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http://www.epluribusmedia.org/features/
2006/20060712_votingrights_p1.html
Who Really Stalled the Voting Rights Act Renewal
Duke Falconer, with Intranets
12 July 2006
In June, using the bilingual provisions of the Voting Rights Act as a
proxy for the current immigration debate, 79 Representatives
prevented the House from reauthorizing the bill. But they were not
working alone. They had powerful allies in the anti-immigration
lobby, allies with some rather disturbing skeletons in the closet.
Lady Liberty at DuskThe Voting Rights Act (VRA) never was intended to
have anything to do with immigration. Passed in 1965 after years of
struggle, the bill was intended to make sure that African-Americans
in the South could register and vote without fear of intimidation.
Like many pieces of legislation, the VRA is a living document, and
has been modified over the years to reflect societal change. By 1975,
with the increasing numbers of new minorities entering the U.S. from
Asia and Latin America who were disenfranchised from voting because
of their inability to understand English language ballots, the bill
was modified to provide bilingual voting materials. Periodically,
portions of the bill have come up for renewal. In what perhaps is a
sign of the times, partisan interests used this opportunity to stall
that process.
It should have been just another procedural vote allowing for one of
those rare bipartisan moments when legislators gather on the Capitol
steps to celebrate a piece of historic legislation. To the
humiliation of party leaders, this time around it didn’t quite turn
out that way. On Wednesday morning, June 21st, in an increasingly
common display of Republican disunity, 79 Representatives presented
Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) with a letter stating
that they would not support the renewal of the Voting Rights Act of
1965. Voicing opposition to the provisions for bilingual ballots
contained in the forty–one year old landmark civil rights
legislation, the rebellious Republican Representatives refused to
lend their votes until the requirements were removed. In spite of the
fact that the House Judiciary Committee approved the measure last May
by 33–1 vote, Representatives from nine mostly Southern states
joined them on the grounds that they believed many of the other
protections afforded in the bill no longer were called for. Only
hours before floor debate was scheduled to begin, Sensenbrenner,
wishing not to end up in a protracted and embarrassing floor fight,
removed the bill from consideration.
Certainly this action raises many questions, not the least of which
being: Why in an election year would anyone in their right mind want
to block something named the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks and Coretta
Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of
2006? What gain could be had threatening a piece of landmark civil
rights legislation that was the culmination of years of struggle?
Obviously these Republican renegades weighed their options and
figured they could make more political hay in their home districts
touting a tough anti-immigrant/English-only line than they could with
a photo on page 25 of the local paper of them shaking hands with
civil rights leaders. Facing waning public approval for many of the
majority party’s policies, particularly in Iraq, House Republicans
have been increasingly worried about their prospects in November. In
response, many have latched on to the “get tough” approach toward
immigration reform put forth by Tom Tancredo’s (R-CO) Congressional
Immigration Reform Caucus, hoping to parlay the issue into this
year’s divisive cultural cause, a replacement for 2004 elections
“gay marriage” debate. At the very least, they probably figured
they always could claim that the bill is not in “real” jeopardy
since the current provisions won’t expire until 2007.
Authored by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and sponsored with Peter King (R-
NY), the letter first appeared on February 3, 2006 and was signed by
56 members of Congress (55 R, 1 D). Stating that, “…we believe
these ballot provisions encourage the linguistic division of our
nation and contradict the ’Melting Pot‘ ideal that has made us the
most successful multi-ethnic nation on earth,” the letter basically
lays out some major points of contention with Sec. 203 & 4(f)(4) of
the VRA:
Major Points of the King Letter
Proficiency in English is a requirement for citizenship: "It
contradicts the requirement that immigrants need to demonstrate the
ability to read and understand English in order to become naturalized
citizens."
The existence of multilingual ballots also increases the risk of
election errors and fraud: "To cite one example, in 2000 six voting
sites in Flushing, New York printed ballots in Chinese with the names
of the political parties reversed. Several thousand voters cast their
votes using these erroneous ballots"
The requirement for multilingual ballots is a costly unfunded
mandate: "In the 2004 election, officials in Los Angeles County,
California were required to provide more than 2,200 interpreters and
spent more than $2.1 million to provide translations and ballots in
seven different languages"
They are a waste of taxpayer funds and are rarely used: "two GAO
reports found evidence that in many cases these materials are hardly
used. For example, in 1996 Yuba County, California was required to
spend $30,000 for election materials in Spanish. But according to its
registrar of voters there had only been one request for Spanish
language materials there in 16 years"
Federal law already protects the right of all citizens to bring an
interpreter into the voting booth: "All citizens have the right to
cast an informed ballot, and this is the right approach for dealing
with the voters who have difficulty understanding election materials
in English"
The letter floated around Congress for the next few months and picked
up an additional 23 signatures before it was presented to Chairman
Sensenbrenner on June 21st.
Who’s Really Behind the King Letter
It now appears some questions have come to light about exactly who is
behind both the King letter and the effort to shelve the renewal of
the VRA. The official copy of the letter that appears on the Web site
of the U.S. House of Representatives (www.house.gov) apparently was
not generated by a House member or their staff, but rather by one of
the leading anti-immigration/English only advocacy groups.
The copy of the letter (now available only in HTML cache) that
originally appeared on the House of Representatives web site; http://
www.house.gov/pence/rsc/doc/121205_King_Bilingual_Ballot.doc, appears
to have been authored by someone named KC McAlpin using a software
registered to the anti-immigration advocacy group Numbers USA.
This fact raises questions as to the identity of KC McAlpin, this
person’s affiliation with Numbers USA, how this particular file
ended up on the Web site of the House of Representatives, and who is
behind the letter?
Certainly, only the most naive would be shocked to find out that
special interests and lobbying groups play a role in formulating
legislation and policy. The current administration has been
particularly guilty of this practice. But this case appears that it
might be slightly different. It is quite possible that the actual
letter that 79 Representatives put their names on was not, in fact,
authored by one of their own, but rather by outside interests,
interests with some rather disturbing skeletons in the closet.
Who is KC McAlpin and did he write the letter?
KC McAlpin is the Executive Director of an organization called
ProEnglish. According to their Website, they are “the nation’s
leading advocate(s) of official English. (They) work through the
courts and in the court of public opinion to defend English’s
historic role as the common, unifying language of the United States
of America, and to persuade lawmakers to adopt English as the
official language at all levels of government.”
The group is one of thirteen like-minded organizations founded by
anti-immigrant advocate . Tanton’s multi-million dollar web of
groups includes not only ProEnglish and NumbersUSA, but also the
Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and the Federation for American
Immigration Reform (FAIR).
Obviously, as Executive Director of ProEnglish, McAlpin is part of
Tanton’s network, but the question remains as to whether he is the
author of King’s letter. A look at the similarities between the
language used in the letter and that of McAlpin’s written testimony
before Congress in November of 2005 sheds some light on the question.
At a hearing of the Constitutional Subcommittee of the House
Judiciary Committee on Thursday November 10, 2005, McAlpin testified
on behalf of ProEnglish in opposition to renewal of Sec. 203 & 4(f)
(4) of the VRA. From his written statement, it’s obvious that the
King letter has striking similarities to McAlpin’s talking points.
Major Points of McAlpin's Congressional Testimony
On Proficiency in English is a requirement for citizenship: "the
United States has required immigrants to learn English in order to
naturalize and acquire the rights of citizenship, including the right
to vote in federal elections."
On multilingual ballots increasing the risk of election errors and
fraud: "Introducing multiple languages into the voting booth
increases the likelihood of errors and election fraud....In the 2000
general election six polling places located in heavily Chinese
populated areas of Queens, New York had "Democratic" translated in
Chinese as "Republican" for party labels and vice versa on election
day ballots."
On why multilingual ballots is a costly unfunded mandate: "And the
cost of providing bilingual voting materials continues to escalate.
The same GAO report found that Los Angeles County taxpayers spent
$1.1 million to provide election materials in five languages in 1996.
(14) But by March 2002, the County was spending $3.3 million out of a
total of $22.6 million to provide voting materials in seven languages."
On why bilingual ballots are a waste of taxpayer funds and are rarely
used: "Yuba County, California spent $17,411 for Spanish language
ballot materials for a 1996 primary election despite the fact that
the county's registrar of voters reported receiving only one request
for voter information in Spanish during his 16 years on the job"
On how Federal law already protects the right of all citizens to
bring an interpreter into the voting booth: "They also have the right
to bring an interpreter into the poll with them: "Any voter who
requires assistance to vote by reason of blindness, disability, or
inability to read or write may be given assistance by a person of the
voter's choice."
Given that the King letter posted at House.gov was authored by
McAlpin on software registered to NumbersUSA, coupled with its
striking similarities to McAlpin’s testimony, only one of two
possible causes seem plausible. Either King copied his letter from
ProEnglish literature almost word for word, and then asked McAlpin,
or someone using his computer, to type up a copy to post at the House
of Representatives Web site, or McAlpin authored the letter himself.
Either way, the letter that 79 Representatives signed to force the
cancellation of the renewal of the VRA came from ProEnglish.
In fact, in the weeks and months leading up to the vote on the VRA,
ProEnglish had been advocating the defeat of the bill.
This leaves us with one question unanswered.
Who is John Tanton, the man behind this organization?
John Tanton has been credited for single-handedly creating the modern
anti-immigration, English-only and Nativist political movements in
the United States. Over the course of thirty years he has managed to
create a network of think tanks, advocacy groups and fund-raising
organizations that not only shape public opinion, but public policy.
His experts testify before Congress and reports and studies by his
various groups are used to formulate legislation. His pundits appear
in all forms of media to pontificate and propagandize. By his own
admission he says, “I would certainly have no reservations about
claiming credit for being the guy secretly manipulating U.S.
immigration policy.”
Although he claims to do so only because he believes that “the
overwhelming majority of Americans …want to see immigration levels
reduced,” his motivations seem to stem from a firm belief that
America is in peril due to a worldwide trend of third-world
populations taking over the wealthy first-world nations. His
philosophy contains a strange mix of environmentalism, protectionism,
xenophobia, eugenics and racism; a philosophy he has been able turn
into a political movement though his network of organizations. This
network includes both organizations founded by Tanton himself and
those started by others that he takes under his wing and then
integrates into his network and funds.
Groups Founded by Tanton Federation for American Immigration Reform
(FAIR) - which specializes in immigrations effects on diminishing
resources and jobs. (founded 1979) US Inc. - The fundraising wing for
the Tanton empire. (founded 1982) Center for Immigration Studies
(CIS) - which presents itself as an impartial think tank and supplies
"experts" to various media outlets and government hearings (founded
1985) NumbersUSA - Which does immigration statistical analysis
(founded 1996) U.S. English - Which promotes the idea that English
will become a dead language in the US without intervention. (founded
1983) ProEnglish - Which advocates an English Only agenda (founded
1994) [+]The Social Contract Press - the publishing wing, putting out
newsletters and publishing books touting anti-immigration philosophy
(founded 1990)
Groups Funded by Tanton ProjectUSA Population-Environment Balance [+]
American Immigration Control Foundation [+] American Patrol/ Voices
of Citizens Together
California Coalition for Immigration Reform (CCIR) Californians for
Population Stabilization Immigration Reform Law Institute - Now used
as the legal wing for FAIR to set up legal challenges to current anti-
discrimination and pro immigration laws
Organizations designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law
Center are marked with a [+] (source: Southern Poverty Law Center, SPLC)
Starting his career in the sixties as an ardent environmentalist,
Tanton was a leading member in groups like the National Audubon
Society and Sierra Club. Through his environmentalist activities, he
became interested in the relationship between population growth and
environmental degradation, and by the early 1970s, his focus shifted
to zero population growth. By the late 70s, Tanton’s concern for
population growth evolved into a preoccupation with increased
immigration into the U.S., particularly by those coming from the
Caribbean and Latin America. In 1979, unable to find support for his
anti-immigration ideas in the environmentalist movement, Tanton
formed the first and most influential of his advocacy groups the
Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Tanton wrote on
the formation of FAIR:
Having observed what I believe to be a problem, I acted. Having
failed to convince some of the people in the environmental movement
that immigration was an issue that ought to feature prominently on
their agendas, I did exactly what everyone else who is involved in
issue advocacy has done: I formed an organization of like-minded people.
Tanton went on to build his network, finding more “like-minded
people” along the way to join his one-man crusade. Today his multi-
million dollar empire of advocacy groups helps to insure that he and
his allies not only have their opinions heard, but manage to shape
the opinions of others. While some of his groups, such as CIS, have
presented themselves as purveyors of mainstream thinking, the roots
of Tanton’s philosophy never lay far from the surface.
Tanton’s philosophical roots
On numerous occasions throughout his advocacy career, Tanton has
managed to tip his hand, revealing his belief in the inferiority of
certain races and ethnic groups and his fear that they will destroy
what he sees as America’s European-based, superior society. The
first instance to gain national attention occurred when, in 1988, the
media uncovered what was termed the “WITAN Memo.”
Along with a few other FAIR board members, in the early 1980s Tanton
founded a nationalist organization called WITAN — short for the Old
English term ‘witenagemot,’ meaning ‘council of wise men.’. In
1986, Tanton signed a memo that went to WITAN members that
highlighted the supremacist bent of Tanton and FAIR. (7)(8) The memo
implied that Latin American immigrants brought a culture of political
corruption with them to the United States and that they were unlikely
to involve themselves in civil life. He raised the alarm that they
could become the majority group in U.S. society. What’s more, he
asked: ‘Can homo contraceptivus compete with homo progenitiva?’
Answering his own rhetorical question, Tanton wrote that ‘perhaps
this is the first instance in which those with their pants up are
going to get caught by those with their pants down!’ According to
Tanton, ‘In California 2030, the non-Hispanic Whites and Asians will
own the property, have the good jobs and education, speak one
language and be mostly Protestant and ‘other.’ The Blacks and
Hispanics will have the poor jobs, will lack education, own little
property, speak another language and will be mainly [C]atholic.’
Furthermore, Tanton raised concerns about the ‘educability’ of
Hispanics.(10)
International Relations Center/ Right Web: Profile of John Tanton
The resulting fallout from the release of the WITAN memo caused many
of Tanton’s more mainstream allies to leave his organizations.
That same year an even more damaging revelation about some of FAIR’s
funding came to light. FAIR had been accepting grants from a group
called the Pioneer Fund.
"Pioneer is a nonprofit foundation that supports scientific studies
in the areas of heredity, human differences, behavioral genetics,
intelligence, social demography, and group differences by sex, social
class, and race. (16) Some of the most controversial research funded
by the Pioneer Fund has explored the IQ differences between the
races. This research was published in the now widely discredited book
The Bell Curve. In addition to its efforts to document the IQ gaps
between races, the Pioneer Fund also has been deeply involved in
funding eugenics research and in building political support for
eugenics. Harry H. Laughlin, its first president, advocated the
establishment of a uniform sterilization law that would allow the
routine sterilization of ‘the feeble minded, insane, criminals
(including the delinquent and wayward), the epileptic, the inebriate,
the diseased, the blind, the deaf, the deformed, and the dependent
(including orphans, ne’er-do-wells, the homeless, tramps and
paupers).’ …Laughlin edited Eugenics News during the 1920s and
1930s, which featured a 1932 article ‘Hitler and Race Pride.’
Laughlin also was a supporter of limiting immigration to the United
States
(16) About Us. Pioneer Fund
International Relations Center/ Right Web: Profile of FAIR
In 1988 when the story first came out, Tanton, the President of
FAIR’s board, denied any knowledge of the connections to Pioneer
Fund. FAIR continued to accept the funds for nine more years. Between
1985 and 1994, FAIR accepted $1.2 million from Pioneer.
It is perhaps the work done by Tanton’s publishing organization, The
Social Contract Press (TSCP) that has had drawn the most attention,
due to its ties to extremist movements and organizations. The most
popular book in the SCP catalog, and a personal favorite of
Tanton’s, is Jean Raspail’s The Camp of the Saints, a French
fantasy novel about an invasion of the Western world by hordes of
starving, dark-skinned refugees from India. It depicts non-whites as
“uncivilized monsters” whose goal is to violently seize the riches
of the white man. The depiction of the ensuing race war has been
compared to that in The Turner Diaries, a perennial favorite of
American white supremacists like Timothy McVeigh. In the Winter 1994
Issue of Social Contract, Tanton wrote; “We are indebted to Jean
Raspail for his insights into the human condition, and for being 20
years ahead of his time. History will judge him more kindly than have
some of his contemporaries.”
TSCP has gone on to feature the writings of some of the anti-
immigration movement’s most extreme elements, garnering the dubious
distinction of being listed on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s
list of recognized “Hate Groups.”
Typical of the type of opinions found in Social Contract journal was
an essay written in 1998 by John Vinson, who directed the American
Immigration Control Foundation, another organization in the Tanton
network of restrictionist groups. In an essay titled “Europhobia:
The Racism of Anti-racists” Vinson wrote:
In a climate of Euro-phobia, we have every legitimate reason to fear
and resist a substantial racial/ethnic shift. Assimilating non-
European immigrants into America’s traditional Euro-culture is
difficult. Europhobia makes it nearly impossible. As many of the
newcomers absorb this hostility, European-Americans will face
increasing tension, discrimination, and perhaps physical danger. We
are under no moral obligation to accept these risks either for
ourselves or our children.
Over the years, Tanton’s network increasingly has been intertwined
with ever more extreme elements of the Nativist/White Supremacist
movement, and has in fact acted as a liaison between them and both
the media and Washington. They have helped groups like Barbara
Coe’s, California Coalition for Immigration Reform (CCIR) and Glenn
Spencer⁏s American Patrol to work with like minded groups like the
Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) and American Renaissance,
allowing them to reach out to anti-immigration legislators and the
media.
The Nexus of the Tanton’s two worlds:
Flag Caught in Barbed Wire, Lower ManhattanIn the conference room of
the House Judiciary Committee on June 21st, the nexus of Tanton’s
two worlds converged. The philosophies of Jean Raspail and John
Vinson met with the political realities of Tom Tancredo (R-CO) and
Steve King (R-IA). In one fell swoop, more than 40 years of civil
rights legislation was jeopardized in the name of protecting America
from hordes of foreign-speaking invaders intent on destroying
American culture. Although wrapped in the popular rhetoric of the
Republican right, the letter presented to Judiciary Chairman
Sensenbrenner had its roots in the philosophies of the WITAN letter
and the Pioneer Fund. Reframed and sanitized by groups like FAIR and
CIS, these philosophies have been pushed to the forefront of
political discourse. The House Republicans, eager to shift the
public’s focus away from war and deficits, have been more than
willing to crawl in bed with the most extreme fringes of American
society.
The 79 signatories of McAlpin’s letter, like many Americans, have
come to embrace a form of covert racism and xenophobia that passes
for patriotism these days. Using statistics gleaned from NumbersUSA
and CIS, and talking points formulated by ProEnglish and FAIR, anti-
immigration hardliners like Pete King, Tom Tancredo as well as other
vocal anti-immigration spokesmen J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ), and Dana
Rohrabacher, have managed to move their party further to the extreme,
and with it much of the nation. With each passing day, polls show
they are slowly but surely gaining support from the American people.
But this would come as no surprise to Tanton; he’s been working his
entire life to assure an America where, as Max Blumenthal wrote in
The Nation, “most of the ultra-right’s signature issues have been
co-opted by pseudo-populist media personalities and Republican
politicians.”
Ironically, it might end up that their attempts to dismantle a
cornerstone of the civil rights movement, and its culminating
achievement, might be the one thing that brings America to its
senses. Even with all the sophisticated spin and media manipulation
available to them, it will be hard for this group to hide the stench
of their actions. Sometimes, even with all the lipstick you can
apply, a pig still stinks like a pig.
(1) to view the meta data on this file, open the .doc link, save the
file to your hard drive, open it in Msword, than go to your file menu
and click properties/summary.
About the writer and researcher
Duke Falconer is editor and founding member of Migra Matters:
Progressive Immigration Reform; a researcher-writer for
DowningStreetMemo.com and founding member of IraqFact Working Group.
Intranets is an ePluribus Media investigator and Community Moderator.
Related Articles:
Immigrant voter registration could yield 14 mil voters
Anti-immigrant group recruits Hispanics and Blacks
At What Point does Free Speech become: A Commentary on Steve King’s
statement about the May 1st rallies where he claimed undocumented
immigrants are drug smugglers, drunk drivers and child molesters.
It Was Only A Matter of Time Until : Analysis of a CIS poll released
May 4, 2006 that ran contrary to all major polls at the time and
claimed that most Americans favored the House legislation that had
been the impetus for the Immigration rallies.:
Discuss this article...
Key Research by: Intranets
ePluribus Media contributors and fact checkers for this article:
Kfred, wanderindiana, cho, D.E. Ford, Newton Snookers and standingup
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