Political Science 102D

2023-03-22

Final exam

Vote recommendation

I am recommending that the senator vote "no" on the John Lewis Voting Rights

Advancement Act, a conscientious choice that does not entail a significant political disadvantage

compared to the alternative.

In 2013's Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court invalidated section 4(b) of the

Voting Rights Act, the formula to trigger the "preclearance" requirement contained in section 5,

which requires that all states covered by the formula seek approval from the federal government

before making changes to their voting laws. Reasoning that section 4(b) was, despite several

reauthorizations, only considering data up until November 1, 1964, the Court ruled that it was no

longer in line with modern standards and could not be used to justify the stringent section 5

requirements. I personally believe that the Court should have deferred to Congress entirely, and

retained section 4(b); be that as it may, the Court has said that Congress could reinstitute section

4(b) by updating its formula, which it aims to do in this bill:

A state and all of its political subdivisions shall be subject to

preclearance of voting practice changes for a 10-year period if 15

or more voting rights violations occurred in the state during the

previous 25 years; 10 or more violations occurred during the

previous 25 years, at least 1 of which was committed by the state

 itself; or 3 or more violations occurred during the previous 25

years and the state administers the elections.

The act is also designed to combat restrictions imposed by the Court in Brnovich v. Democratic

National Committee; it requires preclearance for changes to facets of election law such as voter

identification laws and redistricting, sometimes contingent on how diverse the state is.1

Politically, Senator Collins can expect significant backlash for marching in lockstep with

the Republican party, but a deviation from the party on such a crucial vote would return an

equally poor result from her own side. If she were to vote for the bill, Senator Collins would risk

alienating the Republican party apparatus in Maine, former President Trump, and her core voter

base. Voting against the bill, however, would incur the wrath of national activist groups that can

donate money to oppose her candidacy, as well as Maine independent voters, with whom this

issue polls well in favor. The effect of either backlash would be muted by time; Collins is not up

for re-election for another year and half. I cannot, at this time, say with certainty that either

option is strictly better – too much depends on what happens in the interceding months.

Senator Collins opposed the For the People Act, a 2021 bill that sought to implement a

number of sweeping changes to election policy and voter registration in the country. In a speech

on the Senate floor, she argued that the country had made significant strides in advancing voting

rights, and did not need to pass a bill with significant perceived flaws, such as requiring states to

allow "ballot harvesting".2 In the absence of a clear political motive, the senator has no reason

not to vote her conscience. The senator has opposed similar bills in the past; she should not

waver in the face of the oncoming political storm.

1
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4
2

https://www.collins.senate.gov/newsroom/senator-collins-expresses-opposition-s1-partisan-bill-would-overturn-elect
ion-laws-every
538 words

Op-ed: Democrats say the future of voting rights hangs in

the balance. It's not true.

Bangor Daily News

Susan R. Collins

Saturday, 04/01/2023

Senator Collins is the current U.S. Senator from Maine.

When the Voting Rights Act was passed in the 1960s, it was designed to address a clear

and specific problem: the voting rights of millions of American citizens, disproportionately

Americans of color, were in dire straits. In 1960, no county in Alabama registered more than

23% of its black voters – in some counties, no black people were registered to vote at all, despite

thousands of eligible black voters living there.3 Alabama's regime of racist voter suppression,

designed to keep people of color from exercising the right to vote they were constitutionally

guaranteed nearly a hundred years prior, had prevented a more equitable balance from

developing.

Following the lead of courageous activists and community leaders who drew attention to

the issue, Congress acted decisively and forcefully to combat the clear disparity. Asserting its

right to enforce the 15th Amendment, Congress forced jurisdictions who discriminated under the

guise of "states' rights" to seek approval from the federal government before making changes to

3
https://www.teachingforchange.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/1960registeredvoters.pdf
their election law. Thanks to Congress's action, we have made much progress. In 2020, 69% of

eligible black adults were registered to vote. In 2012, to round out the resounding re-election of a

black president, black turnout surpassed white turnout for the first time in American history.

But this part of the Voting Rights Act was not meant to be in place forever; at the time of

ratification, it was set to expire in 1970. Through repeated reauthorizations, the measure was

enforced until 2013, when the Supreme Court ruled that Congress had overstepped its authority

in extending a dire measure without proving that it was still addressing a current problem. If the

Court had not acted, states would still be subject to the same preclearance requirements until

2031.

Democrats in Congress, however, expect us to think that all will be well if Congress

overrides the court, reinstituting its previous measure with some tweaks to modernize language –

making it seem as though Democrats are not beating a dead horse in a race the country has

already won. To justify their claims, Democrats point to measures carefully designed to protect

ballot integrity as examples of modern-day voter suppression, but nothing could be further from

the truth. Of the ten states with the highest voter turnout in the 2020 election – Minnesota,

Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Maine, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Michigan, Iowa, and

Montana4 – half require that voters show some form of identification at the polls.5

Should a ballot measure that seems to defy depressing ballot turnout be subject to federal

approval? What business does the federal government have interfering with how states decide to

secure their elections? The citizens of Maine may, one day, decide that they also wish to make

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1h_2pR1pq8s_I5buZ5agXS9q1vLziECztN2uWeR6Czo0/edit#gid=2030096
602 – sources in the spreadsheet
5
https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state
their elections more secure – to accuse a state that consistently boasts some of the highest voter

turnouts in the nation of voter suppression would be absurd.

Democrats are seeking to reclaim the carefully designed scalpels of the past and

transform them into hatchets, with which they wish to butcher the ability of each state to

experiment and set an example for the rest of the nation in how democracy is best exercised. I

cannot support that. I was elected to represent the people of the great state of Maine, and I will

always protect them from federal overreach.

545 words