Congresswoman votes to renew landmark law after amendments fail
JARED MILLER Star-Tribune capital bureau | Posted: Friday, July 14, 2006 12:00 am
CHEYENNE - U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin joined a group of mostly conservative Southern lawmakers this week in pushing for changes to the federal Voting Rights Act.
Created mainly to elevate the voting status of Southern blacks and the poor, the landmark 1965 law was up for a 25-year reauthorization. It eventually passed on a 390-33 vote.
A letter signed by Cubin, R-Wyo., and 48 other lawmakers predicated "future cracks in our party's cohesiveness" if Republican leadership prevented debate on the law. House leaders originally intended to suspend rules that require debate and go straight to a vote.
While Cubin, who is running for a seventh term in office, supported the final vote to renew the act, she took issue with two provisions, spokeswoman Alison McGuire said.
One section requires states with a high percentage of non-English-speaking voters to provide bilingual ballots at the voting booth. Wyoming is exempt from the provision, but that could change, McGuire said.
"Twenty-five years down the road, that could be Wyoming," she said, adding that Cubin considers the provision an "unfunded mandate on states."
Cubin also took issue with a provision called "preclearance," which requires a number of mostly Southern states to get approval from the Department of Justice before changing voting standards, practices or procedures.
Wyoming also is exempt from that section of the law, but McGuire said Cubin disagrees with the provision on principle, adding that it's a states' rights issue.
"Some localities and states spend millions of dollars on court fees and things like that just to ask the federal government" if they can change a rule, McGuire said.
Cubin's likely Democratic opponent in the November election, Wilson businessman Gary Trauner, said he's pleased the House voted to renew the Voting Rights Act without amendments.
"I think the Voting Rights Act was put in place to ensure that all American citizens can exercise their constitutional right to vote, which is perhaps the most important right we have in our country, at least at the ballot box. And we should be making that as easy as possible," said Trauner, who was campaigning door-to-door in Sheridan Thursday.
In Fremont County, the tribes of the Wind River Indian Reservation are using the Voting Rights Act to sue the county over a voter districting practice they say dilutes the American Indian vote.
It's doubtful that amendments offered Thursday would have affected that case. McGuire said the congresswoman has not been in touch with leaders from that central Wyoming county on the matter.
Reach capital bureau reporter Jared Miller at (307) 632-1244 or at jared.miller@casperstartribune.net.