Bush flip-flops on Voting Rights Act

No, it's not what you think.

President Bush is scheduled today to sign the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, the Washington Times actually manages to cast the event in a negative light in a story slugged, "Bush to sign voting act that he once opposed".

The paper reports that when Bush was governor of Texas, he shared the views of the handful of Southern house members who tried a few weeks ago to amend or remove a provision of the Act that singles out several states for continued monitoring with regard to minority voting rights.

Less than a decade ago, Mr. Bush fought that exact part of the Voting Rights Act, with his appointed secretary of state, Antonio O. Garza Jr., calling the provisions a burdensome and unnecessary federal intrusion into Texas' affairs.

"The Bush administration has really done a flip-flop on this," said Edward Blum, a senior fellow at the Center for Equal Opportunity who has studied Texas voting and the Voting Rights Act. "This is not where he was, and this is not the kind of philosophy that then-Governor Bush had when it comes to getting Texas out from under the thumb of the federal government."

He said Mr. Bush has abandoned "the great color-blind ideals that conservatives believe in."

The key provision is Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, designed to target six Southern states that had a history of discrimination against black voters. In the early 1970s, Section 5 was broadened to cover nine states -- Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia -- and parts of seven others -- California, Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina and South Dakota.

Those states and localities are deemed so discriminatory that they must get Justice Department approval every time they change voting laws or procedures -- right down to moving a polling location.

With Mr. Bush's signature, that requirement will last through 2032

There is no question that Bush has done the right thing by advocating the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, this story raises the question as to whether he is supporting the Act as it is because he truly believes in it, or because he wants to avoid a racial controversy just months away from the November elections.