I'm Just a Bill
Storyboard Text
- Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Background)
- VOTING RIGHTS FOR ALL
- Let our parents vote!
- The Beginning of the Bill!
- Time to send my proposal for the Voting Rights Bill to Congress.
- BILL
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- The President has a new bill for us to look over. Let's see if it's any good.
- Time to Vote! - The Senate Edition
- In the Senate, this bill was jointly sponsored by Majority leader, Mike Mansfield (D-MT), and Minority leader, Everett Dirksen (R-IL)
- This bill would make African Americans have more political representation. I don't want this passed.
- During this time period, African Americans faced tremendous obstacles to voting, including poll taxes, literacy tests, and other civic restrictions to deny them the right to vote. They also chanced harassment, intimidation, economic retaliation, and physical violence when they tried to register or vote. In result, very few African Americans registered to vote and had very little political power, locally and nationally. In 1964, numerous demonstrations were held, and the substantial violence that ensued brought renewed attention to the issue of voting rights. The murder of voting rights activists in MS and attack by state troopers on peaceful marchers in AL gained national attention, persuading President Johnson and Congress to institute effective national rights legislation.
- Time to Vote! - The House Edition
- This substitute is far more agreeable.
- Following Bloody Sunday, President Lyndon Johnson forwarded a voting rights bill to Congress during March 1965. The bill provided for direct federal mediation to enable African Americans to register and vote and banned tactics designed to keep them from the polls First, in order for a bill to get recognized it needs to be sponsored by representatives. The Voting Rights bill had 66 sponsors in the Senate.
- The Senate and House Team Up!
- The bill went to the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose chairman, MS Senator James Eastland was notorious for resisting civil rights legislation. To avoid his power to delay action, the Senate instructed the committee to report the bill out no later than April 9. During the committee's review of the bill, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) led an effort to amend the bill to prohibit poll taxes. with the support of liberal committee members, Kennedy's amendment to prohibit poll taxes passed by a 9–4 vote. In response, Dirksen offered an amendment that exempted from the coverage formula any state that had at least 60 percent of its eligible residents registered to vote or that had a voter turnout that surpassed the national average in the preceding presidential election. This amendment, which effectively exempted all states from coverage except Mississippi, passed during a committee meeting in which three liberal members were absent. Dirksen offered to discard the amendment if the poll tax ban were removed.Ultimately, the bill was reported out of committee on April 9. On April 22, the full Senate started debating the bill. The bill emerged from the Judiciary Committee and faced a filibuster on the Senate floor. Senator Strom Thurmond (D-SC) claimed the bill would lead to tyranny, and Senator Sam Ervin (D-NC) argued that the bill was unconstitutional because it deprived states of their right to establish voter qualifications and because the bill's special provisions targeted only certain jurisdictions. After some debate about coverage formula and poll taxes, the Senate agreed to include a provision authorizing the attorney general to sue any jurisdiction, covered or non-covered, to challenge its use of poll taxes. An amendment offered by Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) to naturalize English-illiterate citizens who had had at least a sixth-grade education in a non-English-speaking school also passed by 48–19. Southern legislators offered a series of amendments to weaken the bill, all of which failed. On May 25, the Senate assembled the needed two-thirds vote and attained cloture by 70 to 30. The next day, the bill passed 77 to19.
- It's in the President's Hands Now!
- Emmanuel Celler, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced the Voting Rights Act in the House. The House's ranking Republican, William McCulloch, generally supported extending voting rights, however, opposed the poll tax ban.
- After being passed in the Senate, it went to the House of Representatives. The House committee eventually approved the bill and it included two amendments from a subcommittee. One of the changes, prohibition of poll tax, gained Speaker of the House, John McCormack's support. It was then sent to the Rules Committee, whose chair, Howard Smith (D-VA) opposed the bill and delayed it's deliberation until late June, when Celler proceeded to have the bill discharged. Due to pressure from the bill's supporters, Smith permitted the bill to be released. To defeat the Voting Rights Bill, McCulloch introduced an alternative, allowing the Attorney General to appoint federal registrars and imposed a nationwide ban on literacy tests. McCulloch's bill was sponsored by House minority leader, Gerald Ford (R-MI) and supported by southern Democrats. The Johnson Administration viewed this as a serious threat. However, this dissolved when William Tuck (D-VA) agreed that he preferred the alternate bill because the Voting Rights Act would ensure African Americans the right to vote. This statement separated most supporters of the substitute and the bill failed on the house floor by a 171-248 vote on July 9. Later on that evening, the House passed the Voting Rights Act by a 333-85 vote.
- A conference committee, made of the House and Senate, planned to work out any differences between the varying versions of the bill. The committee fairly balanced the House and Senate renderings, which both bodies adopted. The combination of public revulsion to the violence and President Johnson's political skills encouraged Congress to collectively pass the Voting Right Bill on August 5, 1965.
- I'm very pleased that we were able to come to a reasonable compromise over this bill.
- After being printed, the bill has 10 days to get signed by the President. Lucky for the Voting Rights Bill of 1965, President Johnson signed the bill just the day after Congress passed it just off the Senate chamber. The bill flowed from a "clear and simple wrong," Johnson asserted, and its intention was "to right that wrong." It was a long journey, but an important one! The law had an immediate impact. By the end of 1965, 250,000 new African American voters had been registered. The Voting Rights Act enforced the 15th amendment and expanded the political power of African Americans for years to come.
- Approved!
- Approved!
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- The Voting Rights bill has been passed by my final signature. This will be a great help to the Civil Rights Movement.
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