VRA Timeline Second Draft

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I
1	Date	Event	Pages referenced	Actor	Action	Tools	Effects	Uncertainty

2	July 2 1964	Civil Rights Act of 1964 Signed Into Law
3	July 4-5 1964	Two SNCC workers arrested for trying to desegregate the Thirsty Boy restaurant, Seventy-one African Americans arrested while attempting to register to vote.	Page 15	Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark	Two SNCC workers arrested for trying to desegregate the Thirsty Boy restaurant, Seventy-one African Americans arrested while attempting to register to vote.	Arrest Power
4	[some time in 1964, perhas still July]	Circuit Court issues injunction against gatherings of three or more in Selma	Page 15	Circuit Court Judge James Hare	Circuit Court issues injunction against gatherings of three or more in Selma	injunction	Gave legal legitimation to the actions Jim Clark was likely to take regardless.	Should a more progressive Sheriff be elected, they could ignore the injunction.
5	January 2 1965	King arrives in Selma to challenge the injunction (in the streets, not the court)	Page 16
6	January 18 1965	SNCC and SCLC team up to lead joint voter registration marches	Page 16	SNCC + SCLC	Organize African Americans in Dallas County to march down to the Dallas County Courthouse to register to vote.	Organizational procedure and leadership structure	Force the issue. EIther they will register, and therefore increase the power of the black vote in Dallas County, or they will have to be stopped over and over, day after day, in front of cameras.	Other than the fact that the issue will be forced, the possibilities were many, among them that the confrontation would stir up a riot, that they will simply be killed on the spot, and all of it without advancing their cause.
7	February 1 1965	"King and five hundred schoolchildren were thrown in jail."	Page 16
8	February 18 1965	Marion protest attacked by Alabama State Troopers	Page 16-17	200 protesters	marched from Zion United Methodist Church to the Perry County jail to protest the arrest of SCLC worker James Orange	Organizational procedure and leadership structure
9	February 18 1965	Marion protest attacked by Alabama State Troopers	Page 16-17	State Troopers	attacked the protesters, shot and killed Jimmie Lee Jackson (protester)
10	March 5 1965	King and Johnson meet again	Page 17
11	March 5 1965	rough draft of voting rights bill finished by DOJ	Page 17	DOJ Civil Rights Division
12	March 6 1965	SNCC Debates whether to march from selma to Montgomery	Page 17
13	March 7 1965	King sent Young to Selma to cancel the march	Page 19
14	March 7 1965	Bloody Sunday	19-20	John Lewis, Hosea Williams, 600 others	Marched towards Montgomery from Selma
15				Alabama State Troopers, Sheriff Jim Clark and his deputies	Inflicted violence on the marchers and arrested them
16				Lafayette Surney	Reported minute by minute to SNCC headquarters
17	March 7 1965	ABC Shows footage of Bloody Sunday on prime time TV	3	ABC Producers (who made this call??)	Interrupting a prime time premier of Judgment at Nuremburg to show footage from Selma, because of the fame of the actors in the cast, an estimated 48 million Americans were watching (credible source) (OK source)	prime time spot in the big three networks era, film crew on the ground putting together 15 minutes of potent footage, a premiere of a movie with a celebrity cast to draw an even bigger audience, the thematic parallels (was this intentional?)	A very well delivered punchline by an expert comedian. The "room," which was public opinion, was completely transformed. A political window of opportunity was created. Page 21: everyone was telling Johnson he was moving TOO SLOW on a voting rights bill
18	March 8-9 1965	"In the forty-eight hours following Bloody Sunday there were sympathy marches in eighty American cities, sit-ins at the Justice Department, twenty-four-hour pickets outside the White House, and all-night vigils at Brown Chapel. Hundreds of white ministers heeded King’s call and descended on Selma, many demonstrating in the civil rights movement for the first time. Fifteen thousand people marched in Harlem; white sisters from the Nuns of Charity in their black habits linked arms with radical black activists from SNCC. In solidarity Wisconsinites walked fifty-four miles from Beloit to Madison, the same distance as Selma to Montgomery. Olympic medalists ran from New York to Washington along U.S. 1 carrying an unlit freedom torch to deliver to the president."	20-21
19	March 8-9 1965 (unclear from text)	Federal Court injunction against marching in Selma	21	Alabama Governor George Wallace	Seeking injunction in federal court against a march from Selma	Filing a motion	Obtained an injunction
20	March 8-9 1965 (unclear from text)	Federal Court injunction against marching in Selma	21	Federal court	granted injunction	Injunction, a statement of the court banning certain actions. Can only be enforced by the exective.	Providing formal legal sanction for cracking down on the Selma protesters, but is not self-enforcing.
21	March 9 1965	March to bridge	22-23	Attorney General Nicolas Katzenbach	Called MLK to talk him out of marching		Failed
22				MLK and two thousand marchers	Marched to bridge, prayed, turned back so as not to violate injunction		Forced another confortation with law enforcement but kept to letter of law
23				Alabama State Troopers, Sheriff Jim Clark and his deputies	Allowed marchers to proceed this time		Did not create the possibility of another national broadcast with violence against the protesters, but also created the impression of having been defeated by the first march
24	March 9 1965	Jim Reeb assaulted	23	four locals	assaulted Jim Reeb, a white Unitarian minister, and his friends		Reeb died and suddenly there was a white casualty in the news. This had a different rhetorical impact than the white on black violence (unfortunately).
25	March 12 1965	Johnson meets with civil rights leaders		Johnson	"The Episcopal bishop Paul Moore, Jr., of New York asked the president why it had taken so long for legislation to reach Congress. “Two reasons,” Johnson replied. “First, it’s got to pass. We can’t risk defeat or dilution by filibuster on this one. This bill has got to go up there clean, simple and powerful. Second, we don’t want the law declared unconstitutional. unconstitutional. This can’t be just a two-line bill, as somebody suggested. The wherefores and therefores are insurance against that.”"
26	March 13 1965	Johnson announces intention to introduce VRA	24	Johnson
27	March 15 1965	Joint session of Congress	25-27, http://www.lbjlibrary.org/lyndon-baines-johnson/speeches-films/president-johnsons-special-message-to-the-congress-the-american-promise	Johnson	Speech introducing the bill, making the case for it, while 70 million Americans tuned in	the power to introduce bills, the "bully pulpit" of being able to address the joint session in front of cameras	Bill introduced for Congress to debate, amend, pass or vote down. Rhetorical effects skyrocketed Johnson's popularity, 4/5ths of Americans supported the bill according to a Gallup poll.
28	March 17 1965	March to Montgomery authorized	27	Judge Frank Johnson	(probably the result of Johnson's speech and the general media scrutiny)
29	March 18 1965	First hearings on the VRA in the House	30-32	House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee Number 5, Emanuel Celler
30	March 18 1965	First hearings on the VRA in the House	30-32	Katzenbach	https://twitter.com/adamgurri/status/1348381939737231363?s=20
31	March 23 1965	Senate Judiciary Committee hearings begin	32-33	Senate Judiciary Committee
32	March 25 1965	KKK murders white activist Viola Liuzzo	33		https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/12/15/a-white-mother-went-to-alabama-to-fight-for-civil-rights-the-klan-killed-her-for-it/		Kept support for bill
33	March 28 1965	Senate votes to limit Judiciary Committee Debate	33	Senate vote	67-13 vote to limit the Judiciary Committee debate to three weeks	motion to limit debate	Made it impossible to kill the bill by eating up time
34	May 25 1965	Senate passes the bill	33	Senate floor vote	73-19 vote to pass	floor vote	If House agrees, bill goes to President. If not, Senate and House work to harmonize.
35	July 9 1965	House passes the bill	33	House floor vote	333-85 to pass	floor vote
36	August 5 1965	Doar sets aggressive schedule for agents to enforce VRA as soon as the law is on the books	37-39		Trained 100 agents and gave them field manuals and made them ready to head to the biggest areas of resistance ASAP
37	August 6 1965	VRA signed into law	34	Johnson	Signs the bill	requirement that president sign bills to give them force of law	bill became a statute
38	August 11-16 1965	Watts Riots	55, 63	Rioters	Rioting		ended the political window that had made VRA possible (but after VRA passed). Radicalized the civil rights movement
39	August 9 - unclear 1965	Federal officials sent to register voters in Selma	39-41	Timothy Mullis and his staff	"The examiners set up registration offices in county government buildings, local post offices, or makeshift trailers if they couldn’t find any other space." "The examiners registered 1,733 voters on day two, easily surpassing in two days the 1,764 black voters who had been registered in the nine counties before the VRA took effect. By the close of business on Friday, 7,000 black voters had been registered, four times as many as were previously on the rolls. That number jumped to 20,000 by August 21, when the Civil Service Commission’s president, John Macy, briefed LBJ at his ranch in the Texas Hill Country."	Federal official issuing voter certificates directly, without involving state and local officials	African American voters obtaining paperwork with the force of law. They were on the official voter rolls.
40	August 11 1965	New Orleans parish registrar files lawsuit challenging constitutionality of VRA claiming the 24th amendment only banned poll taxes for federal elections but left states the power to set qualifications for state and local elections	43	New Orleans parish registrar Albert P. Gallinghouse
41	August 18 1965	injunction preventing six Alabama counties from adding voters to the rolls	43	George Wallace	Asked local probate judge for injunction	filing a request	received injunction
42	August 18 1965		43	local probate judge	filed injunction against adding voters to rolls in six counties	injunction	formally calls for federal and state election officials to cease registering in those counties until the matter can be heard in court	federal agents could simply opt to ignore, but this in turn might embolden local officials to ignore the voter rolls as the means of establishing registration.
43	October 22 1965	South Carolina files suit challening the constitutionality of VRA	43		filed suit, "alleging that the law “arbitrarily, unconstitutionally and unlawfully” restricted the state’s right to “exercise her sovereign power to prescribe fair and reasonable qualifications for registration of her electorate and the conduct of her elections.”	Suit
44	January 17 - March 7 1966	South Carolina v Katzenbach	44-46	Supreme Court	heard the case directly with no prior appeal from lower courts	Discretion over what cases to hear including whether to hear cases that have yet to go through lower courts	Dispel uncertainty over the Court's stance on the new law	Court cannot act alone; even if they stake out a strong and consistent stance, an ineffective executive will change the character of the law, and they may in the future be undermined by lower courts, which hear many more cases per year.
45					Found in favor of Katzenbach	Court majority deciding the winner of the case	VRA provisions remained in force
46					Affirmed the constitutionality of the VRA tools under litigation	Majority opinion	Sent clear signal of the Court's support for the law and the grounds on which lower courts ought to rule on future cases
47	March 28 1966	Supreme Court struck down poll tax in Virginia	46	Supreme Court
48	May 3 1966	Alabama Democratic Primaries	46	DOJ	The DOJ set up field offices in Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma to monitor the Alabama elections and sent attorneys to twenty-one high-risk counties. The Civil Service Commission dispatched 375 workers as federal observers to seven counties with the worst records of voting discrimination, including Dallas County. Katzenbach sent letters to 4,000 election officials urging them to comply with the law. If there was foul play, the department was going to find it. Berman, Ari. Give Us the Ballot (p. 47). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.
49			46	Martin Luther King, Jr	Campaigned throughout Alabama ahead of the primary		Driving turnout	high uncertainty, no clear way to tell if turnout was influenced by his actions
50			49	Black voters	80 percent turnout
51			49	DOJ	monitored elections and vote counting
52			51-52	George Wallace	led a huge registration drive for whites	campaigning; sent pamphlets to every white high school in the state, set up a commission to encourage registration	signed up 110,000 new white voters in nine months, Lurleen Wallace absolutely crushed her opponent in the governor's race
53			49	Dallas County Executive Committee	At Clark's prompting, rejected six boxes of ballots from black wards in Selma as invalid	The discretion granted over the local party primary to the local party committee	Shrink the difference between Clark and Baker small enough to fall below the threshold that requires a runoff election	Practically begged for a response from the DOJ, given the scrutiny, and even then no guarantee Clark would have won the runoff
54	May 5 1966		50	DOJ files a complaint	Filed complaint with Alabama Southern District Court. Judge was out, so drove to Montgomery and found a friendly judge.	Complaint	Formally asks judge to take action to counteract the rejection of the ballot boxes	Judge could simply deny their request
55	May 5 1966		50	Judge Frank Johnson	filed restraining order against the Dallas County Executive Committee, ordered a trial	restraining order, ability to schedule trials	Stopped the primary election results from being certified until the trial	Unclear what would have happened if the committee had simply ignored the judge and moved forward
56	May 18 1966			Judge Frank Johnson	Rules for the DOJ	Judge's authority to decide cases	The ballot boxes are validated and make Baker the winner, Clark loses his job	very very little uncertainty
57	June 6(?) 1966	Allen v. State Board of Elections	54	Mississippi legislature	Changes the rule from requiring a majority of voters to approve county consolidation to simply requiring two thirds of the legislature, one of 13 changes [see quotes section of draft for specifics, or simply consult pages 54-55]	The power to introduce and pass bills which set the procedure for drawing county lines	"As a result of the legislative change, the two counties Whitley had won, Claiborne and Jefferson, would be consolidated with larger white counties, effectively ensuring that black candidates would not be elected to office."	the DOJ could get involved, the Courts might ultimately rule against the change
58	Sometime between June 1966 and October 1967		56-57	Civil Rights Attorneys	Challenged 3 Mississippi election law changes
59	October 1967		56-57	Three-judge district court in Mississippi	Ruled against the challenge		challengers appealed to the Supreme Court
60	October 16-17 1968		57-58	The Supreme Court	three Mississippi cases joined together with one Virginia one to make Allen v. State Board of Elections
61	March 3, 1969		58-61	The Supreme Court	Ruled 7-2 in favor of challengers, that the law changes needed to be submitted for preclearance.
62	March 3, 1969		https://www.oyez.org/cases/1968/3	The district courts	on the instruction of the Supreme Court, they issued "injunctions restraining further enforcement of the enactments until such time as the states adequately demonstrated compliance with the approval requirements of the Act."
63	March 3, 1969		61	Mississippi legislature	Submitted three challenged law to DOJ for preclearance
64	March 3, 1969		61	DOJ	Rejected the Mississippi laws
65	March 1969	Hadnott v. Amos	76-78	The Supreme Court	"The Court ruled, 6–2, that the Alabama law, which was similar to the restrictions on independent candidates in Mississippi challenged by Clifton Whitley in the Allen case, was unlawful because it had not been submitted to the federal government under Section 5. The Court ordered new elections for July and instructed a district court in Montgomery to examine whether to hold Herndon in contempt."	The power to rule on cases, the contempt power	A new election is called with all the candidates on the ballot.	Locals had already defied a direct order from the Supreme Court. Adding the order for the district court to look into holding Herndon in contempt gave it some teeth. Ultimately federal examiners were dispatched to watch the election, ensuring the Court's orders would be followed this time. Hard to say what would have happened without them.
66	June 1969	1970 VRA ReAuthorization	75	Nixon	Introduces proposed VRA extension which covered the entire country rather than specific jurisdictions, and removed Section 5 (which included preclearance)	the power to introduce legislation, the threat of a veto	Sets the terms for the legislative process around the VRA renewal	Democrats control Congress and aren't going to just go along with it. Tons of congressional actors and interest groups highly interested in the outcome of this process. No telling where things will land, but the power of the veto is quite potent, and with southern members of congress it's impossible there'd be a veto-proof majority against him.
67	July 1969		81	The House Judiciary Committee	Approved an extension of the existing VRA, ignoring the bill introduced by Nixon.	Power to advance a bill through the House internal procedures	Brings a bill closer to a vote. In this case, closer than the President's bill.	Many procedural methods of keeping it from making it to a floor vote. Then it's got to clear the Senate, who may have their own version.
68	Unclear		81	The House Rules Committee	Approved the Nixon bill	Power to advance a bill through the House internal procedures	Brings a bill closer to a vote.	Many procedural methods of keeping it from making it to a floor vote. Then it's got to clear the Senate, who may have their own version.
69	December 12, 1969		81	The House	Passed Nixon's bill 208-203	Power to pass bills	Brings bill closer to passing. Requires passing in the Senate too, or reconciliation with a Senate version. Then requires president's signature or two thirds of both houses.	Could be defeated in the Senate, could be modified in reconciliation, could be vetoed by the president.
70	Unclear		81	Senator Hugh Scott	Introduced compromise legislation tat made the ban on literacy tests national but retained section 5 (so covered jurisdictions had to submit for preclearance).	power to introduce bills
71	March 1970		82	Ted Kennedy	Added provision making 18-year-olds eligible to vote in federal and state elections			could become a pretext for defeating the bill overall
72	June 1970		82	Senate	Passes their Scott-Kennedy version of the bill 64-12	Power to pass bills		has to be reconciled with House bill
73	June 1970		82	House	Concurs with Senate bill 272-132
74	June 23 1970		83	Nixon	Signed VRA Reauthorization into law	Power of the pen	bill becomes a statute	It's Nixon's DOJ that has to continue enforcing the law.	Important context: "volatile situation" Nixon afraid "goddam country" will "blow up" if he doesn't sign
75	1971?	Civil Rights Division letter leaked to the press	86	Civil Rights Division Lawyers	Sent letter to superiors protesting the slowdown of integration in Mississippi
76	Spring 1970	Mississippi open primary law	87	Mississippi legislature	Passes open primary law	power to pass bills
77	unclear 1971		87	Civil Rights Division Lawyers	Urged Jerris Leonard (division head) to reject Mississippi law
78	unclear 1971		87	Jerris Leonard	Recommended allowing the Mississippi law
79	unclear 1971		https://www.clarionledger.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/10/09/minor-open-primaries-almost-came-state/16990079/	Three-judge court blocks the law
80	unclear 1971	New Section 5 Guidelines	87-88	Leonard	Drafted new guidelines transferring burden of proof for rejection to the federal government		Justified a more permissive preclearance policy
81	unclear 1971	Mississippi reregistration law	88-89	Mississippi legislature	Passed a law making everyone who was registered to vote have to register again
82	unclear 1971	Mississippi reregistration law	88-89	AG Mitchell	Did not object to the statute
83	September 1971	Section 5 Guidelines Reversed	89-90	Leonard	Reversed previous guidelines after pressure from both Congress and the Civil Rights Division lawyers		"The number of voting changes submitted by states under Section 5 grew from 110 in 1970 to 333 in 1971 to 1,359 in 1972, and the number of DOJ objections rose from 3 to 14 to 71."
84	August 6 1975	1975 VRA Reauthorization	109-111	House, Senate, President Ford	Added jurisdictions, added protections for language minorities, signed into law
85	October 1971	1982 VRA Reauthorization	135-138	The House	Passes 389-24 a bill modifying Section 2
86	June 18 1982		153-155	The Senate	Passed bill 85-8 with modified Section 2 with effects test, totality of circumstances, and disclaimer that lack of proportional representation was not enough to count as a section 2 violation
87	June 29 1982		155	President Reagan	signed the bill into law
88		Bush I Redistricting stuff	starting page 185
89		Bush II Civil Rights division stuff	Starting page 222
90	2008	Shelby v Holder	268-270	DOJ	Negated the results of 2008 election in Shelby County
91			270	Shelby County Lawyer Frank Ellis	Challenges Section 5 in court
92	February 27, 2013		272-275		Oral arguments
93	June 25 2013		278	Supreme Court	Rules Section 4's coverage formula unconstitutional	judicial review	section 5 no longer has teeth, for it applies to no jurisdiction
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