Talk Show

New life for voting rights

He had vowed to keep talking "until the cows come home," and for five days Jesse Helms, along with a small cadre of other conservatives, did just that. The goal of the Republican Senator from North Carolina: to stall a vote on extending the 1965 Voting Rights Act. But with 78 Senators sponsoring the measure, the filibuster was doomed to fail. So late last week Helms relented, and the Senate overwhelmingly passed the legislation, 85 to 8. The bill will soon be sent to the White House, where Ronald Reagan has promised to sign it.

The landmark law, which was renewed in 1970 and 1975, wiped out literacy tests, banned any other barriers to the registration of black voters and required six Southern states to get approval from the Justice Department for any proposed voting law changes. Key provisions of the act, however, were scheduled to expire this August unless extended by Congress. The House voted to do so last October, but conservative Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee balked at accepting the House bill, which called for judging, on the basis of "effect" rather than "intent," whether local voting laws kept blacks and other minorities from holding office. Supporters argued that intent was nearly impossible to prove, and that the true test should be whether the effect of the laws is to exclude minorities from office. To the conservative Senators, however, the effect provision meant that courts might order "proportional representation" based on race: if 60% of an election district was black, say, then 60% of its representatives might also have to be black.

Republican Robert Dole of Kansas helped fashion a compromise that preserved the effect test but warded off fears of racial quotas. Under Dole's standard, judges must weigh the "totality of circumstances," including whether an area has a history of discrimination. He also suggested that the law specifically state that minorities are not entitled to proportional representation. The changes satisfied the Judiciary Committee, which approved the bill last May. But Helms remained opposed and warned that the courts would still demand quotas. Said Helms: "Not ten Senators, if that many, have read the [Judiciary] committee's report."

But Helms can count votes, and in the end the growing impatience of fellow Republicans finally persuaded him to cancel his talk show. Helms, however, can look forward to heated debates on two of his pet bills scheduled to come before the Senate this summer: a proposed law to allow voluntary prayer in public schools and a bill banning abortion. The cows may come home yet.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.