Richard Austin; Pioneered ‘Motor Voter’ Law

Richard H. Austin, 87, who was credited with creating the first “motor voter” law. Austin, Michigan’s longest-serving secretary of state and the first black to hold state office there, fought tenaciously to have his state register voters in the same offices where it registers drivers. Michigan passed the law in 1975, 18 years before Congress adopted a similar nationwide law. “Most black Americans are concerned about voting, and he thought this was a very important innovation,” said Austin’s longtime assistant, Edsell Stallings. During his tenure, from 1970 to 1994, Austin also lobbied for one of the nation’s first mandatory seat belt laws and a motorcycle helmet law. Born in Stouts Mountain, Ala., Austin moved to Detroit with his widowed mother and worked his way through school, becoming a certified public accountant. On Friday in Detroit of a heart attack.