Bush tells NAACP he'll sign Voting Rights Act

WASHINGTON — President Bush, making his first personal appearance before the NAACP as president, promised Thursday to sign a long-awaited renewal of the Voting Rights Act.

But it is the renewal of the president's own frayed relations with the African-American community that weighs on the minds of Bush's aides these days — with midterm congressional elections nearing, the president's approval ratings sagging and his party's prospects in question.

And, judging from the mostly silent but polite reaction of rank-and-file members of the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization after Bush ended a five-year hiatus here, the president still has a long way to go.

"He's got a lot of good rhetoric — he makes people feel good," said Joyce Glaise, an NAACP member from Danville, Va. "But I think it was a good, intelligent group of African-Americans here who didn't bite into all the rhetoric. We're tired of the feel-good. We're way beyond that."

The president delivered one welcome promise widely hailed here: extension for another 25 years of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was gaining swift Senate approval on Thursday after a unanimous committee vote the day before and a 390-33 vote approving it in the House last week.

But Bush, who courted the traditionally Democratic black vote during his first campaign for president in 2000 — and eagerly addressed the NAACP convention that year — had turned down return invitations for five years. The White House has cited scheduling conflicts, but it is a political conflict between Bush and often-outspoken NAACP leaders sharply critical of the president's policies that prevented him from returning until this summer.

And on this day, some suspected another political motive in Bush's reappearance.

"He came when he ran for office," said Shirley Jordan of Philadelphia, state secretary for the NAACP in Pennsylvania. "And he's coming today because of the midterm elections."

The White House cites its interest in repairing a rift between Bush and black Americans that worsened in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when thousands of homeless black victims of the storm were stranded without immediate help. And the president here directly confronted "the challenges facing the African-American community after that storm."

"I understand that racism still lingers in America," Bush told the NAACP. "It's a lot easier to change a law than to change a human heart.