on minority voting rights, but the end of the story has yet to be told. Congress recently reauthorized the VRA to combat ongoing voter discrimination, but Barack Obama's election led some, including the Supreme Court, to question whether the VRA was still essential. The upcoming round of redistricting following the 2010 Census is sure to generate additional discussion about the current role of race in America. "The Law Is Good" addresses three questions of central importance: What is the VRA? How does it work? And do we still need it in the 21st century? While debate over the VRA has focused on race-based redistricting at the federal and state levels, "The Law Is Good" considers how it has transformed local communities. Focusing on how regular people grapple with issues of race, redistricting, and regime politics, this account describes the struggle for minority voting rights and representation in small-town Tallulah, Louisiana. Despite electoral success facilitated by the VRA and race-conscious redistricting, Tallulah's black rural regimes face significant challenges still to overcome, and the VRA remains an important tool to ensure effective political representation. "The Law Is Good" is authored by an insider who served as a Civil Rights Analyst in the U.S. Department of Justice's Voting Section. Drawing on primary-source materials that illustrate how communities like Tallulah interact with the federal government to implement the VRA at the local level, "The Law Is Good" is a highly accessible and engaging account of the relationship between minority voting rights and race politics. It is a must-read that will generate impassioned discussion about the role of race in America--yesterday, today, and tomorrow. "This book's most significant accomplishment is providing a concise narrative of what the VRA is, how it works, and why it is still needed. Light's most sound and accurate argument is that the VRA has been successful in removing barriers to minority enfranchisement although it is not a perfect piece of legislation, but according to former African American mayor Theodore Lindsey of Tallulah, 'the law is good.'" -- Pearl K. Ford Dowe (University of Arkansas), The American Review of Politics, Volume 32, Winter 2011-2012
Native Vote: American Indians, the Voting Rights Act, and the Right to Vote by
The right to vote is the foundation of democratic government; all other policies are derived from it. The history of voting rights in America has been characterized by a gradual expansion of the franchise. American Indians are an important part of that story but have faced a prolonged battle to gain the franchise. One of the most important tools wielded by advocates of minority voting rights has been the Voting Rights Act. This book explains the history and expansion of Indian voting rights, with an emphasis on seventy cases based on the Voting Rights Act and/or the Equal Protection Clause. The authors describe the struggle to obtain Indian citizenship and the basic right to vote, then analyze the cases brought under the Voting Rights Act, including three case studies. The final two chapters assess the political impact of these cases and the role of American Indians in contemporary politics.
A Voting Rights Odyssey: Black Enfranchisement in Georgia by
From slavery to the white backlash of the 1990s, A Voting Rights Odyssey is a riveting account of the crusade for equal voting rights in Georgia. Written by a veteran civil rights lawyer the book draws upon expert reports and other court records, as well as trial testimony and interviews with the men and women who served as plaintiffs and witnesses in litigation that helped forge a revolution in voting rights. The book explores, and repudiates, the myths of the Reconstruction era that blacks were incapable of voting and holding office. It also catalogues the attempts of the state leadership to maintain white supremacy after the abolition of the white primary, the demands of the Civil Rights Movement, and passage of the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965. A must read for anyone interested in the way in which race has driven and distorted the political process in the South.
When the Letter Betrays the Spirit: Voting Rights Enforcement and African American Participation from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama by
When the Letter Betrays the Spirit examines the wide latitude provided to the executive branch and to the Supreme Court by the text of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Drawing from government enforcement data, legislative history, Supreme Court rulings, the 2006 reauthorization debate on the VRA, and from the 2007 scandal involving the firing of U.S. attorneys under the Bush Administration, the book examines when, why, and how executive and judicial discretion facilitates violation of voting rights. Connecting Johnson to Obama, the book outlines why the executive-centered model of voting rights enforcement relegates Congress to the sidelines, and outlines why a Congress-centered approach provides the best protection against the effects of the law enforcement axiom: the law is neither self-executing nor self-interpreting. The book also examines 2008 survey results about public support for a Jim Crow-era election reform policy that would require voters to read a passage of the Constitution. Describing the civic literacy dimensions of voting rights law from Shaw v. Reno (1993) to Northwest Austin Utility v. Holder (2009), the book highlights the complicated nature of the post-racial rhetoric surrounding the 2008 election cycle and surrounding the upcoming post-2010 census redistricting cycles.
 |  |  |  |
© The Regents of the University of California. UCLA School of Law. All Rights Reserved.
