Another issue that has baffled me is how, even with nearly four decades of rulings by the Supreme Court -- under both liberal and conservative chief justices -- allowing elections officials to use bilingual ballots so CITIZENS, not illegal immigrants, may cast an informed vote, so many members of Congress and the American public think this is a bad thing.  This is a view generated by the flammable debate over illegal immigration, even though the two issues are not related.

"If someone wants the right to vote, pay taxes, be a legal citizen they should do it in English.  If they are too lazy or stupid to learn English they should be returned to their native country," an Arizona woman wrote me a few weeks ago, completely ignorant that this IS the native country for Alaska Natives and Native Americans, who don't always speak English.

And, of course, she conveniently ignored the fact that for decades, literacy tests and English requirements were unfairly used to keep law-abiding, tax-paying, hard-working nonwhite Americans from voting.

Never mind that the House Judiciary Committee found countless examples of how, even with the Voting Rights Act, voters have been disenfranchised or otherwise blocked from voting, or that a historically divided committee that has fought in recent years over immigration, the Patriot Act, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and treatment of enemy combatants approved the Voting Rights Act reauthorization bill on a nearly unanimous 33-1 vote.

Then there was this incredible statement of disregard from Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-NC, for his constituents in two counties in his district that are covered under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act: "I will not go along with bad public policy in the name of political correctness. . . . This bill is a 1960s solution for a 21st-century world," he was quoted in the Washington Post as saying.

Never mind that he had 12 opportunities to come up with a "21st-century solution" before the Judiciary Committee, like all other members of Congress, and failed on all counts. No, he'd just rather run his mouth and spout political claptrap than work for a solution.  As Macbeth might have put it, McHenry's quote is very much the "tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Folks, some people in this country just don't get it, or don't want to get it.  You can't proclaim to spread democracy around the globe when you don't protect it at home!  I've said it before, and will continue to say it: we profess to the world and everyone in it that we believe in the right to vote, but in practice we treat it as a privilege that can be granted or denied.  In that light, America has a long way to go before we can lay claim to be the democracy we say we are.

We can't let last week's vote lull us to sleep. We've got to work much harder to make sure the Senate approves a Voting Rights Act extension without the shenanigans the House produced last week.

The next act begins on Wednesday, when the Senate Judiciary Committee takes up its version of the Voting Rights Act reauthorization, S 2703. A few senators, including Tom Coburn, R-OK, John Cornyn, R-TX, and Jeff Sessions, R-AL, may offer some kind of amendments to slow this bill down.  And Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-TN, says the bill will pass the Senate but needs to be nudged to make it happen before Congress takes its August recess.  While last week's House vote is encouraging, but there's much more work ahead.

Stay tuned...