RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina House Republicans stumbled again Thursday in their attempt to approve two new constitutional amendments to be put on the ballot this fall. But they also approved a surprise last-minute proposal, to repeal a piece of the state constitution with a racist history.
The vote to approve a constitutional amendment repealing the state's Jim Crow era literacy test rules passed unanimously, 109-0.
If it's now approved by the state Senate and put before voters this fall, it would be North Carolina's first attempt in 54 years to repeal the rules — which were abused for decades to stop Black North Carolinians and other minorities from voting.
Although literacy test rules in North Carolina and throughout the rest of the U.S. were made unenforceable by the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, they've remained written into North Carolina's state constitution. State lawmakers proposed a constitutional amendment in 1970 asking voters to get rid of the rules, but voters elected to keep the rules in place.
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