The preclearance provision (section 5) of the Voting Rights Act, along with some other provisions of the Act, come up for renewal in 2007, and it was originally expected that Congressional debate over renewal would come in 2006 or early 2007.
Things now appear to be moving much faster. Back in February, it appeared that President Bush did not even know that the reauthorization issue was coming, and his spokesperson was non-committal about reauthorization. Now, the President not only expressed support for reauthorization; he wants to look for ways to strengthen the act. Perhaps even more importantly, according to this press release, “House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-Wis.) today is announcing he will introduce legislation to extend the Voting Rights Act for 25 years and is calling for a bipartisan approach to civil rights issues. ” In his prepared remarks, Sensenbrenner said: “The Voting Rights Act must continue to exist