"I wish I could say I had a kind of Road to Damascus conversion, but it wasn't like that," says McDonald, a rich southern drawl floating through every sentence. "Growing up in the South, I found blatant examples of discrimination all around me. I never had to look very far."
McDonald was speaking this week by phone from his Atlanta office. Since 1972, he has been the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Voting Rights Project. A lawyer and author, McDonald has argued scores of cases on behalf of minority groups whose voting rights have been squelched or downright scuttled.
Hard to believe a state would pass a law requiring citizens to purchase a special photo ID to show at their polling place - even after they had already legally registered to vote. It happened in 2005 - in the name of preventing voter fraud - in McDonald's home state of Georgia.
Opponents argued the requirement violated the 24th Amendment (which outlaws poll taxes) and discriminated against black voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. A federal judge blocked the law.
Today at noon at the University of Utah's Museum of Fine Arts, McDonald will present the 10th Annual Rocco C. and Marion S. Siciliano Forum Lecture. His topic: "The Future of the Voting Rights Act: Democracy in Danger?"
The event is free and open to the public. Each year this lecture offers a worthy analysis of a pressing social or political issue in American society. The auditorium fills up fast, so get there early.
McDonald's speech is timely. Last summer, Congress overwhelmingly voted to extend provisions of the Voting Rights Act, which President Bush signed into law. A few lawmakers maintained the act's protections were no longer necessary, but their arguments did not hold. McDonald believes success came in large part from reams of documentation proving violations of the law.
"We filed 900 pages of all the litigation we had been involved in since 1982, the last time the same provision was extended," he says. "There were 290 cases. Race remains a very large issue in who gets to vote and be represented in this country."
Georgia's recent statute was a blatant power grab from white Republicans, but McDonald notes both parties throughout history share responsibility in trying to swing elections to their favor.
"In modern times, Republicans have been guilty, but the Democrats made poll taxes, literacy tests, all of it, an art form during [post-Civil War] Reconstruction," he says.
Both parties, he says, euphemistically refer to their actions as "essential to maintaining the integrity of the ballot." McDonald acknowledges state and federal governments are obligated to secure the election process. But political gamesmanship almost always ensures a racial or non-English speaking minority will be denied the franchise or forced to jump through hoops to vote.
Utah is hardly immune. San Juan County has been subjected to federal oversight by poll watchers to protect Navajo Indians from intimidation while voting. Federal authorities dissolved the county's at-large commission in favor of representation from districts. The move assured at least one Indian would serve on the commission.
Ballots must be printed bilingually, as well.
McDonald has represented members of the Sioux tribe in South Dakota and Montana's Crow and Northern Cheyenne in similar cases. The work never ends, and he never tires of it.
"We're justifying a war on the grounds that we need to uphold principles of democracy around the world," he says. "It would be deeply hypocritical to spread that notion around the world while voting in many places in our own country remains so polarized."
hmullen@sltrib.com
