Word: katzenbachs
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...exercise in futility. No sooner would the Government dislodge one unjust voting law than Southern legislatures would dream up another. "Then," says Nick Katzenbach, "you've got to bring suits to throw these out too. You've got to go all the way to the Supreme Court, and when you get that done, there's nothing to prevent them from coming up with something else...
Aimed at the Barricades. As Selma's angry impatience exploded, Lyndon Johnson realized that the time was ripe to go after the widest possible support for his bill. Key figures in the bipartisan drafting were Republican Senate Leader Everett Dirksen, Democratic Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and Katzenbach. Each man set his own legal staff to work, writing drafts of the new bill, refining, plugging loopholes, setting new standards, comparing notes. At each stage Lyndon Johnson studied the proposals and made suggestions. The 24th Amendment to the Constitution already outlaws poll taxes in federal elections, and now Johnson wanted...
...inclusive formula, the bill covers any state or county where 1) a literacy test or similar qualifying device was in force as of Nov. 1, 1964, and where 2) fewer than 50% of voting-age residents either were registered or cast ballots in the 1964 presidential election. "The premise," Katzenbach says, "is that the coincidence of low electoral participation and the use of tests and devices results from racial discrimination in the administration of the tests and devices...
...apparently innocent fish. Aroostook County, Me.; Elmore County, Idaho; Apache County, Ariz., and the whole state of Alaska would be subject to federal control under the new bill because they, too, used literacy tests and failed to turn out 50% of their eligible voters in November. Says Katzenbach: "As far as I know, it may have snowed in Maine on Election Day, and that's why they had a low turnout." To get federal dispensation, these places would have only to show that they have not been guilty of discrimination...
...machinery for that purpose lies in a provision for an appeal to a three-judge U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia. If the court found no evidence of voting discrimination, federal control over voting in the state would be canceled. But Katzenbach & Co. want to take no chances on missing their primary targets. They wrote in a clause saying that any state found by a federal court to have practiced voting discrimination-at any time over the past ten years-cannot be exempted through appeal; the state automatically remains under the Attorney General's jurisdiction...