Civil-Rights Election: The Fast-Track under Pres. Obama

[ThoughtCriminal]

Article Here
July 09, 2008, 6:00 a.m.

Civil-Rights Election
The fast-track under President Obama.

By Peter Kirsanow


Should Barack Obama win this fall, 2009 will a busy year for enacting civil-rights legislation — perhaps the busiest since 1964.

Numerous civil-rights bills have either passed the House or are pending in various committees, just waiting for a Democrat to be elected to the White House. Traditional civil-rights groups anticipate that without the threat of veto, expanded Democratic majorities in Congress will pass a number of these bills in the first few months of 2009. Here are just a few of the bills likely to be signed by a President Obama within the next year.

Reparations
Commission to Study Reparations Proposals for African-Americans Act.
Rep. John Conyers has introduced this legislation every year since 1989, but with a Democrat in the White House and significant congressional majorities, this bill finally has an opportunity to be enacted. The purpose of the bill is to create a commission to study the impact of slavery in the United States and recommend appropriate remedies, including an apology to and reparations for blacks. The House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution held hearings related to the bill in December 2007. The bill is modeled after that which granted reparations to Japanese-Americans interned during World War II.

The Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act (“Akaka Bill”).
The Akaka Bill would create a separate race-based government for persons of Native Hawaiian descent. The race-based government would have the authority to exercise broad sovereign powers, including the ability to negotiate with the federal government concerning criminal and civil jurisdiction, civil-rights protections, and the transfer of lands and national resources. The bill would permit Native Hawaiians to sue the federal government for claims related to the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Its supporters concede that ultimately, secession is a possibility.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that the bill would discriminate on the basis of race and national origin and further subdivide Americans into discrete sub-groups accorded varying degrees of privilege. The White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy strongly opposing the bill. Sen. Obama, a former resident of Hawaii, has pledged his unqualified support for the bill and vowed to sign it if he becomes president.

The Guam World War II Loyalty Recognition Act.
The bill provides $126 million for reparations to residents of Guam who suffered personal injury, forced labor, or internment at the hands of the Japanese during World War II. If those who suffered during the war are deceased, the reparations would flow to their descendants. As opposed to other reparations bills, the funds paid would be unrelated to any alleged policy, action, or damage done by the United States, but rather the actions of another sovereign. Moreover, reparations could be paid to individuals who suffered no direct injury.

Comparable Worth
Fair Pay Act of 2007.
The bill would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to prohibit discrimination in the payment of wages on account of sex, race, or national origin. It’s designed to target the wage gap between male and female employees that the bill’s sponsors maintain stems from employment discrimination. The bill would charge the EEOC with establishing criteria to determine whether a given occupation is dominated by one sex. Employers would be required to send a list of job classifications to the EEOC annually. The list would set forth the race and sex of the employees in the occupations, their rates of pay, and how such pay scales were determined. The federal government would then be charged with determining whether the employees are in “equivalent jobs” and ensuring that employees in those jobs are paid similar wages. Sen. Obama is one of the sponsors of the bill.

Obama has also sponsored the Paycheck Fairness Act that significantly narrows the circumstances under which an employer may use the “bona-fide factor other than sex” affirmative defense in sex-discrimination cases involving wage disparities.


Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity
Employment Non- Discrimination Act.
As originally proposed (H.R. 2015), (“ENDA”) would have amended Title VII to forbid discrimination in employment on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity — adding two new federally protected classes of persons. The original version excluded military and religious organizations from coverage. The exemption for religious employers, however, was narrow — raising significant issues related to religious organizational freedoms protected by the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.

A compromise bill (H.R. 3685) was introduced in September 2007. It did not include gender identity in its scope and it broadened the religious exemption — albeit in a manner that is vague and arguably inconsistent with the language of Title VII. Senator Obama has stated that he supports the expansive version of ENDA that includes gender identity.

Local Law Enforcement Hate Crime Protection Act of 2007.
The bill would make federal crimes of certain violent conduct where such conduct is motivated by the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of the victim. The Bush Administration issued a veto threat. Sen. Obama is one of the sponsors.

Housing Discrimination
Housing Fairness Act of 2007.
The bill directs HUD to conduct a national testing program to detect, document, measure and assess the degree to which individual renters, home buyers, or mortgage borrowers are discriminated against based on race, color, religion, sex, familial status, disability, or national origin.

Voting Rights
Ex-Offenders Voting Rights Act of 2007.
The bill would automatically restore to ex-offenders who have served their sentences the right to vote in federal elections. Presently, 47 states bar incarcerated convicts from voting and 36 states deny paroled felons the right to vote.

It’s estimated that more than four million people have temporarily or permanently lost their right to vote due to a criminal offense. Supporters of the bill maintain that felon disfranchisement laws have a disparate impact on blacks and other minorities. Sen. Obama is one of the sponsors.

Several other bills will have a dramatic impact on employment discrimination litigation should they be enacted: the Civil Rights of 2008 would eliminate existing damage caps on lawsuits brought under Title VII and the Americans with Disabilities Act; the Fair Pay Restoration Act would significantly expand the effective statute of limitations in Title VII discrimination claims; and the ADA Restoration Act would substantially alter the definition of disability under the American With Disabilities Act, as well as eliminate consideration of mitigating measures used by an individual to manage his impairment (anxious Republicans have already agreed upon compromises to the ADA Restoration Act in order to pass something less onerous to employers). The bills should be a boon for employment lawyers.

Even considering the trade-offs and compromises that even a party in complete control of the executive and legislative branches must make, there’s a very good probability that most, if not all, of the foregoing bills will be signed into law if Sen. Obama wins. And it wouldn’t be surprising if even more bills join the list. The interest groups supporting the proposed legislation have been laboring in the wilderness for some time waiting for the harmonic convergence of large majorities in Congress and a Democrat in the White House. They won’t let the moment pass quietly.

— Peter Kirsanow is a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. These comments do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Commission.

[Elmar]

Some of those are ok, some of them are horrible.

Felons should get the right to vote back after a period - after all keeping someone as a second class citizen makes it impossible to fully re-integrate to society.

The Hawaiin thing - stupid. They already have the right to leave the Union if they wish and if they want to then gtfo.

Reparations for Guam -dumb, reparations for blacks - dumb. Creating new classes of protected citizen - I disagree with protected classes (except in the case of dealing with government) entirely for it creates "more equal" citizens.

[CZ40P]

I agree the Hawaiian thing is stupid. There are only a handful Hawaiians left who are of actual descent from the original Hawaiians.

As for black reparations, when does the gravy train end. During the time slavery was legal ,10 million Africans were removed from their homeland. Of that 10 million less than 500,000 actually came to what is now the USA. The rest went to other countries in the Americas. Countries that are not now and never where part of the United States. They went to the sugarcane plantations of Great Britain and Spain. That is why the Caribbean and other areas the the so-called Americas have black populations. They were not indigenous!

Who gets to decide, which black Americans are descended from those five hundred thousand. Or are we, now responsible for the actions of foreign countries like Spain and Great Britain? What of the millions who have since emigrated to the US in those 200 years. I would wager to say that very few of todays black Americans are in fact descendants of actual slaves from The United States of American. Mr Obama in Not!

As a side note, How many Americans of all races died in the Civil War to purge the United States of it's sin. How long is White America supposed to feel guilty for the sins of it's long dead southern grandfathers? 150 years is long enough, get over it.

[knight0334]

When am I gonna get my reparations for my ancestors enslavement by the Egyptian Pharaohs or the Roman Emperors? We were enslaved much longer than the Guam folks, the Jews of WWII, and the blacks from 1492 to 1865. .....times about 4 or 5.

[andrewjs18]

fuck Barack Obama.

The civil rights activists are more racial than any other group I've ever read about. They're so one-sided in anything....White people being racially discriminated against........pfffft..it never happens, at least in their eyes.

while some of these seem to be OK, some are just ludacris...no matter what Obama does to help Black people, they'll always feel that they didn't get something because they're Black, and that's just BS.

they'll have to start working, taking care of their kids, etc......

It's bad enough Jesse Jackson extorts companies and doesn't get locked up for it and he's supposed to be a civil rights activists??!?!?!

[knighthawk06699]

fuck Barack Obama.

The civil rights activists are more racial than any other group I've ever read about. They're so one-sided in anything....White people being racially discriminated against........pfffft..it never happens, at least in their eyes.

while some of these seem to be OK, some are just ludacris...no matter what Obama does to help Black people, they'll always feel that they didn't get something because they're Black, and that's just BS.

they'll have to start working, taking care of their kids, etc......

It's bad enough Jesse Jackson extorts companies and doesn't get locked up for it and he's supposed to be a civil rights activists??!?!?!

I feel the exact same way, my family didn't come to this country till the 1940's. Even then we have always lived above the Mason Dixon line.

Then black people tell me I owe them (which has happened) I am like why and explain to them about my family history and tell them so I owe you nothing. The tell me yes I do I am white and I owe them. I asked them if they thought that comment was a bit racists, I said that would be like me saying all black people are criminals..same thing. He told me black people can not be racists cause they are black. I told him that the only thing that separates a black person from a white person is more melatonin in their skin. So if white people can be racists so can black people! I told him I thought he was racist. He said I was white I would not undestand and he walked away. If the shoe fits wear it.

Oh yeah, FUCK Barack Obama!!!!!!!!!!!!

[andrewjs18]

I feel the exact same way, my family didn't come to this country till the 1940's. Even then we have always lived above the Mason Dixon line.

Then black people tell me I owe them (which has happened) I am like why and explain to them about my family history and tell them so I owe you nothing. The tell me yes I do I am white and I owe them. I asked them if they thought that comment was a bit racists, I said that would be like me saying all black people are criminals..same thing. He told me black people can not be racists cause they are black. I told him that the only thing that separates a black person from a white person is more melatonin in their skin. So if white people can be racists so can black people! I told him I thought he was racist. He said I was white I would not undestand and he walked away. If the shoe fits wear it.

Oh yeah, FUCK Barack Obama!!!!!!!!!!!!

you know what pisses me off the most-when they all think Whites are rich and wealthy and have it good...every White person I know busts their ass for what they have (their home, their family, cars, guns, etc.) while they expect handouts. it's BS!

Go ask a Black person about the slavery still happening in Africa or the black slave owners in the south when slavery was still around-it shuts them up real fast.

Whites don't have civil right activist, college foundations, NCAAP organizations their own TV channel, white prestigious colleges and the such...why? because it's racist.

[CZ40P]

Barack Obama's new book entitled " The Audacity of Bullshit" hits bookshelves this November.

[andrewjs18]

"The Racist President" written by none other than Barack Obama.