However, Tennessee’s latest notoriety in the news is for something else – a bill which many are characterizing as a particularly sinister legislative effort at voter suppression. Tre Hargett, the Secretary of State of Tennessee claims that the state’s House Bill 1079 / Senate Bill 971 is a necessary measure by which to reform Tennessee’s voter registration process, and that it would improve the participation of the state’s eligible voters in elections.
Other people, however, beg to differ with this assertion. Among them, is US Representative Jim Cooper (D-TN-05), who tweeted on April 10 that the bill, if enacted “would have a chilling effect on voter registration in Tennessee.” Regarding Hargett’s claim that the bill would improve the registration process by requiring many of the people who help in the voter registration drives to undergo certified training, Cooper explains in another tweet: “More training is good, but what if the training is only offered in certain areas of the state and only on limited days?”
More training is good, but what if the training is only offered in certain areas of the state and only on limited days?
— Jim Cooper (@repjimcooper) March 28, 2019
Cooper is far from being alone in his objection to this bill. The Equality Alliance, which had a major role in mobilizing black voters in Tennessee for the 2018 midterm elections, has a whole page condemning the bill. Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, wrote in an opinion piece in the New York Times to the same effect in which he explains that in any voter registration drive “Things like typos and missing entries are inevitable. That’s why there are already checks and balances; the election commission verifies voter information against state databases.” He and others are concerned that the bill’s draconian penalties for such unavoidable glitches would deter people from organizing and helping in voter registration drives. As Representative Cooper said in his fore-mentioned April 10 tweet: “Would you want to help people register to vote if you could face nearly a year in prison or a $10,000 fine?”
HB1079/SB0971 in the state legislature would have a chilling effect on voter registration in Tennessee. Would you want to help people register to vote if you could face nearly a year in prison or a $10,000 fine? The idea of punishing this virtuous behavior is absurd.
— Jim Cooper (@repjimcooper) April 10, 2019
But voter suppression is far from being unique to Tennessee. The United States, unfortunately, has a long history of voter suppression that began at the earliest days of the Republic and peaked during the Jim Crow era. It wasn’t until about the time of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that the national zeitgeist began to regard voter suppression as an un-American behavior.
Unfortunately, the 1993 Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder gutted a key provision from the act that required suspect jurisdictions to obtain Federal approval as a prerequisite to changing any of their voting laws. With the Voting Rights Act now weakened, states have been increasingly bold in their efforts to make it difficult for minorities to exercise their right to vote.
Unfortunately, the United States Constitution, in its current form, gives states an undue incentive to suppress votes. Not only is representation in the United States fixed at two a piece, but representation in Congress is proportional to the total number of people living in the state, not in proportion to how many people in the state actually cast votes. Though there is a provision in the 14th Amendment aiming to reduce the Congressional representation of states in the event of undue disenfranchisement, that provision may be difficult to invoke when the state uses subtle and round-about means of voter suppression rather than direct, formal disenfranchisement – not to mention that that provision may not be up-to-date (as whether or not its interpretation takes into accounts the changes in voter eligibility specified 19th and 26th Amendments may depend on who is doing the interpreting). This means that if a state is able to disenfranchise a group of voters in a manner that evades penalization under Section 2 of the 14th Amendment, then the remaining voters in that state will not only have more voice in the Senate per voter, but also in the House of Representatives.
But what if a new amendment were added to the Constitution that completely dissociates Congressional representation from the number of people who live in a state, tying it instead to the number of people who vote in that state? No, I’m not merely talking about the number of people who are theoretically eligible to vote in the state – but rather, about the number of people who actually exercise that right regularly.
Of course, this would not magically solve the problem of voter suppression. Robust Federal laws would still be needed to assure that all Americans of age are represented in government. But at least one obvious incentive to commit such an atrocity might be lessened, in some cases possibly even reversed.
