PRESIDENT ' S MESSAGE
How Much Democracy Do We Want ?
A . CRAIG CLELAND Ogletree , Deakins , Nash , Smoak & Stewart , PC Craig . Cleland @ ogletreedeakins . com
Rowdy debates about who should vote and how are at the heart of our history . Allowing anyone other than white-male property owners the right to vote horrified John Adams : “ There will be no end of it …. Women will demand a vote . Lads from 12 to 21 will think their rights not enough attended to , and every man , who has not a farthing , will demand an equal force with any other in all acts of state .” In the Federalist Papers , James Madison went the other way . “ Who are to be the electors of the federal representatives ? Not the rich , more than the poor ; not the learned , more than the ignorant ; not the haughty heirs of distinguished names , more than the humble sons of obscurity and unpropitious fortune . The electors are to be the great body of the people of the United States .” So we have been fighting about voting a long time and right out of the gate .
By the 1820s , working class white men had won the vote . Thanks to the State of Tennessee , some 100 years later , white women won the vote , too . But our country ’ s history on race and voting is long and dishonorable . In 1868 , the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited States from denying any person the equal protection of the laws . Two years later , the Fifteenth Amendment prohibited denying or abridging the right to vote because of race , color , or prior servitude . But after Reconstruction and during Jim Crow , Southern states adopted poll taxes and literacy tests to prevent Blacks from voting , not to mention lynching , violence , and harassment . By the Civil Rights Movement , only about thirty percent of Blacks in Georgia were registered to vote .
Even so , in 1965 , six months after Bloody Sunday , the Voting Rights Act prohibited voting practices and procedures that discriminate on the basis of race . And in 1982 , Congress amended the Act to say that a discriminatory impact can show a violation . Fast forward to the Supreme Court ’ s 2013 decision in Shelby County v . Holder . There , the Court invalidated the coverage formula under the Voting Rights Act , which determines the jurisdictions that must pass federal scrutiny under the Act ’ s preclearance system . Practically , this means that the Act ’ s preclearance provisions are inoperable until Congress enacts a new formula .
In late February , the Supreme Court heard oral argument in two Voting Rights Act cases — Brnovich v . Democratic National Committee and Arizona Republican Party v . Democratic National Committee — each of which challenges two provisions of recent Arizona voting laws . Under one , votes cast by an individual outside her precinct may not be counted . Under the other , it is a felony to collect and deliver another person ’ s completed ballot unless you are a family member , caregiver , mail carrier , or election official .
These cases highlight some of the fault lines in our divided times . For some , laws like Arizona ’ s address the major problem of voter fraud and ensure election integrity . For others , the major problem is voter suppression , especially of Black and minority voters , which is the effect if not intent of Arizona ’ s laws and those like them . Plainly , what the Supreme Court decides will have far reaching effects on who votes and how for years to come .
Closer to home , the Georgia General Assembly is considering
4 February / March 2021