The Voting Rights Act Should Be Renewed
By Alan Nakanishi 

One of my earliest memories is of playing as a child in one of the

camps where Americans of Japanese ancestry were imprisoned during World War II. The tarpaper-roofed barracks at Tule Lake, near the Oregon border, had no indoor plumbing or cooking facilities. It was known as one of the toughest of the 10 internment camps that housed Japanese Americans in seven states until the war ended. Of the 120,000 of us imprisoned nationwide, two-thirds were U.S. citizens. That didn’t matter. We lost all our rights.

      My brother and I played and went to school like other kids, but behind barbed-wire fences. When we were released at the end of the war nearly four years later, we didn’t look back. Without talking about it much, our parents resumed their rights as U.S. citizens, including the right to vote. I grew up focusing on what the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called “the content of our character,” becoming a doctor and serving in the Army.

      Several key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are up for renewal in 2007, and they are already under attack. Critics say these provisions are no longer needed, or that the act should be “modernized” by ending federal oversight of states’ voting rules. The birthday of King is a good time to reaffirm the need for Congress to renew and strengthen the Voting Rights Act.

      The provisions that are up for renewal include a requirement that certain jurisdictions, including Kings, Merced, Monterey and Yuba counties in California, get federal approval before changing their election laws and procedures. Another provision requires jurisdictions to accommodate voters who need language assistance. A third gives the U.S. attorney general power to send federal election examiners to prevent intimidation of minority voters at the polls.

      The Voting Rights Act guaranteed all U.S. citizens our full rights to help decide who will represent us in government. It is not an Asian issue or a “minority” issue - it is a protection for all citizens. It grew out of King's push for African Americans” civil rights and put teeth into the 15th Amendment, which established the bedrock democratic principle of nondiscrimination in voting. The Voting Rights Act outlawed poll taxes, literacy tests, whites-only primaries, discriminatory registration, gerrymandered districts and other devices that limit minorities’ access to the polls.

      Many Americans mistakenly think those abuses have gone the way of the Japanese internment camps. We have made much progress in the 40 years of the Voting Rights Act, but the provisions up for renewal are still needed to prevent discrimination and to ensure that all voters have a voice. For example, the language-assistance provision allows all citizens to cast informed ballots even when faced with complicated election materials and ever-changing voting machines. Everyone in California is familiar with our complex ballots and voting materials. The November 2005 official voter information guide was 77 pages long.

      I ran for the California state Assembly as a doctor, not as a Japanese American, and on health care issues, not civil rights. Health is still my main interest, and my conservative district is just 11 percent Asian American. However, I am concerned about civil rights, as all Americans should be. As a Republican I was proud to join the bipartisan 75-0 vote last May in which the California Assembly asked President Bush and Congress to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act.

      I know from personal experience that citizens’ rights need the protection of such laws. King gave his life in defense of voting rights, and in California, where 55 percent of us are minorities, this law carries on his work.

      Let us honor his memory by renewing the Voting Rights Act next year. 

Alan Nakanishi, R-Lodi, is a member of the California Assembly.

He worked with the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in writing this piece, which originally appeared in the Sacramento Bee. This article is reprinted with permission.