The following are excerpts of editorials from US newspapers.The Huntsville Times, on the 1965 Voting Rights Act

This is fact: Many states, particularly in the South, historically kept minorities from voting through poll taxes, literacy tests and other devices. The goal was whites-only voting.This is fact: The 1965 Voting Rights Act helped minorities gain equal access to the ballot box. It enfranchised US citizens without regard to colour, creed or anything else. It made this country more democratic — and better.

This is politics: Opponents say the Act should not be renewed because it “singles out” Southern states. It’s no longer needed since discrimination has disappeared. And, in particular, printing ballots in different languages in certain areas — as the Act provides for — should be discontinued.

Of course the bill focuses on the South. That’s where discrimination was most rampant.

The Act prevents districts with histories of discrimination from making changes in voting procedure without Justice Department approval. That way minorities don’t show up at the polls to find the rules have been changed at the last minute. ...

The House Judiciary Committee recommended the Act be extended for 25 years. The full House should do likewise. At least it should if it wants to maximise participation in the democratic process, rather than play politics with a basic freedom.

Courier-Post, Cherry Hill, New Jersey, on pay raises for Congress

When Americans are facing tight budgets, public servants should not be giving themselves raises.

The US House of Representatives last week quietly allowed a plan to move forward that would raise members’ salaries by two percent to $168,500. The median household income in 2004 was $53,692, according to the US Census Bureau.

Good luck finding information about the pay raise bill if you don’t know where to look — it’s tucked away in legislation to fund the Department of Transportation and other agencies.

If members of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives think they deserve this raise, why didn’t they do it in the light of day?

The raise and remainder of the bill now heads to the US Senate, where we hope Sens. Frank Lautenberg, D-Cliffside Park, and Robert Menendez, D-Hoboken, will join the opposition to the underhanded maneuver.

The minimum wage today is $5.15 an hour, or $10,700 a year. It has not been raised since 1997. During the same period, however, annual congressional pay has increased by $31,000.

That’s simply wrong, and something needs to be done about it.

The Watertown Daily Times on warrantless surveillance

It is good that the White House and Congress are discussing the legal status of the warrantless surveillance program.

After it was discovered that the National Security Agency was monitoring phone conversations between people in the United States and overseas, the Bush administration said it had the power to do so when terrorism was suspected.

Yet Congress and civil liberties groups argued that the president could not simply allow federal agents to spy on such communications without a warrant. After all, a special court was created for the purpose of issuing warrants in such cases.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that the Bush administration and Congress are close to an agreement on changing a 1978 law that required the government to get court approval before eavesdropping on phone calls and the like.

After the programme was revealed in December, the White House refused to change the law, saying it already had the power to order surveillance of some conversations. ...

Why not obtain a warrant in these cases?