If there is any question as to whether presidential elections matter, one need look no further than the current membership of the United States Supreme Court where based on comments during oral arguments some fear that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act may be struck down - a move that would open the door for a new generation of Jim Crow laws in red states with legislatures controlled by white supremacists masquerading as Republicans. Leading the charge is Antonin Scalia who might more appropriately been wearing a white robe and hood rather than is judicial robes. And then there's the dim witted Clarence Thomas who gives a new meaning to the term "Uncle Tom." The Washington Post looks at the frightening events today:
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority strongly suggested Wednesday that a key portion of the landmark legislation protecting minority voting rights is no longer justified and that the time had come for Southern states to be freed from special federal oversight.
At stake was Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which even challengers credit with delivering the promise of political inclusion to minority voters and eventually leading to the election of the nation’s first African American president.
With the voting rights case and an upcoming decision about whether universities may consider race in their admission policies, the court is poised this term to render a powerful verdict on the progress the United States has made in remedying its history of discrimination and the role government may play in what is left to do.
Next month, in another pair of major civil rights cases, the justices will consider the right of same-sex couples to marry and the government’s recognition of those unions.
The sharp ideological differences that mark the court have rarely been on display more than in Wednesday’s dramatic and at times tense oral argument, which played out before a courtroom filled with political leaders such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and civil rights activists such as Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson.
The justices’ questioning of the lawyers was so intense that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. allowed the session to run into overtime.
Section 5 of the law requires nine states, mostly in the South, and jurisdictions in other states to “pre-clear” any changes in voting laws with federal authorities. Justice Antonin Scalia said Congress’s decision in 2006 to reauthorize the law was not the result of a studied decision but of a “phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement.” Politicians, he said, are afraid to vote against something with the “wonderful” name of the Voting Rights Act.
The court in 2009 considered whether extending Section 5 was constitutional. The justices decided that case without a definitive answer but sent an unmistakable message to Congress that the court was dissatisfied with the formula used to determine which states were covered by Section 5.
In the 2009 case, Roberts wrote that such an imposition on state sovereignty must be justified by current needs. “The statute’s coverage formula is based on data that is now more than 35 years old and there is considerable evidence that it fails to account for current political conditions,” he wrote for seven other justices. Justice Clarence Thomas said he would have found the reauthorization unconstitutional.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. called the Voting Rights Act “one of the most successful statutes that Congress passed in the 20th century ” but nevertheless said the selection of jurisdictions covered by Section 5 makes no sense today.
Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., who along with Debo P. Adegbile of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund was defending the law’s reauthorization, was bluntly asked by Roberts: “Is it the government’s submission that the citizens in the South are more racist than citizens in the North?
But the liberal justices were armed with statistics. “You’re objecting to a formula, but under any formula that Congress could devise, it would capture Alabama,” said Justice Elena Kagan, citing findings that a greater proportional number of violations of the act occur in the South.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said it was a recent violation by a town in Shelby County that led to the current case. “Why would we vote in favor of a county whose record is the epitome of what caused the passage of this law to start with?” she asked.
To answer Chief Justice Roberts' question, yes, the South IS more racist than the North. And Kagan got it right. Alabama IS a racist state and compared to when I live in Alabama, things have only gotten uglier.
No comments:
Post a Comment