Voting Rights

[WitchSabrina]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/us/su ... ml?hp&_r=0

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday effectively struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by a 5-to-4 vote, freeing nine states, mostly in the South, to change their election laws without advance federal approval.
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The court divided along ideological lines, and the two sides drew sharply different lessons from the history of the civil rights movement and the nation's progress in rooting out racial discrimination in voting. At the core of the disagreement was whether racial minorities continued to face barriers to voting in states with a history of discrimination.

"Our country has changed," Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. "While any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions."

The decision will have immediate practical consequences. Texas announced shortly after the decision that a voter identification law that had been blocked would go into effect immediately, and that redistricting maps there would no longer need federal approval. Changes in voting procedures in the places that had been covered by the law, including ones concerning restrictions on early voting, will now be subject only to after-the-fact litigation.

President Obama, whose election as the nation's first black president was cited by critics of the law as evidence that it was no longer needed, said he was "deeply disappointed" by the ruling.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg summarized her dissent from the bench, an unusual move and a sign of deep disagreement. She cited the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and said his legacy and the nation's commitment to justice had been "disserved by today's decision."

She said the focus of the Voting Rights Act had properly changed from "first-generation barriers to ballot access" to "second-generation barriers" like racial gerrymandering and laws requiring at-large voting in places with a sizable black minority. She said the law had been effective in thwarting such efforts.

The law had applied to nine states — Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia — and to scores of counties and municipalities in other states, including Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx.

Chief Justice Roberts wrote that Congress remained free to try to impose federal oversight on states where voting rights were at risk, but must do so based on contemporary data. But the chances that the current Congress could reach agreement on where federal oversight is required are small, most analysts say.

Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined the majority opinion. Justice Ginsburg was joined in dissent by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

The majority held that the coverage formula in Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, originally passed in 1965 and most recently updated by Congress in 1975, was unconstitutional. The section determined which states must receive clearance from the Justice Department or a federal court in Washington before they made minor changes to voting procedures, like moving a polling place, or major ones, like redrawing electoral districts.

Section 5, which sets out the preclearance requirement, was originally scheduled to expire in five years. Congress repeatedly extended it: for five years in 1970, seven years in 1975, and 25 years in 1982. Congress renewed the act in 2006 after holding extensive hearings on the persistence of racial discrimination at the polls, again extending the preclearance requirement for 25 years. But it relied on data from the 1975 reauthorization to decide which states and localities were covered.

The current coverage system, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, is "based on 40-year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day."

"Congress — if it is to divide the states — must identify those jurisdictions to be singled out on a basis that makes sense in light of current conditions," he wrote. "It cannot simply rely on the past."

The decision did not strike down Section 5, but without Section 4, the later section is without significance — unless Congress passes a new bill for determining which states would be covered.

It was hardly clear, at any rate, that the court's conservative majority would uphold Section 5 if the question returned to the court in the unlikely event that Congress enacted a new coverage formula. In a concurrence, Justice Thomas called for striking down Section 5 immediately, saying that the majority opinion had provided the reasons and had merely left "the inevitable conclusion unstated."

[AllPurposeAtheist]

And the GOP risks a huge backlash when they become the clear minority with the power. The white vote in those states, Texas and Georgia specifically is waning and when Latino, Asians and blacks are the clear majority the GOP will be dead in its own tracks so they had better tread lightly. Of course they won't.

[SGOS]

No worries.  Traditionally racist states, like those specifically named, will act in the best interests of all voters because their intentions are clearly honorable and always have been. #-o

[AllPurposeAtheist]

You'll need an appointment to vote.. just watch..

[Smartmarzipan]

Nah, we don't need no voter protection or anything like that.....

Two Hours After The Supreme Court Gutted The Voting Rights Act, Texas AG Suppresses Minority Voters
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/0 ... ty-voters/

Just two hours after the Supreme Court reasoned that discrimination is not rampant enough in Southern states to warrant restrictions under the Voting Rights Act, Texas is already advancing a voter ID law and a redistricting map blocked last year for discriminating against black and Latino residents. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott issued a statement declaring that both measures may go into effect immediately, now that there is no law stopping them from discriminating against minorities.

In 2012, the Justice Department blocked these measures under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Federal courts agreed that both the strict voter ID law and the redistricting map would disproportionately target the state's fast-growing minority communities. Still, Texas filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court over the Voting Rights Act case complaining that the DOJ had used "abusive and heavy-handed tactics" to thwart the state's attempts at voter suppression.

Damn, they didn't waste any time!  :shock:

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Once enough people are actually registered to vote the GOP will kick themselves for kicking themselves. They can't gerrymander the entire state away.

[stromboli]

Once enough people are actually registered to vote the GOP will kick themselves for kicking themselves. They can't gerrymander the entire state away.

Sheer demographics will win in the end. You can't stop Hispanics and blacks from moving upward economically and reproducing. White conservatives on the last election ballot were obviously not in control, and that trend continues.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

If anything the trend will accelerate. Abortion in those states for all intents and purposes is gone too so people fucking and having.babies isn't helping the GOP.. Maybe they'll try to outlaw sex without a picture ID.. :D/

[hillbillyatheist]

As aggressive as they are, they don't have to gerrymander forever. just long enough to end our democracy and create an apartheid.

I think people are too complacent. The think its america so really bad shit can't happen here.

I beg to differ.

these teabaggers are like the nazi's. they must be stopped. They are a political cancer that will destroy this country if they manage to take over.

plus you have issues where the poor, minorities, and democrats tend to vote less in mid terms, or disilusioned leftists split the vote allowing for republicans to win.

2014 I think will look very bad for the democrats. not only because the mid term voters are more older and whiter, but the states who have senators up for re-election favor the GOP, not to mention the house is gerrymandered and we can't win it anyway. I am betting Obama gets impeached by February 2015 on some trumped up charge.

our only hope is from what I've read, 2016 has senate seats up that favor the democrats, plus its presidential year when the electorate is younger and more diverse. but if enough states gerrymander even worse now that the VRA is dead, we're still fucked. and then the teabaggers will bring their ultra conservative and anti democratic bullshit nationwide.

then we're all just royally fucked. It'll be next to impossible to win the country back, much less so before it tanks from their bullshit ideas.

and don't think people will revolt.

why ain't people in north korea revolting?

[Smartmarzipan]

Tell Congress to Stand Up for Voters' Rights
http://www.naacp.org/page/s/vra-no-voti ... tent=share

[Brian37]

Once enough people are actually registered to vote the GOP will kick themselves for kicking themselves. They can't gerrymander the entire state away.

Sheer demographics will win in the end. You can't stop Hispanics and blacks from moving upward economically and reproducing. White conservatives on the last election ballot were obviously not in control, and that trend continues.

The law is still important to keep anyway. Power shifts over long periods and another group will need those same laws to protect them. Our Constitution although is a concept neutral to majorities vs minorities, is a sanctuary law and anti monopoly law to insure that mob rule does not take hold.

I look at King and X and Malala and Ghandi and the Jews of WW2 and the struggle isn't about religion or race or politics in the end, it is always about the struggle for human dignity.

For the past 30 years corporate America has been boiling the working class and poor like boiling a lobster slowly. The time for complacency is over. Too much damage has been done to the entire society and without voting rights we have no way to stop their drive for slave wage labor. This is not a race issue, this is now a survival issue for EVERYONE.

We have to stop the big money influence in politics, we have to convince the middle class and working poor republican voters that their party is not on their side and are using social issues to divide us to keep them down too.

The republican party and the Koch Brothers see the old guard dying out and a more fair and pluralistic society growing. Now that they know we see through their lies, the only way they can win is by rigging laws and ellections to their favor. We are now at a time where complacency is not an option.

Now, to ALL reading this, I know where the atheist voice was in 01 and the explosion of more voices today. So if blacks can escape slavery and society can implement a voting rights act in the first place, then we too if we want this classtocracy to stop crushing us, then we have it within us long term to reverse this. But we cannot remain silent any longer. To much is at stake for EVERYONE, atheists and theists alike.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Perhaps this is why the GOP is soooo big on building 'iron curtains' on our borders.. It's harder and harder for the average schmoe to visit Canada or Mexico under the guise of security, but not long ago you could walk to either country without much hassle at all. Now if you have a fucking parking ticket it's a big deal..
On the bright side, I won't live another 30 years for all this bullshit. My kids and their kids will, but sadly they're more complacent than I am accepting the horseshit given to them.. THAT drives me more nuts than what's actually happening..

[surly74]

Perhaps this is why the GOP is soooo big on building 'iron curtains' on our borders.. It's harder and harder for the average schmoe to visit Canada or Mexico under the guise of security, but not long ago you could walk to either country without much hassle at all. Now if you have a fucking parking ticket it's a big deal..

it's not entering Canada that is the tough part...unless you have a DUI...it's getting back into the US. There was a time when drivers licenses were all that was needed for me to enter the US. Now, my nine year old needs a passport to go cross border shopping.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Perhaps this is why the GOP is soooo big on building 'iron curtains' on our borders.. It's harder and harder for the average schmoe to visit Canada or Mexico under the guise of security, but not long ago you could walk to either country without much hassle at all. Now if you have a fucking parking ticket it's a big deal..

it's not entering Canada that is the tough part...unless you have a DUI...it's getting back into the US. There was a time when drivers licenses were all that was needed for me to enter the US. Now, my nine year old needs a passport to go cross border shopping.

I should be deported to Canada.. My grandfather was an illegal alien.. Crossed back in 1910's i think and fought in WWI .. never was documented as an American citizen though..  :-$

[WitchSabrina]

Tell Congress to Stand Up for Voters' Rights
http://www.naacp.org/page/s/vra-no-voti ... tent=share

Thanks! =D>