00                      SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 29                                                                    
01 Urging the President of the United States and the United States Congress to amend and                                   
02 update the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965.                                                                           
03 BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF ALASKA:                                                               
04       WHEREAS the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States ensures                                
05 that the right of citizens of the United States to vote is not denied on account of race or color;                      
06 and                                                                                                                     
07       WHEREAS the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States grants                                 
08 the United States Congress the authority to protect the right to vote; and                                              
09       WHEREAS the United States Congress has exercised its authority to protect the right                             
10 to vote by passing landmark legislation of the civil rights era known as the Voting Rights Act                          
11 of 1965 (42 U.S.C. 1971 et seq.); and                                                                                   
12       WHEREAS secs. 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 have contributed to the                                  
13 immense progress in protecting each citizen's right to vote over the past few decades by                                
14 ensuring that state and local election practices are just and fair; and                                                 
15       WHEREAS the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized in 2006 for 25 years with broad                                  
16 bipartisan support, including a unanimous vote in the United States Senate; and                                         

01       WHEREAS the late United States Senator Ted Stevens, United States Senator Lisa                                  
02 Murkowski, and Congressman Don Young all voted in favor of reauthorizing the Act; and                                   
03       WHEREAS the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been an extremely important tool in                                   
04 defending the right of voters in the state to just and fair access to the polls, including a 2011                       
05 decision by the United States Department of Justice preventing the state from eliminating                               
06 several voting precincts in rural Alaska, which would have forced voters in three small,                                
07 predominantly Native villages to travel up to 77 miles off the road system to exercise their                            
08 right to vote; and                                                                                                      
09       WHEREAS the Supreme Court of the United States, in Shelby County v. Holder, 570                                 
10 U.S. ___ (2013), recently held that the coverage formula in sec. 4 of the Voting Rights Act of                          
11 1965 is unconstitutional and can no longer be used as a basis for requiring certain jurisdictions                       
12 to subject their proposed changes in voting procedures to federal preclearance under sec. 5 of                          
13 the Act;                                                                                                                
14       BE IT RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature urges the United States                                        
15 Congress and the President of the United States to enact amendments to the Voting Rights Act                            
16 of 1965 that would restore sec. 4 with a new coverage formula and update the entire Act in                              
17 order to address ongoing violations of voting rights in the states.                                                     
18       COPIES of this resolution shall be sent to the Honorable Barack H. Obama, President                             
19 of the United States; Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Vice-President of the United States and                           
20 President of the U.S. Senate; the Honorable John Boehner, Speaker of the U.S. House of                                  
21 Representatives; the Honorable Harry Reid, Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate; and the                                  
22 Honorable Lisa Murkowski and the Honorable Mark Begich, U.S. Senators, and the                                          
23 Honorable Don Young, U.S. Representative, members of the Alaska delegation in Congress.