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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (March 29, 2017)
Page 2 The Skanner March 29, 2017 Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now Bernie Foster Founder/Publisher Bobbie Dore Foster Executive Editor Jerry Foster Advertising Manager Christen McCurdy News Editor Patricia Irvin Graphic Designer Melanie Sevcenko Reporter Monica J. Foster Seattle Office Coordinator Susan Fried Photographer 2016 MERIT AWARD WINNER The Skanner Newspaper, es- tablished in October 1975, is a weekly publication, published every Wednesday by IMM Publi- cations Inc. 415 N. Killingsworth St. P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 Telephone (503) 285-5555 Fax: (503) 285-2900 info@theskanner.com www.TheSkanner.com The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. ©2017 The Skanner. All rights re served. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission prohibited. Local News Pacific NW News World News Opinions Jobs, Bids Entertainment Community Calendar RSS feeds BE A PART OF THE CONVERSATION @theskannernews Opinion On Anniversary of the VRA, the Fight Continues Fifty-one years ago, on March 24, 1966, the United States Supreme Court struck down the last poll taxes in this country. It was a victory for the American people and for the case’s lead plaintiff, Annie A. Harper, an elderly African-American woman who could not afford to pay Virginia’s poll tax to cast her ballot. That spring, it looked like the United States was on its way towards a democracy where all voting-age Ameri- cans would have access to the polls. The Supreme Court’s 1966 decision to strike down the Virginia poll tax knocked down one of the last pillars of the Jim Crow era. And just the year before, in August of 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act (VRA), our nation’s most powerful tool for protecting the vote. Now, in 2017, more than 50 years later, the same racial and economic discrimina- tion continues to haunt our elections. Old battles have be- come new again. As minority voters and low-income Amer- icans face new barriers to participating in our democra- cy, the anniversary of Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections is less of a celebration and more of a reminder that our fight for voting rights is far from over. Terri A. Sewell Congress– woman (D-Ala.) Since the Supreme Court gutted the VRA in its 2013 Shelby v. Holder decision, states across the country have enacted a new set of discrim- inatory voting restrictions: voter ID laws. After decades of progress, it is open season for erecting new barriers to “ reach. The price of today’s barri- ers to voting is just as debili- tating and restricting as An- nie Harper’s poll tax. Consider the cost of today’s voter ID laws. In my home state of Alabama, some rural voters have to drive over an hour to acquire a state-issued photo ID, which can often mean taking time off of work. There are also rural voters who don’t have birth certifi- cates or the verifying docu- ments necessary for getting proper identification, and those documents cost money More than 50 years after Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, ra- cial and economic discrimination continues to haunt our elections voting. Voter protections in states with a history of dis- crimination have been erased, and as states implement voter ID laws limiting access to the polls, the impact of these pol- icy changes is eerily familiar. When Annie Harper brought her case to the Su- preme Court in 1966, her law- suit asked the Court to rule on a $1.50 poll tax charged by the Virginia Board of Elections. For a low-income senior like Harper living on a fixed income, that fee was out of to acquire. For many voters, the hidden costs of obtaining a voter ID create modern bar- riers to voting. No democracy should ask voters to make these sacrific- es in order to be heard. The impact is to deprive certain Americans, often voters from minority communities and disabled voters, of a voice in our democracy. The strength of our democracy lies in the ability of all its citizens to vote. If one person’s vote is denied, it goes to the very in- tegrity of our democracy. In addition to fostering a more responsive, more di- verse democracy, the right to vote and engage in our elec- tions is a right that runs to the core of who we are as a coun- try. It is a right embedded in our Constitution. For me, the right to vote is a fundamental principle of our democracy, and one we have a sacred ob- ligation to protect. That’s why I was outraged when the Trump Administra- tion announced recently that it would drop its support for a challenge to discriminato- ry voter ID laws in Texas. For six years, the federal govern- ment stood side by side with plaintiffs against Texas’ voter ID law because it targets Af- rican-American and Latino voters. Federal courts have consistently ruled that the law is unconstitutional and petitioned Texas to fix it, a decision which the Justice De- partment’s new position now puts in jeopardy. For those of us watching the attack on voting rights un- fold, we have a responsibility to speak up and speak out. We stand on the shoulders of giants in the voting rights movement and we will never be able to repay the debt. Read the rest of this commentary at TheSkanner.com Mr. President, What If It Was Your Mama? During the summer before the election, then-presiden- tial nominee Donald Trump, added this message to his speeches: “You’re living in poverty; your schools are no good; you have no jobs; 58 percent of your youth is un- employed. What the hell do you have to lose?” It was an attempt to appeal to Black voters. Needless to say, this was an unusual way of trying to ex- pand his political base among a constituency that had not shown much support for the GOP in recent years. President Trump is per- haps the first political candi- date to knowingly insult the very ones to whom he was appealing for votes. What also made these appeals to Af- rican-Americans outside of the norm, and even bizarre, is that they were often made before predominantly, White audiences. After reviewing the presi- dent’s first budget proposal, titled “America First: A Bud- get Blueprint to Make Amer- ica Great Again,” his question of “What the hell do you have to lose?” can now be more broadly posed beyond Afri- can-Americans. Based on his fiscal priorities, many Amer- icans, including a significant Austin R. Cooper NNPA Columnist number of those who voted for him, stand to lose a great deal. Unfortunately for some, Hell might seem like a better alternative than trying to sur- “ poverty. Therefore, pain and hard- ship will be felt if Congress enacts the cuts. Meals on Wheels delivers food to individuals at home who are unable to purchase or prepare their own meals. The name is often used ge- nerically to refer to home-de- livered meal programs, not all of which are actually named “Meals on Wheels.” Research has shown that home-delivered meal pro- the states and say, ‘Look we want to give you money for programs that don’t work.’” Try telling someone, who is no longer experiencing hunger pains due to Meals on Wheels, that the program does not work. President Trump is blessed to have never gone hungry a day in his life. However, I wish that he would visit with 56-year-old Linda Preast in Macon, Geor- gia. During a recent inter- view on “CBS Evening News,” Ms. Preast was asked if she was sur- prised by the spending cuts to Meals on Wheels being proposed by the president. She replied, “Yeah, because I was told—I was under the [impression] that he was going to help us.” The reporter then asked, “What would you tell him to convince him not to cut the program?” Ms. Preast re- sponded, “What if it was your mama?” Ms. Preast, who is White, poor and confined to a wheel- chair due to a stroke, signed up for Meals on Wheels two years ago. Based on President Trump’s fiscal pri- orities, many Americans, including a significant number of those who vot- ed for him, stand to lose a great deal vive under some of the presi- dent’s proposed cuts. Take, for example, the “Meals on Wheels” Program. The president’s budget iden- tified steep cuts in numerous domestic programs. It calls for the elimination of a key program that Meals on Wheels groups depend on: a $3 billion program—com- munity development block grants (CDBG)—that began under the Ford administra- tion to combat poverty by giv- ing states and cities greater flexibility in how to combat grams significantly improve diet quality, increase nutrient intakes and improve the qual- ity of life among recipients. The program also reduces government expenditures by reducing the need of recipi- ents to use hospitals, nursing homes or other expensive community-based services. Mick Mulvaney, the new director of the Office of Man- agement and Budget recently stated, “We can’t spend mon- ey on programs just because they sound good…to take the federal money and give it to Read the rest of this commentary at TheSkanner.com