an additional 5 years. These provisions, and the national suspension of the use of tests and devices as a condition for registering and voting enacted in 1970, will expire in August 1975 unless Congress extends them.

The Commission believes that expiration of the Voting Rights Act would be a serious step backward. The process of full enfranchisement of minority citizens is well underway. Ten years, however, has not been enough time to overcome centuries of exclusion. Resistance to minority political participation has abated, but it has not been eradicated. Evidence compiled by the Commission indicates that progress under the act has been real, but limited and uneven, and that discrim ination continues to impede the exercise of minority voting rights in jurisdictions covered by the act.

Both statistical measures of participation and the experience of minority citizens as they have begun to participate in the political process demonstrate the need for extension of the Voting Rights Act. The Commission believes that the act has been and can continue to be an effective means of remedying discrimination in the electoral process.

By statistical measures, southern blacks have come a long way since 1965, and much of this progress is the result of the impact of the Voting Rights Act. But, after centuries of slavery and exclusion from the political process, southern blacks have had a very long way to

come.

The statistics on registration show that more blacks are participating in electoral politics and the statistics on elected officials show the inevitable result of increased participation. Blacks are slowly catching up with a moving target, slowly overcoming the effects of their political exclusion, while taking advantage of the hard-won opportunity to participate.

The Commission believes, however, that the statistical evidence indicates a clear need for extension of the Voting Rights Act. Particularly in jurisdictions where there has been little or no progress over the last 10 years, the protections of the Voting Rights Act will be critical in facilitating the transition to biracial politics. But even in areas less resistant to change, the progress has been too modest to say that the purposes of the act have been fulfilled.

Minority voters, moreover, continue to encounter discriminatory barriers to the full exercise of their voting rights in jurisdictions covered by the Voting Rights Act. The right to vote guaranteed by the 15th amendment is more than the right to be registered. It is also the right to cast an effective ballot, to have the ballot counted, and to have one's vote weighed equally with that of every other citizen of a particular jurisdiction.

Denials of minority voting rights may be less spectacular than they were 10 years ago, but denials of minority voting rights continue to occur at every stage of the political process.

Minority voters may be denied their rights by burdensome, inadequate, and inconvenient registration procedures, and by hostile and uncooperative registration officials. Minority voters may be denied their rights when election officials fail to find their names on polling lists, fail to inform them of their right to cast challenge ballots, or fail to provide adequate polling facilities.

Minority voters may be denied their rights when election officials fail to inform them of changes in their polling places, or of the legal requirements for candidacy for an office, or when election officials locate polling places in white-owned stores, homes, or clubs where minorities are not usually welcomed.

Minority voters may be denied their rights when election officials apply residency and purging requirements unequally to minority and white registrants or when election officials fail to provide bilingual election materials or adequate assistance at the polls for illiterate and non-English-speaking voters.

Minority voters may be denied their rights by questionable increases in the number of absentee ballots cast for white candidates, by the failure of voting machines in minority precincts to record their votes, and by threats or acts of economic or even physical reprisal for political activity.

Minority voters may be denied their rights when election officials refuse to permit campaign workers for minority candidates access to voters near the polls, refuse to permit effective poll watching for minority candidates, or refuse to seat successful candidates. Minority voters may be denied their rights by racial gerrymandering and by imposition of voting rules such as at-large elections and anti-single-shot laws that minimize if not eliminate the chance for minority political

success.

In brief, minority citizens are still vulnerable to overt and covert efforts on the part of whites to prevent them from fully exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to vote. A key factor contributing to this persistent vulnerability is the continuing political dependence of minorities on whites. Whites retain control of the political process in almost every jurisdiction studied by the Commission, despite the presence of substantial minority populations.

Whites control decisions about who will work as election officials, what offices will be elective and when elections will be held; whether there will be districts for representative bodies and how district lines will be drawn. That is, whites continue to control the procedures that often determine the outcome of elections.

I would like to discuss now the temporary ban on the use of literacy tests that Congress enacted in 1970, which is scheduled to expire in August. The potential of literacy tests to disfranchise otherwise qualified voters is real. Their right to vote is now dependent on the sus pension of tests and devices under the Voting Rights Act. The voting rights of many persons in these groups are already undermined by the failure of election officials to provide adequate and effective assistance in voting. Expiration of the literacy test suspension threatens to eliminate their voting rights altogether. The Commission believes that the literacy test suspension must be extended.

Next, I would like to refer to the examiners and observer programs under the Voting Rights Act. We believe that they are still very important. However, I will pass over that to discuss section 5.

Section 5, the provision requiring preclearance of changes in electoral laws in covered jurisdictions, has become the centerpiece of the act. Section 5 was designed to block the imposition of new discriminatory devices. Congress developed section 5 in the light of a long history that saw Federal statutes and court decisions effectively nullified by legislative ingenuity in areas determined to resist the command

of the 15th amendment to the Constitution. The list of Attorney General objections to changes in electoral laws is testimony to the wisdom of Congress in including section 5 among the remedies of the Voting Rights Act and to the continuing need for its protections.

Section 5 objections have been entered to changes in voting laws, practices, and procedures that affect every stage of the political process. For example, there have been objections to changes such as annexation of white population to offset the growth of black population in a city relocation of polling places to sites that inconvenience or otherwise discriminate against minority voters; abolition of offices to which minorities might be elected; converting elective offices into appointive ones to avoid the election of minorities; and imposition of burdensome filing fees.

By far the greatest use of section 5 has been to block potentially discriminatory changes in district boundaries, local methods of election, and other voting rules.

The use of section 5 against discriminatory districting plans is a major factor in the increased size of minority legislative delegations. For example, after a section 5 objection, New York adopted an apportionment plan that facilitated the election of a Puerto Rican assemblyman from East Harlem.

A section 5 objection to congressional district lines in Georgia resulted in a new plan that gave blacks a reasonable opportunity to win a seat. Representative Andrew Young won that seat and became the first black Member of Congress since Reconstruction from a Southern State covered by the Voting Rights Act.

Section 5 objections to State legislative districting plans led to increased numbers of black State legislators in Georgia and in the South Carolina House of Representatives.

Section 5 objections to at-large elections and various dilutive devices have resulted in the increased numbers of blacks sitting on county governing bodies and school boards throughout the covered Southern States.

In other instances, section 5 objections and Federal court decisions. or Federal court decisions alone have had similar results.

In sum, the history of section 5 determinations indicates that the increase in black elected officials in the covered Southern States has been more the result of the enforcement of Federal law than of voluntary action by the States.

The Commission believes that the continuing high level of section. 5 objections is evidence of the persistence with which some jurisdictions covered by the act continue to resist fulfillment of its purposes. The types of changes to which objections are most often made are not ad hoc responses to isolated events, but are carefully chosen methods of regulating the political system at the local or State level.

It seems reasonable to infer that the politically experienced persons who institute these changes are aware of their discriminatory impact. In any event, the Voting Rights Act reaches discriminatory effect as well as discriminatory intent and through section 5 provides some protection against such efforts to perpetuate white political dominance and minimize minority political influence.

The Commission believes that section 5 will continue to be critical in protecting the rights of minorities in covered jurisdictions, partic

ularly in the many areas where minorities have yet to fully marshal their voting strength.

The report issued by the Commission upon which this statement is based investigates the status of minority voting rights only in jurisdictions now covered by the Voting Rights Act. The Commission is aware of the considerable interest in possible amendment of the coverage formula of the Voting Rights Act to include jurisdictions containing substantial Mexican American populations.

The Commission now believes that there is enough evidence to warrant the inclusion of jurisdictions having large Mexican American or Spanish-heritage populations that have been denied full participation in the election process.

A number of factors have led us to this conclusion. Last summer, Commission staff conducted preliminary research on the problems of political participation of Chicanos in Texas. A staff memorandum has been prepared describing and evaluating the information obtained in Texas and in a few other areas.

This memorandum will be submitted to the subcommittee as soon as the Commission's statutory procedures for protecting persons who might have been defamed in the memorandum have been completed. It will be available before the close of these hearings.

In addition, testimony presented during recent hearings held by the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Constitutional Rights of the House Judiciary Committee has added to the evidence of discrimination against Mexican Americans in the Southwest.

Reports of the California State Advisory Committee to the Commission, reports of the Voter Education Project's Texas field representative, and court cases also reveal denial of the voting rights of Spanish-speaking citizens in some areas.

The tools of the Voting Rights Act have been effective in combating discrimination against minorities in the covered States and counties. These remedies, especially section 5, would also be effective in other areas. The Commission, therefore, favors amending the Voting Rights Act to provide the automatic protection of the act to the additional areas where the need has been shown.

Mr. Chairman, in that connection and in light of the question that you asked earlier, I would like to share with you a brief letter that I just addressed to Congressman Edwards, chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Constitutional Rights of the House Committee on the Judiciary. This communication will go in today.

When I testified before the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Constitutional Rights of the House Judiciary Committee, on February 25, I discussed the Commission's findings regarding discrimination in the political process against Mexican Americans in the Southwest. The Commission was not at that time in a position to recommend a legislative solution to this problem in jurisdictions not covered by the Voting Rights Act.

I urged the Subcommittee to proceed with its own inquiries, however, and expressed the hope that Congress would enact remedial legislation this year if it came to the conclusion that such legislation was necessary.

In the weeks that followed, a number of witnesses before the Subcommittee described ways in which minority group members in Texas have been discriminated against in the political process. That testimony, in conjunction with preliminary Commission staff research and various court cases, has led the Commission to support expansion of the coverage of the Voting Rights Act.

We believe the bill that Congress enacts should not refer to any specific minority group. We therefore favor the general approach taken by the draft bill sub

mitted to the Subcommittee by Assistant Attorney General J. Stanley Pottinger as staff assistance to the subcommittee. We concur also in his recommendation that "in order to ensure that provisions dealing with the expansion of the coverage of the Voting Rights Act are severable from any provisions to extend the Voting Rights Act" there should be "two sets of amendments in one bill under separate titles."

I hope this letter will be of assistance to the Subcommittee in its deliberations. If we can be of further assistance, feel free to call upon us. I will be glad to discuss further the approach the Assistant Attorney General takes.

In addition, Mr. Chairman, the Commission would like to draw your attention to the provision of the Voting Rights Act as passed in 1965 that was designed to give the full protection of the act in so-called pockets of discrimination-areas with problems of discrimination in voting but that were not covered by the act's trigger. We didn't make this presentation to the House because as a Commission we had not met on it. This developed as a result of discussion and experience in testifying.

As you know, Mr. Chairman, section 3 of the Voting Rights Act allows the Attorney General, in voting rights litigation, to ask a court to authorize any of the special remedies of the act. Although section 3 has never been used, we believe that it could be useful to combat discrimination in areas that Congress chooses not to include in the act's automatic trigger.

To facilitate the use of section 3 the Commission recommends the amending of section 3 to authorize private litigants, and not just the Attorney General, to seek section 3 remedies. To further facilitate the use of section 3-and private voting rights litigation generally-we recommend that the Voting Rights Act be amended to provide for attorneys' fees in voting rights litigation. Attachment 12 to my full statement is a staff memorandum discussing the use of section 3 and the amendments we propose.

The Voting Rights Act has opened the political process to minority participation in most jurisdictions covered by the act. After centuries of exclusion, blacks in many areas of the South have taken the first steps toward full and free exercise of their voting rights. Many Native Americans and Spanish-speaking citizens in covered jurisdictions have been able to register and vote for the first time.

The remedies of the Voting Rights Act have proven their potential, but discrimination in the electoral process in jurisdictions covered by the act has not yet been eradicated. It would be tragic, indeed, to seize upon the real but limited progress of the last 10 years as an excuse for removing the protections of the Voting Rights Act.

To stop the momentum of political inclusion, to force newly enfranchised minorities into the position of having to defend the gains of the past 10 years rather than being able to build upon them, would betray the solemn national commitment embodied in the Voting Rights Act.

Congress should extend the Voting Rights Act for 10 years. The lesson of the last 10 years is that real progress takes time. The changes that must yet result if the purposes of the act and the promise of the 15th amendment are to be fulfilled are so fundamental that 10 years is a more realistic period than the 5 years proposed in the administration bill.