IN THE PROFESSION
Find Good Trouble this November
Reflections on John Lewis and the Voting Rights Act .
MELODY SWILLING , ESQ . Swilling Family Law Firm , LLC melody @ swillingfamilylaw . com
As we celebrate the life and career of John Lewis , the Atlanta Bar takes a moment to focus on his role in one of his key accomplishments : the Voting Rights Act of 1965 . We look prospectively at how attorneys can honor his legacy this election season .
John Lewis played an essential role in the passage of the Voting Rights Act , and he received bipartisan honors for his many accomplishments before and during his tenure as a 17-term Representative . 1
A young John Lewis led six hundred marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge
14 August / September 2020 in Selma , Alabama in 1965 , and it was this singular day ( aka , Bloody Sunday ) on that bridge that catapulted Lewis to the front lines of the fight for the Voting Rights Act . 2 Bloody Sunday and the work by John Lewis and his peers has been noted as a pivotal day to sway public sentiment in support of the Voting Rights Act . 3
The Voting Rights Act included provisions for federal oversight of jurisdictions deemed to have voting practices that suppressed the vote of minorities . Sections 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act required preclearance for voting changes if a jurisdiction fell under the coverage formula . Georgia was a covered jurisdiction beginning with the November 1964 presidential election , and therefore was required to seek preclearance by the Department of Justice before implementing voting changes . The formula set forth in Section 4 which affected Georgia from 1965 to 2013 was a two prong approach : 1 ) did the jurisdiction maintain a “ test or device ” restricting the opportunity to register and vote ; and 2 ) did the Director of the Census determine that less than 50 percent of persons of voting age were registered to vote as of November 1 , 1964 or that less than 50 percent of persons of voting age voted in the November 1964 presidential election . 4