The US Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to extend the landmark Voting Rights Act for another 25 years, as lawmakers of both parties said federal supervision was still required to protect the ability of minorities and the disadvantaged to cast ballots in some regions of the country.
"Despite the progress these states have made in upholding the right to vote, it is clear the problems still exist," said Senator Barack Obama, a Democrat.
Approval of the measure, on a vote of 98-0, came on the day US President George W. Bush made his first presidential visit to a convention of the NAACP, where he promised to sign the bill.
PHOTO: AP
The House passed the measure last week after a flurry of rebellion from several Southern lawmakers.
Republicans had made renewal of the law a cornerstone of party efforts to reach out to minority groups, particularly blacks, and leaders of both parties promised its passage in a rare joint event on the steps of the Capitol earlier this year.
But progress was slowed by objections from some Republicans in the House that the law unfairly singled out southern states for special federal oversight when they have eradicated the rampant discrimination that spurred enactment of the law in 1965.
Some Senate Republicans expressed similar sentiments Thursday but none opposed the measure.
"Other states with much less impressive minority progress and less impressive minority participation are not covered, while Georgia still is," Senator Saxby Chambliss said. "This seems both unfair as well as unwise."
Former president Lyndon Johnson signed the bill into law after violent attacks on civil rights marchers. It instituted a nationwide prohibition against voting discrimination based on race and banned poll taxes and literacy tests.
In regions where discrimination had been especially pronounced, the Justice Department was given the authority to review changes to election procedures, like redistricting, to judge if they would be discriminatory.
The current legislation retained the so-called pre-clearance requirement for nine states, most of them in the South, and for parts of seven others, including Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx in New York.
Another provision opposed by some Republicans requires the printing of bilingual ballots in jurisdictions that meet a threshold for the percentage of citizens who have difficulty with English.
Most Republicans joined united Democrats in pushing ahead, saying that while the Voting Rights Act had produced historical results, it was still warranted.
"South Carolinians, you have come a long way," said Senator Lindsey Graham.
Civil rights leaders praised the Senate action and called on Bush to send a strong signal to the Justice Department that the measure must be strongly enforced.
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