http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1153473881320730.xml&coll=2 – Hendricks questions vote count procedures in election for House District 54, no decision yet on whether to challenge victory by AIDS activist.

http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1153473854320730.xml&coll=2 – City of Birmingham establishes committee to plan for end to homelessness in city.

http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1153473396320730.xml&coll=2 – Voting Rights Act has played only minimal role in Alabama in recent years.

http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletimes/index.ssf?/base/news/1153473543320690.xml&coll=1 – AG King says that immigration is state’s top issue.

http://www.gadsdentimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060721/NEWS/607210309/1137/NEWS - Baxley starts fall campaigning early.

http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060721/NEWS02/607210339/1009 - Cheney to headline fundraising event for Riley.

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060721/NEWS/607210338/1007/NEWS02 - Siegelman says appeal will clear corruption conviction.

FROM TODAY’S ANNISTON STAR:

State & Region News

Alabama senators vote to renew Voting Rights Act

By Phillip Rawls
Associated Press

07-21-2006

MONTGOMERY — Alabama’s two U.S. senators voted Thursday to renew the Voting Rights Act, the civil rights law that made Alabama’s government one of the most integrated in America.

Republican Sens. Richard Shelby of Tuscaloosa and Jeff Sessions of Mobile joined their colleagues in the 98-0 vote.

Civil rights attorney Fred Gray of Tuskegee, who had testified to a Senate committee on behalf of the law, praised the senators’ votes to extend the law for 25 years.

“It shows a new day in our state when we have two senators who take an objective view on something as important as the Voting Rights Act and vote to renew it,” Gray said.

Shelby’s vote marked a turnaround from 1981, when he was a Democratic member of the U.S. House and was one of three members of the Alabama delegation to vote against the law’s reauthorization.

“The passage of this legislation is a victory for all Americans as it will continue to help ensure the voting rights of millions. While much progress has been made, there is still work to be done to guarantee that all citizens have the right to vote,” Shelby said in a statement Thursday.

Sessions had initially criticized the law’s broad authority over election officials in Alabama and several other Southern states, but he voted to renew the law Wednesday in the Senate Judiciary Committee and then again Thursday on the Senate floor.

“The reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act is a strong statement of support for voting rights and for the many Alabamians and Americans, still alive, who were denied that right and took great risks to ensure that right,” Sessions said in a statement.

Joe Reed, chairman of the black Alabama Democratic Conference, praised Alabama’s senators.

“No one can say there are folks in Alabama who don’t want blacks to vote. I’m glad our senators stood tall,” Reed said.

Congress passed the law in 1965 after the Selma to Montgomery voting rights march, which began with an aborted march attempt when state troopers beat back marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma — an event that became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

The law covers all or part of 16 states with a history of discriminating against minorities, including all of Alabama. The law opened voting booths to blacks and made sure officials didn’t draw political districts to dilute black voting strength. States covered by the law must get changes in their election procedures approved by the U.S. Justice Department before instituting them.

When the law passed, Alabama had no black legislators, Gray said. In 1970, Gray became one of the first two blacks elected to the Legislature since Reconstruction. Gray, who served one term, said the Legislature is now one-fourth black, the same as the racial makeup of Alabama’s population.

A 2001 study by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies ranked Alabama second in the nation in black elected officials behind Mississippi, both in percentages and absolute numbers. Alabama had 756 elected officials, which represented 17.2 percent of the elective offices in the state.

The combined total of black elected officials in the two states (1,648) was more than the entire nation had in 1970, the center reported.

The Justice Department reported that in 2004, the voter registration rates in Alabama were almost identical: 74.9 percent of whites and 73.2 percent of blacks.

“That is progress,” Sessions said Thursday.

Gray said an often overlooked benefit of the Voting Rights Act is that the elected officials get to make appointments to all types of government boards, which gives blacks even more of a voice on issues that were once off-limits.

On Saturday, the leadership of the Alabama Republican Party, the State Republican Executive Committee, voted unanimously to urge Alabama’s Washington delegation to support amendments to the Voting Rights Act that would end special restrictions on Southern states.

State Democratic Party Chairman Joe Turham took aim at the party’s position Thursday, saying it was shocking “at a time when Republicans in Alabama talk about broadening their message to include all Alabamians.”

The House voted to renew the Voting Rights Act 390-33 on July 13. Democratic Reps. Bud Cramer of Huntsville and Artur Davis of Birmingham voted for renewal along with Republican Reps. Robert Aderholt of Haleyville, Spencer Bachus of Birmingham, and Mike Rogers of Saks. Voting against it were Republican Reps. Jo Bonner of Mobile and Terry Everett of Rehobeth.

Editorials

A win for GOP’s business wing

In our opinion

07-21-2006

For some time now, pundits and others have been pointing to this election cycle and predicting that this primary year we would witness a struggle for the soul of the Republican Party.

We cited Alabama and Georgia as test cases.

Here and next door, traditional Republicans were being challenged by the Christian conservative wing of the party and by populist forces often referred to as Wal-Mart Republicans.

These three segments form the coalition that put the Dixie GOP in power. In Alabama, it all started when conservative, business-oriented Democrats broke with that party over issues such as taxes, labor protections, government spending and civil rights. They made little headway as long as George Wallace Sr. could play the race card, but when he left the scene, they were able to exploit that issue to their advantage. Wallace’s former constituency then joined the GOP even though its economic interests lay elsewhere.

Then came the Christian conservatives, and with them in the Republican camp, the coalition was complete.

And the stage was set for conflict.

Although most members of the party could be classified as social conservatives, the business wing never really put Christian conservative issues at the top of its agenda. And while spokesmen for the religious right could and did talk at length about keeping taxes low and government in check, the business wing was uneasy when things like the display of the Ten Commandments seemed to take precedence over efforts to attract new industries to the state.

And then there was the old Wallace crowd, distrustful both of big business and mega-churches, but without anyone to focus their feelings in a campaign.

Until this year. This year, the son of the first George Wallace emerged to challenge the business bunch’s anointed candidate. At the same time, Christian conservative champions Roy Moore, Tom Parker and (over in Georgia) Ralph Reed ran against traditional Republican stalwarts and (by implication) against traditional Republicanism.

The response by the business wing of the party was swift and complete. All across the board, Christian conservative and populist candidates were defeated. So overwhelming was the victory that the political futures of Moore, Parker, Wallace and Reed are in serious doubt.

But what about the political future of the Republican Party in Dixie? Just how badly did the recent elections damage the coalition, and can GOP business leaders rebuild it in time for the November general election? What are the issues around which to rally the troops?

Traditional Republicans may have won control of the party, but it will take some serious fence mending for them to win against Democrats in the fall.