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Earlier this year, Josh Gerstein noted, "In a political system where even the most trivial issues trigger partisan rancor, the Voting Rights Act has stood for several decades as a rare point of bipartisan consensus. Until now."
That's true. On Capitol Hill, Republican hostility towards the Voting Rights Act has reached levels unseen in decades, and an even more serious threat to the law's future now looms at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Acting three days after the nation's minority voters showed that they have increased and still growing power in U.S. elections, the Supreme Court agreed on Friday to rule on a challenge to Congress's power to protect those groups' rights at the polls. The Court said it would hear claims that Congress went beyond its authority when it extended for another twenty-five years the nation's most important civil rights law, the Voting Rights Act, originally passed in 1965 and renewed four times since then.
Specially at issue is the constitutionality of the law's Section 5, the most important provision, under which nine states and parts of seven others with a past history of racial bias in voting must get official clearance in Washington before they may put into effect any change in election laws or procedures, no matter how small.
Given the current makeup of the high court, it's not unreasonable to think there are five conservative votes for weakening the landmark civil rights law.
Keep in mind, the Voting Rights Act remains a critically important statute, and was used just this year to block odious voter-ID proposals in Texas and South Carolina.
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The rush is on to hear as many such cases as possible now before anyone of these hacks has to retire. Could this also be seen as a sign that they fear democrats will continue to show up and elect a democrat for president in 2016?
These righties still do not get "it". We the people are tired of nut jobs on the right trying to force their believes and ideology upon us all.
If you hate democracy then go to Iran where theocracy is the norm!
Are you kidding? The popular vote shows a 50/50 split...this slick Chicago huckster may have race baited his way into 4 more...but at some point (midterms) people will get sick of repeated failure and misery.
As of Noon on Friday, with nearly all votes in, Obama assuredly will win the popular vote, leading Romney by a count of 61,173,739 or 50.5% to 58,167,260 or 48.0%. At this point, a few final votes are being counted and then all that's left is for the results to be officially certified
If the Voting Rights Act is weakend there should be rioting and revolt. At least there should be new legislative efforts to renew the intent. The Voting Rights Act is as responsible for the elevation of African American equal rights as anything else. The Republican attack on basic human rights I believe is loosing its effectiveness. The future demographics of America do not bode well for the success of these republican tactics. For the Supreme Court majority to dismantle the Voting Rights Act in order to further voter suprression through voter ID is blatantly absurd but depressingly probable. Talk about your activist judges!
Voter' s being required to have a valid form of ID is only common sense. No wonder you have a problem with it.
A voter registration card is valid ID. Requiring a photo ID only makes sense if we issue photo voter registration cards at easy to access points like libraries and public offices scattered throughout the district so everyone can get there.There would of course be a requirement that any state seeking a birth certificate for registration should have an office responsible to aid citizens in getting a copy and they would also be forced to work out a means for those who never got a birth certificate to verify their citizenship. Those IDs would of course have to be free and there would have to be a free ride for handicapped citizens. Is your state willing to foot the bill for that?Are you?
The wealthy owners of the Supremes have given them their marching orders, since legislative suppression efforts failed. Why would they call into question, with the current history of voter suppression law. this anti-discrimination act? It speaks of 1 %er evil!
How stupid are you? This is the same Supremes idiotic liberals cheered for upholding Hussein care. In America today....the ONLY people discriminated against under power of Law are WHITE. Set asides were intended as a TEMPORARY remedy. there are no laws that discriminate against minorities on the books and the same should be true for Whites as well.
If I may, let me give those of you not familiar with Alabama a better idea of what goes on down here. I actually live in Shelby County, Alabama where this case originated. On Ms. Maddow's show she explained that Shelby County is just outside Birmingham and this is geographically accurate. But it gives the impression that is a like Birmingham. Birmingham itself has changed dramitically since the Voting Rights Act was passed. The leaders are more reflective of the people living in the city. However, what has happened in those years is "white flight" straight to Shelby County. Shelby County has always been a rural bastion of rednecks and racists and rumored to be where the 16th Street Baptist Church Bomb was put together. Today the County is still run by the same people that have always run it with the same good ole boy redneck system. Only now with many white professionals and others moving in to the northern part of the county, they now have a much great financial and political power. It's really a disgusting situation and it will be a long time before the good ole boys are gone. Also it's an embarrassment to many Alabamians that our leaders chose to place our State in the national spotlight for stupidity again, again, and again!
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 should not be weakened!!! I had a student in 1996 who was afraid whites would some day try to take the right to vote away from African Americans. I promised her the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would not permit this. Looking back at the 2012 election, I am afraid that day is here. Look at the states who tried to limit voting rights of Americans. This act needs to be made apply to every state, not just the southerns states. Republicans will try anything to win an election. Make it apply to all fifty states and D.C.!!!
Rachael...Sandra Day Oconner on Election reform!!!! Are you crazy; she is the cause of election fraud!!! The worst decision the Supreme court made against the State's rights...she said in public/when watching the Bush/Gore close vote; 'she would not allow Gore to win'...the most outrageous statement...she has tried to backpedal this/by saying; get over it...She is a coward and shill.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 should not be weakened!!! I had a student in 1996 who was upset because she thought whites were going to try to take the right to vote away from African Americans. I promised her the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would not permit that and if it were to be tried, we all would march and protest with her. Looking back at the 2012 election and the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Flordia, etc, I afraid her fear is here. The Court needs to make it apply to all fifty states and the D.C.!!! We are the United States of America and what happened in some states in the 2012 election should never have happened. Make it stronger!!!
Can someone explain how certain states supposedly have different voting laws.
THAT is the best question I have seen here. Uniform laws should be the rule nationwide.
California's top two primary is for all partisan offices up to the president and veep. The entire state votes in the primary for all state offices (except 1.appointed offices, 2.city councils and 3.county races) and all federal positions except presidential. That may involve d vs d or r vs r in the general election but seems fair to the entire state. A state amendment is how they chose this system.
At oral argument in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder (2009), Justice Anthony M. Kennedy stated:
"Congress has made a finding that the sovereignty of Georgia is less than the sovereign dignity of Ohio. The sovereignty of Alabama is less than the sovereign dignity of Michigan. And the governments in one are to be trusted less than the governments in the other." "No one questions the validity, the urgency, the essentiality of the Voting Rights Act," he added. "The question is whether or not it should be continued with this differentiation between the states." (NY Times)
Can Justice Kennedy's criticism of state-by-state "differentiation" ie "discrimination" inherent in the Voting Rights Act be turned around and applied more broadly, and in terms of the Equal Protection Clause that Bush used in Bush v. Gore?
For example,
1. Is it not discriminatory that voters in some (high density) areas must pass endurance tests (replacing the old "literacy tests"), standing in hours-long lines to exercise their right, tests not required of others who are able to exercise this same right in minutes? (On election day, I was struck by the contrast of long lines in Florida and Ohio to another voter's comment that, when she went to vote at a rural church, there was only one other voter there.)
There have been provisions and adjustments for per capita representation (although clearly we have gone way beyond the demographics enshrined in Article 1: "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative."). Following constitutionally mandated 10-year census, states lose/gain representatives in order to maintain some proportional representation.
Should there not be a similar law regarding access to the means of choosing those officials, beginning at with basic per capita mandates for numbers of polling sites and polling machines?
2. What about interstate "differentiation"/discrimination in voter registration?
See, for example, the comment of anonymoose & squirrel on this thread:
"In Tennessee they have made it almost impossible to register to vote late in the season, not before the period has ended but in the last few weeks. I registered by mail ten days before the deadline to post the letter and they lost it. It wasn't lost in the mail it was lost by the Shelby County Election Commission and they lost 15,000 the same way during the 2008 election."
To begin with, why must voter registration be geared towards the election cycle? This just increases periodic high volume registration that might actually overwhelm local institutions (in addition to incompetence and/or corruption). It makes more sense to have a continuous registration process, which would not put increasing pressure on the system and/or on (potentially disenfranchised) voters as election day nears.
On his/her 18th birthday, the government should send each eligible voter a voter-registration form and/or information on how to register. Every child born in the US receives a social security number. This means that there already exists a system with the tools to track the age of every native-born American. (As those eligible for the draft found out during the Vietnam War era!) Of course, it would help if there was standardized federal voter registration, but it is still not impossible on a state-by-state basis
Hi Rachel,
A voting rights commission co-chaired with Sandra Day O'Connor would never be credible: Her vote in Bush-Gore-2000, her looney reasoning (Bush would be harmed by a recount, et al), and her stated wish that she wanted to retire under a republican president is enough to undermine her role and taint her recommendations in anything to do with voting rights in America. Please reconsider your wish. As for Hillary, anything she does that propels her towards the White House in 2016 is worth doing.
In view of the GOP efforts to disenfranchise people, section 5 should be expanded.
The Voting Rights Act (VRA) must be upheld by the supreme court: Discrimination is alive today unfortunately; Liberty and justice for all is openly sabotaged and the Supreme Court is inviting trouble of great magnitudnal proportions if it dares to fail its ultimate mandate: to uphold everyone's constitutional rights. The entire nation will speak against it because the Voting Rights Act (VRA) is not about political parties; the Voting Rights Act (VRA) is about individual rights protection. Bank on it! it is time to review; the Supreme Court's "entitlements" as, it is no longer acting as an unbiased institution and that, your magistrates , can be amended. get up and do your job or we will make it happen! count on it! Now Even if you are dumb enough to believe that all is OK with the world and there are no reasons to have the voting rights law on the books. Then why are the the parties at opposite end's on this ? Why are the Republicans in America trying to keep people from the poles ? Well I will tell you what I think. I think there may be a dozen or two, man and women in America that have the means to buy the power it wants to call all shots in this Country. The only way they can obtain this right now is get the people they went in office. To buy them so to say. But they know they can be stopped at the voting polls.They know the more that get out and vote there chances are reduced substantially. George Will knows this and should be ashamed. He say 47 years old. Is that old ? I don't think so. Look at the constitution, at that II Amendment a lot older right. SS, Medicare, still very new in the big picture. But look at who wants to change them. Not working men and women, no the big bosses. They do not like to mach payments that is what this is all about. They did not like it back in the 1930s and they do not like it now. So Americans do not be fooled and all of you older people that now have this little benefit fight like h--- to keep it just as it is. It just might be all there is between eating and striving !!
All the republicans crapping about Voting Rights Act (VRA) on this board and the likes of you in the REPUBLICAN House should move aside in 2014 because the REPUBLICANS are the crux of the problem. President Obama won the elections of 2008 AND 2012 fair and square but the REPUBLICANS are not allowing him to govern through their rule of RECORD number of filibusters in the Senate and the HOUSE of REPUBLICANS has achieved nothing since it came to power in 2010. In 2014 its the REPUBLICAN's time to go and let OBAMA our democratically elected PRESIDENT rule the country and leave a legacy behind like the achievements of the 2008-2010 years when DEMOCRATS had the House Senate and the Presidency. We want the obstructionist REPUBLICANS out of the way in 2014. We want our House and Senate back in the DEMOCRATIC hands so we can govern and achieve something. All these doomsday deadlines that REPUBLICANS keep pushing on the country will haunt them in 2014!! Mark my words. March 1st 2013. Vote Democratic always!
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