Julie Fernandes, a senior policy analyst and special counsel for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, spoke Tuesday afternoon about the Voting Rights Act and its relevance in the present political climate.
During her speech, which was held in the Sanford Institute of Public Policy and attended by a large crowd of students, Fernandes recounted her experience pushing the current VRA through both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.
"The Voting Rights Act is like apple pie," she said. "It is something nobody can be against. Everybody has to be for it. But what is it?"
In order to determine the answer to this question, Fernandes said, she and her group had many detailed conversations about what the renewed bill should entail.
While working to get the act renewed, Fernandes said the group decided that if Congress attempted to amend the bill, then the group would pull it. She added, moreover, that the discussion at the time centered around issues such as whether voting ballots should be bilingual.
"We were having all these catfights behind the scenes, but on the outside we were saying 'we're inevitable,'" Fernandes said.
She added that the VRA has three important components that are particularly relevant today: the first prohibits voting discrimination, the second requires certain jurisdictions to get federal pre-approval before making changes to voting processes and the third necessitates that jurisdictions with large concentrations of non-English proficient citizens have translated materials on the voting ballot.
Although the first component is permanent, the last two sections are temporary and have to be renewed, Fernandes noted.
She said the decision to make these two parts renewable was a political compromise to appease states that did not approve of the initial VRA.
"Imagine the powerful constituents against [the second component] at the time of the initial bill," Fernandes said.
But in 2006, Republican congressmen asked for more time to consider the bill's renewal. Fernandes said these politicians claimed they were concerned about the bill's constitutionality.
And because of the development, Fernandes said she was worried the bill would not pass without amendment.
In order to increase public support for the bill, Fernandes said advocates searched for new angles in the campaign. For several months, for example, her group shadowed academics in order to facilitate debate about the VRA.
Fernandes said they also applied indirect pressure by encouraging influential people to write pro-VRA articles for the local newspapers of congressmen who were opposed to the bill. "The House is a wild place. It's like the Wild West," she said. "But we found champions in places we never thought we would find them and the bill passed 98 to nothing."
Sophomore Brain Fitzpatrick, who attended the lecture and is a student in the New Perspectives on Civil Rights that helped to sponsor the talk, said he thought the speech was fascinating.
"It gave practical insight to the things we learn about [in class]," Fitzpatrick said.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.