Roland Martin talks to Dr. Brian Smedley and Rep. Marcia Fudge about the effects of the sequestration on minorities.

A transcript of this interview can be found at Roland Martin Reports.

Dreaded automatic federal spending cuts, otherwise known as “sequestration,” swept into Washington on Friday. Eleventh hour meetings were hastily scheduled, yet players on both sides of the aisle seemed resigned to the reality of $86 billion suddenly snatched from the federal budget.

Opposing sides argued all week over how severe the cuts would be and whose idea it was in the first place. However, the stubborn resolves of Democrats and Republicans on and off Capitol Hill offered little hope of any foreseeable compromise.

“There’s another huge event that takes place that could be even worse, and that’s when the Continuing Resolution on March 27 takes place,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) told the Tribune. Meeks is holding out hope that a deal can be reached some time before Congress negotiates short-term spending plans by the end of March. Some observers are counting on that moment when House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) can finally sit down and avoid fiscal calamity.

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Experts worry most about the unemployment benefits being reduced by 10 percent – not good for African Americans who are still facing a jobless rate double the national average. And even as local communities fret over struggling school systems, the sequester axe takes no prisoners on education when cutting $3 billion in financial aid for low income students and in desperately needed school programs servicing at-risk youth.

Also alarming is the impact sequestration would have on key public health services affecting people of color, especially women and children. “Sequestration would result in 25,000 fewer breast and cervical cancer screenings, 42,000 fewer HIV tests and 900,000 fewer patients served at Community Health Centers,” says Dr. Brian Smedley, vice president and director of the Health Policy Institute at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. “There are just so many vital programs that detect chronic diseases earlier, and this is critical since we have a higher burden of disease in the community.”

Read more at The Philadelphia Tribune.

The budget cuts known as "the sequester" will hit communities of color particularly hard when they take effect Friday, according to a panel discussion Thursday at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington.

The sequester, as the cuts are known inside the Beltway, "hampers federal efforts to protect health, prevent disease and disability, and promote opportunity for communities already burdened by risks for poor health," said Brian D. Smedley of the JCPES.

While the poor are shielded from many cuts (Social Security and Medicaid are exempt), the sequester will affect some programs that disproportionately serve people of color. Screenings and tests offered through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be cut, according to the JCPES, as will federal funding for community health centers and early childhood care and education programs, as well as WIC, the program that provides supplemental nutrition for women, infants, and children.

In practical terms, that means CDC would provide 424,000 fewer HIV tests and 25,000 fewer breast and cervical cancer screenings for low-income, high-risk women, the JCPES said, citing a recent House Appropriations Committee report. Federal funding for community health centers would be cut by $120 million, which could mean that 900,000 fewer patients would be served. About 70,000 children would lose access to Head Start, and 600,000 low-income pregnant and breastfeeding women and their children could be cut from the WIC rolls.

Because racial and ethnic minorities, who represent 37 percent of the overall U.S. population, disproportionately use those services, panelists worry that those communities will be hit hard by the cuts.

Read more at National Journal.

Voting districts designed to increase the chances of electing minority candidates, a fixture in the South, could be dismantled if the Supreme Court invalidates a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.

The court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a case that challenges Section 5 of the 1965 landmark law. The section bars all or part of 16 states, including Louisiana, from making any changes to their election procedures without first proving the changes wouldn’t discriminate against minority voters. A ruling is expected in a few months.

If the court rules Section 5 is no longer necessary, states and counties and local governments subject to the provision would not have to submit new election maps to the Justice Department for review.

Civil rights advocates say that would open the door for jurisdictions like many in the South — where blacks tend to vote for black candidates and whites tend to vote for white candidates — to redraw districts in a way that makes it harder for minorities to get elected.

“There is no doubt in my mind that if there is no Section 5, the eight black (state) Senate districts in Alabama would disappear in the very near future,” said Democratic state Sen. Hank Sanders, who holds one of those eight seats.

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Most state legislatures would push more minority voters into one district, said David Bositis, a senior fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank that focuses on issues affecting blacks.

“White voters in most of the Southern states, not all… are Republicans and so the whiter the district, the more likely it’s going to be a Republican district,’’ Bositis said. “They’re going to want to pack black voters into as few districts as possible.’’

Read more at the Shreveport Times.

Five policy experts delved into details on how impending sequestration cuts will further disadvantage those who depend on federal assistance programs, particularly people of color, during a Thursday panel discussion at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

At the event, entitled The Impact of Sequestration on the Health and Well-Being of Communities of Color and held on the eve of the sequestration’s March 1 effective date, panel members discussed the array of health, human development, and environmental programs that are important to communities of color and which face particularly devastating cuts.  Among them are the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), Head Start, HIV prevention and testing, and the federal program that provides low-income, uninsured, and underinsured women access to breast and cervical cancer screening and diagnostic testing.  

Brian Smedley, Ph.D., Vice President of the Joint Center and Director of its Health Policy Institute, reported that the sequestration will result in 600,000 women, infants, and children losing WIC services, 70,000 children losing access to Head Start programs, 900,000 fewer patients served by community health centers and 25,000 fewer cancer screenings and 424,000 fewer HIV tests being covered by CDC funds. The proportion of people of color in each program ranges from 46 to 77 percent, he said.
 

Download the entire press release by clicking the icon below.

A panel of experts will discuss the potential impact of the sequestration program cuts on communities of color at a Thursday morning event hosted by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

The event will take place on Thursday, February 28, 2013 from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. at the Joint Center, located at 805 Fifteenth Street, NW, in Washington, DC. The package of automatic across-the-board spending cuts will go into effect on Friday, March 1, unless President Obama and Members of Congress are able to hammer out an agreement to avoid the harmful impact they are expected to have on the economy, jobs, and the most vulnerable members of society.

“While most Americans will feel the impact of the sequestration, these cuts will have a particularly devastating effect on communities of color, where many people are still struggling to join the economic recovery,” said Ralph B. Everett, the Joint Center’s President and CEO.  “To pull the rug out from under them would be destructive and would not serve the nation well.”  

The participants for Thursday’s panel are:

• Ellen Nissenbaum, Senior Vice President for Government Affairs, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities;
• Liany Elba Arroyo, Associate Director, Education and Children's Policy Project, National Council of La Raza;
• Amber D. Ebarb, Program Manager, Policy Research Center, National Congress of American Indians;
• Priscilla Huang, J.D., Policy Director, Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum;
• Brian Smedley, Ph.D., Vice President and Director, Health Policy Institute, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies;
• Ralph B. Everett, Esq., President and CEO, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies (Moderator)

To read the entire press release, click the icon below. For event information and registration, visit our Events page.

The Voting Rights Act that goes on trial at the Supreme Court on Wednesday has helped boost African Americans' presence in Southern legislatures. But in a twist of irony, it also has contributed to their loss of political clout.

Since its passage in 1965, the law's Section 5 has forced states with a history of racial discrimination to clear changes in voting procedures with the federal government. The Justice Department, in turn, has insisted that drawing district lines is one of those procedures – one that should give blacks and other minorities ample opportunity to elect their preferred candidates.

That has led to the creation of so-called majority-minority election districts dominated by blacks or Hispanics, nearly all of them Democrats. Achieving that goal, however, has required the simultaneous creation of more heavily white, Republican districts in surrounding areas.

Although the Voting Rights Act has played a major role in the South's racial transformation, it also has played a supporting role in its political transformation. In 1965, every state legislature was Democratic. In 2013, they are all Republican.

"African Americans are totally and completely shut out of any political influence, with a few exceptions, in the Southern states," says David Bositis, senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Read more at USA Today.

A key step in achieving asset-building goals is developing a solid legislative strategy. The Joint Center has collaborated with the RAISE Florida Network to develop a legislative strategy to help achieve the coalition's goals with regard to funding for Individual Development Accounts and fostering sustainable homeownership. To learn more about this strategy, view our recent webinar or browse just the webinar slides.

Joint Center policy scholar Dr. Wilhelmina Leigh joins a distinguished group of experts to discuss "Health, Housing, and Education: Core Needs of the Population" at Howard University's Fourth Annual African American Economic Summit on February 1, 2013.

Joint Center President and CEO Ralph B. Everett joins Dr. Wayne A. I. Frederick and Elsie Scott of Howard University to welcome participants to Howard University's Fourth Annual African American Economic Summit on February 1, 2013.