Issued June 25, 2014
WASHINGTON, DC - On the first anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Shelby County v. Holder, which severely undermined the Voting Rights Act, Mary Kay Henry, President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), issued the following statement:
Today marks one year since the Supreme Court put the sacred right to vote in peril for millions of Americans. The Shelby decision significantly weakened the Voting Rights Act, a landmark civil rights law that has been reauthorized by Congress on multiple occasions.
"Despite the Court's opinion, voter discrimination based on race is not a thing of the past--it is a current reality that persists to this day. We saw efforts to disenfranchise African American and Latino voters in the 2012 election cycle in Texas, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia and elsewhere - but voters there were protected by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. In the wake of the Shelby decision, many of these jurisdictions rushed to implement new laws in time for the 2014 election cycle - the same unfair and discriminatory voting practices that had been rejected by the Department of Justice and the Federal Courts under the Voting Rights Act. That is why Members of Congress must come together and develop a fix to the Voting Rights Act - as the Court's majority opinion recommended - that protects all Americans' right to vote, regardless of who they are and where they live. We are hopeful that Congress can work together to restore the protections against racial discrimination that the Voting Rights Act is meant to provide for all Americans."