If you think that by electing Barack Obama as president we have ushered in a new era of “post racial” politics, think again! The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the spring on an important provision within the Voting Rights Act. Remember that important piece of legislation signed by Lyndon Johnson in 1965? If you don’t, it eliminated shit such as literacy requirements and poll taxes. Want to know something else? It requires the reauthorization of Congress every now and then. The last time Congress reauthorized the act was in 2006.
There is a particular provision within the Voting Rights Act known as Section 5 that is at the heart of the matter. Section 5 requires some states and smaller jurisdictions to “preclear” new voting rules with the Justice Department or a federal court. This is required to show that the proposed changes do not have the purpose or effect of discriminating against minority voters.
Discrimination against against minority voters may not be as blatant as it was in 1965, but it still exists. District lines are drawn to prevent minorities from winning (gerrymandering), polling places are located in places hard for minority voters to get to; voter ID requirementsts are imposed with the purpose of supresing the minority vote.
To clarify, Obama got only one in five white votes in jurisdictions in southern states that are covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. There is no reason to believe that minority voters will find it easier to cast their votes without the protections of Section 5. Now there is a jurisdiction in Texas that is covered by Section 5 arguing that it is unconstitutional, and that it imposes too many burdens on jurisdictions covered by it.
To the Supreme Court’s credit, it rarely overturns precedents. But the court as currently constituted, could come down to the vote of Justice Kennedy as the voice of reason. Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justices’ Alito, Thomas, and Scalia have already shown that they are chipping away at Roe vs. Wade. Voting rights could be next. Associate Justices’ Sptephens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer can be relied upon to uphold the status quo.
Now is not the time to be messing with legislation that has enfranchised a large segment of the American population
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/opinion/25sun1.html?scp=1&sq=voting%20rights%20act&st=cse
Filed under: Politics, Society , 1965, congress, gerrymandering, lyndon baines johnson, supreme court, voting rights, voting rights act
I think the SC will look a bit different in four years….
It might Anarchist, but I am concerned with what they might do this spring.