 NATIONAL NEWS |
Partisan ‘Bottleneck’ in Congress Still Hindering Civil Rights Gains, Says NAACP
by Pharoh Martin
NNPA National Correspondent
Originally posted 2/9/2010
WASHINGTON (NNPA) – The NAACP, the world's oldest civil rights organization, has given the U. S. Congress an overall grade of B- on its annual Civil Rights Report Card for the first session of the 111th Congress Jan. 6, 2009 - Dec. 24, 2009.
''They are moving in the right direction, unfortunately, they are still being bottlenecked by some of the challenges of getting agreements with both sides of the aisle,'' said Hilary Shelton, NAACP Washington Bureau chief, who has been helping to oversee the report card for the last 12 years. ''Some of the progress that we'd seen has become much more partisan-divided.''
Since 1914, the non-partisan civil rights organization's Congressional Legislative Report Card has graded the U.S. Congress on how they vote on what the NAACP deems as ''bread and butter'' civil rights legislation.
Congressional members are graded on how often they voted in agreement with the 100-year-old organization.
The current report card, released last week, shows an increase of the overall congressional grade from the previous year, but still not the kind of progress to make major impact on centuries of racial oppression.
''This Congress did better than last congress, which did better than the congress before that,'' said Shelton adding that his organization sees marked improvement from Congress on their voting of civil rights issues.
The grading scale, according to the NAACP report card, is as follows: 90-100 percent is an ‘A’, 80-89 percent qualifies for a ‘B’ grade, 70- 79 percent is a ‘C’, 60- 69 is a ‘D’ and any score below 60 is an F. Incompletes are given to any lawmaker not in Congress for the entire session.
According to the current report card, 59 percent of Senators and 47 percent of Representatives received an “A”, a marked improvement from the previous report card on which 29 percent of Senators and 34 percent of Representatives received a failing grade of “F” on the report card.
The Senate was graded on 21 votes of which five were confirmation votes such as high-profile appointments like Hilary Clinton for secretary of state, Eric Holder for attorney general and Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court.
In both chambers the voting patterns of Republicans and Democrats were starkly different in their support of civil rights.
Out of 40 Republican senators, all received Fs, except three. Only Maine's moderate Republican senators, Olympia Snowe (R- Maine) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), received passing grades, both receiving a 'C' at 76 percent. George Lemieux (R-Fla.) received a grade of incomplete because he took over Mel Martinez' senatorial seat in September. Martinez resigned to become secretary of the interior.
''There doesn't seem to be much range of the Republican Party supporting the civil rights agenda as there used to be,'' Shelton said. ''That's because some of their more moderate members are no longer in Congress anymore.
It's just very difficult for a moderate-voting Republican to exist within the party's current makeup. You still have stalwarts. Thank God for the Susan Collinses and the Olympia Snowes of the world who put their commitment to civil rights above whatever it is that keeps them from supporting a progressive civil rights agenda.''
Ten Republican senators earned less than 20 percent on their grade. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) received the lowest score in the Senate with 10 percent, only giving nods to bills that stopped predatory lending practices by credit companies and extending federal unemployment benefits. At 14 percent, Jim Bunning (R- Ky.) and John Ensign (R- Nev.) earned the next lowest percentages.
Conversely, Robert Byrd (D-WV) is the only Democratic senator to receive a failing grade with 48 percent.
Joe Lieberman (I- Conn.) and Bernie Sanders (I- Vt.), the only independents in the Senate, both received 'A' grades earning a 90 percent and a 95 percent, respectively.
Out of 58 Democratic senators 49 received the top grade, of which 29 received perfect scores of 100 percent. All 40 voting members of the Congressional Black Caucus received an A except one – Artur Davis (D-Ala.), who got a B with only 80 percent, one point above a C.
''The CBC has done very well, as they usually do. The CBC has the greatest proportion of high grades of any caucus in congress,'' Shelton said.
The senate leadership held close the same voting trends as their respective parties. The Senate's highest ranking member Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who got into some hot water at the beginning of the year for his ''Negro dialect'' comment, received a score of 95 percent. Roland Burris (D-Ill.), the only African-American in the Senate, received a 100 percent.
Former Republican presidential candidate John McCain (R-Ariz.) earned an F at 24 percent, which is the same score of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who's the highest ranking Republican in the Senate.
On the other side of the Capitol in the House of Representatives, the lone two Democrats that received failing grades were Bobby Bright (D- Ala.) at 52 percent and Gene Taylor (D- Miss.) at 56 percent. There are 178 Republicans in the House.
Only one House member from the Republican Party received a grade higher than a 'D'. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R- Fl.) received a 76 percent, which is a 'C'. Four Republican representatives - Mike Castle (R- Del.), Mario Diaz-Balart (R- Fla.), Anh Cao (R- La.) and Chris Smith (R- N.J.)- received 'D' grades. Nine GOP members of the House received grades of less than 10 percent. Trent Franks (R- Ariz.), John Shadegg (R- Ariz.), George Radanovich (R- Calif.), John Linder (R-Ga.) Scott Garrett (R- N..J.), Ron Paul (R- Texas) and Pete Sessions (R- Texas) all received 8 percent on their evaluation. Jeff Flake (R- Ariz.) and Paul Broun (R- Ga.) have the lowest percentages of any member of congress with only four percent.
Out of 256 House Democrats, 164 received the top grade of 'A'. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) did not receive a grade from the NAACP. The Speaker of the House does not typically vote unless it’s an issue she feels is especially important or in the event of a tie in votes. The second and third highest ranking House Democrats Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-SC), who is African-American, received scores of 100 and 92, respectively. The two highest ranking House Republicans Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) each received a score of 16.
John Garamendi (D-Calif.), Judy Chu (D- Calif.), Mike Quigley (D- Ill.), Scott Murphy (D- N.Y.) and Bill Owens (D- N.Y.) all received incomplete grades because they were sworn in mid-session and thus, were not able to be graded. Six Democratic representatives do not hold voting power and therefore could not be evaluated by the NAACP.
''It's really heartening to see the congressional leadership is taking on more of the crucial issues of the constituency that we serve, which are primarily people of color,'' said Shelton but now it's time to look forward to the key civil rights issues being looked in this congress' second session, which is happening now.
He concludes: ''We'll be looking at racial profiling. We are preparing a bill that will be introduced very soon that will take on that issue. We are be looking at additional health care issues and getting the omnibus health care bill through.''
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