VRWC white supremacist SCOTUS guts Voting Rights Act

[boutons_deux]

5 - 4, natcherly

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2013-06-25-splash625

Voting Rights Act Section 4 Struck Down By Supreme Court

The Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act on Tuesday, the provision of the landmark civil rights law that designates which parts of the country must have changes to their voting laws cleared by the federal government or in federal court.

The 5-4 ruling, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-96_6k47.pdf) joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, found that “things have changed dramatically” in the South nearly 50 years after the Voting Rights Act was signed.

The court’s opinion said it did not strike down the act of Congress “lightly,” and said it “took care to avoid ruling on the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act” back in 2009. “Congress could have updated the coverage formula at that time, but did not do so. Its failure to act leaves us today with no choice but to declare [Section 4] unconstitutional. The formula in that section can no longer be used as a basis for subjecting jurisdictions to preclearance.”

Congress, the court ruled, “may draft another formula based on current conditions.”

“Our country has changed, and 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 majority said.

Nevertheless, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued a wide-ranging dissent on behalf of herself and Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, justifying the continued vitality of the Voting Rights Act's preclearance provision.

"The sad irony of today’s decision lies in its utter failure to grasp why the VRA has proven effective," Ginsburg wrote. "The Court appears to believe that the VRA’s success in eliminating the specific devices extant in 1965 means that preclear*ance is no longer needed."

As for Section 4, Ginsburg wrote that "the record for the 2006 reauthorization makes abundantly clear [that] second-generation barriers to minority voting rights have emerged in the covered jurisdictions as at*tempted substitutes for the
first-generation barriers that originally triggered preclearance in those jurisdictions."


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/25/voting-rights-act-supreme-court_n_3429810.html

[boutons_deux]

SUPREME COURT FREES AMERICANS FROM BURDEN OF VOTING


WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/)) — By a five-to-four vote, the Supreme Court today acted, in the words of Justice Antonin Scalia, “to relieve millions of Americans from the onerous burden of having to vote.”

Writing for the majority, Justice Scalia stated, “Since 1965, citizens across the nation have lived under the tyranny of being forced to elect people to represent them. This is an important step to free them from that unfair and heinous obligation.”

Justice Scalia added that the Voting Rights Act had “thrust upon the shoulders of millions of Americans the terrible and unwanted burden of exercising their rights in a democracy.”

“Many of them have been forced to drive to polling places, wait in line, and then cast their vote because of the oppressive requirements of this Act,” he wrote. “It is our honor and duty to free them from those hardships.”

In conclusion, Justice Scalia wrote, “Our message today to the American people is simple: we are voting so you won’t have to.”

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/06/supreme-court-frees-americans-from-burden-of-voting.html?mbid=nl_Borowitz%20(145)

[ElNono]

:lol meltdown

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

I think this ruling makes Clarence Thomas history's GOAT uncle tom.

[boutons_deux]

Conservatives Celebrate Gutting Of Voting Rights Act (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/25/2210841/conservatives-celebrate-gutting-of-voting-rights-act/)
Writing at National Review, a magazine that defended segregation (http://prospect.org/article/national-review-defends-its-segregationist-roots) and has more recently published pieces by white nationalists and “race realists,” (http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/07/17/528271/national-review-writer-stands-by-racial-slur/) John Fund suggested that (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/351948/civil-rights-victory-john-fund) “The Supreme Court’s decision today to overturn a small part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is actually a victory for civil rights.”


“As the court noted,” Fund continued, “what made sense both in moral and practical terms almost a half century ago has to be approached anew.” What Fund calls a “small” portion of the VRA, the “preclearance” power the Court severely limited, represented the sole stumbling block preventing several racially discriminatory laws from going into effect (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/25/2209911/three-ways-the-supreme-court-gutted-voting-rights-today/).

True the Vote, a conservative group that pushed for precisely these laws, also celebrated (http://www.truethevote.org/news/true-the-vote-statement-regarding-the-u-s-supreme-court-s-voting-rights-act-decision) the Court’s ruling. “This is without doubt a step in the right direction for our Republic,” Catherine Engelbrecht, the group’s Vice-President, said. True the Vote has been instrumental in helping spread voter ID laws (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/09/27/921421/how-the-tea-party-hopes-to-purge-thousands-of-ohio-voters/) around the country, several of which have been preempted (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/25/2209911/three-ways-the-supreme-court-gutted-voting-rights-today/) by the Section 5 powers the Court neutered today.

Erick Erickson, the Editor-in-Chief of RedState and a Fox News contributor, tweeted (https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/349530743812259843) “YES! Pre-clearance unconstitutional.” While technically inaccurate — the Court did not rule that the Justice Department’s Section 5 power to prevent the implementation of racially discriminatory voting laws was unconstitutional, only that that the Section 4 formula for determining what jurisdictions were covered under Section 5 was — Erickson’s victory dance was right in effect, as the only path to restoring Section 5 is a highly unlikely Congressional rewrite of the Section 4 formula.

Yesterday, Erickson tweeted (https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/349357786834018304) “Sitting at the dinner table. Realize its Paula Deen branded furniture. Quite nice. Seats ten.” Deen is currently under fire (http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2013/06/25/2208311/what-paula-deen-and-her-sons-tells-us-about-the-four-ways-racists-defend-themselves/) for using the word “******” and dreaming about a “southern plantation-style wedding” with black servers and white guests (http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2013/06/20/2185391/tv-chef-paula-deens-plantation-nostalgia-and-the-resentments-of-racists/); National Review’s VRA piece had a banner link at the top to a piece titled (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/351929/defense-paula-deen-charles-c-w-cooke) “In Defense of Paula Deen.”

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/25/2210841/conservatives-celebrate-gutting-of-voting-rights-act/

Repugs and racists are the ones melting down over their VRWC SCOTUS victory, and more to come....

[TeyshaBlue]

lol thinkprogress.

Such a small mind you have.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/25/supreme-court-cuts-voting-rights-act-but-online-voter-tools-could-boost-minority-turnout/

[TeyshaBlue]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/25/voting-rights-act-ruling-heres-what-you-need-to-know/

lol thinkprogress deux

[boutons_deux]

Holder Vows ‘Swift Enforcement Action’ Against Any Efforts To Exploit SCOTUS Voting Rights Act Ruling


Attorney General Eric Holder denounced the Supreme Court’s ruling against the Voting Rights Act on Tuesday, and warned in a televised statement that despite the “serious and unnecessary setback” the Obama administration will vigorously enforce the law against any state or local government that seeks to discriminate against the rights of voters.

“The Department of Justice will continue to carefully monitor jurisdictions around the country for voting changes that may hamper voting rights,” Holder said. “Let me be very clear: we will not hesitate to take swift enforcement action — using every legal tool that remains available to us — against any jurisdiction that seeks to take advantage of the Supreme Court’s ruling by hindering eligible citizens’ full and free exercise of the franchise.”

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/06/eric-holder-voting-rights-act-supreme-court.php

[angrydude]

So I guess blacks have lost their right to vote now?

Pretty sure that's what I'm going to be hearing for the next 30 years.

[Koolaid_Man]

5 - 4, natcherly

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2013-06-25-splash625

Voting Rights Act Section 4 Struck Down By Supreme Court

The Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act on Tuesday, the provision of the landmark civil rights law that designates which parts of the country must have changes to their voting laws cleared by the federal government or in federal court.

The 5-4 ruling, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-96_6k47.pdf) joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, found that “things have changed dramatically” in the South nearly 50 years after the Voting Rights Act was signed.

The court’s opinion said it did not strike down the act of Congress “lightly,” and said it “took care to avoid ruling on the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act” back in 2009. “Congress could have updated the coverage formula at that time, but did not do so. Its failure to act leaves us today with no choice but to declare [Section 4] unconstitutional. The formula in that section can no longer be used as a basis for subjecting jurisdictions to preclearance.”

Congress, the court ruled, “may draft another formula based on current conditions.”

“Our country has changed, and 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 majority said.

Nevertheless, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued a wide-ranging dissent on behalf of herself and Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, justifying the continued vitality of the Voting Rights Act's preclearance provision.

"The sad irony of today’s decision lies in its utter failure to grasp why the VRA has proven effective," Ginsburg wrote. "The Court appears to believe that the VRA’s success in eliminating the specific devices extant in 1965 means that preclear*ance is no longer needed."

As for Section 4, Ginsburg wrote that "the record for the 2006 reauthorization makes abundantly clear [that] second-generation barriers to minority voting rights have emerged in the covered jurisdictions as at*tempted substitutes for the
first-generation barriers that originally triggered preclearance in those jurisdictions."


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/25/voting-rights-act-supreme-court_n_3429810.html





Clarence Thomas is the worst kinda negro....he literally hates his skin...I mean he hates being black real bad...dude has a mental sickness...he's just a dumb muthafucker..he sits on the court and never says a gotdam word..just looking like the dumb fucker he is

[Koolaid_Man]

SCalia looks like a corrupt fucktard...just look at em..dude out to be in prison...what a fucking racist son of bitch

[resistanze]

I think this ruling makes Clarence Thomas history's GOAT uncle tom.

:lol @ his pic above, straight off the plantation. Reminds me of Samuel L. Jackson from Django.

[Koolaid_Man]

here's Clarence Thomas live:

LiV22pJYG7M

EsbZ2C9bH1k


K0ZRAmz-NWM

[boutons_deux]

No sooner had the Voting Rights Act (http://www.thenation.com/article/172685/why-are-conservatives-trying-destroy-voting-rights-act?page=full#axzz2X9Vf4v7Z) passed in 1965, after two hundred years of slavery and nearly 100 years of Jim Crow, than Southern conservatives, who failed to stop the law, began to attack it. South Carolina mounted the first constitutional challenge to the law only a month after it was enacted. President Nixon tried to weaken the law take the “monkey…off the backs off the South,” as did Presidents Ford in 1975 and Reagan in 1982. Every effort to gut the VRA failed. Each time the law’s constitutionality was challenged, in 1966, 1973, 1980 and 1999, the Supreme Court upheld the act. Every congressional reauthorization, in 1970, 1975, 1982 and 2006, made the law stronger, not weaker, in protecting voting rights. Each Congressional reauthorization was signed by a Republican president, cementing the bipartisan consensus supporting the VRA. “The Voting Rights Act became one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our Nation’s history,” Justice Ginsburg wrote in herdissent (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-96_6k47.pdf) today.

That consensus held until now, with the Roberts Court finding that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-96_6k47.pdf). Section 4 is how states are covered under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the provision which requires states with the worst history of voting discrimination—those who had a discriminatory voting device on the books and voter turnout of less than 50 percent in the 1964 election—to preclear their voting changes with the federal government. Without Section 4, there’s no Section 5. The most effective provision of the country’s most effective civil rights law is now dead until and unless Congress figures out a new way to cover states where voting discrimination is most prevalent that satisfies the Roberts Court.

Explained the Chief Justice, who has been trying to weaken the VRA (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/john-roberts-long-war-against-voting-rights-act) ever since he was a young lawyer in the Reagan Justice Department: “Nearly 50 years later, things have changed dramatically. Largely because of the Voting Rights Act, ‘[v]oter turnout and registration rates’ in covered jurisdictions ‘now approach parity. Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare. And minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels.’ The tests and devices that blocked ballot access have been forbidden nationwide for over 40 years. Yet the Act has not eased Section 5’s restrictions or narrowed the scope of Section 4’s coverage formula along the way. Instead those extraordinary and unprecedented features have been reauthorized as if nothing has changed, and they have grown even stronger…. In 1965, the States could be divided into those with a recent history of voting tests and low voter registration and turnout and those without those characteristics. Congress based its coverage formula on that distinction. Today the Nation is no longer divided along those lines, yet the Voting Rights Act continues to treat it as if it were.”

http://www.thenation.com/blog/174973/what-supreme-court-doesnt-understand-about-voting-rights-act?rel=emailNation#

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Clarence Thomas is the worst kinda negro....he literally hates his skin...I mean he hates being black real bad...dude has a mental sickness...he's just a dumb muthafucker..he sits on the court and never says a gotdam word..just looking like the dumb fucker he is

Occasionally he'll look at massa Scalia and ask him if he's unsure of how to vote.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

SCalia looks like a corrupt fucktard...just look at em..dude out to be in prison...what a fucking racist son of bitch

Scalia and Alito are both fascist dego wop pieces of shit, they just add to the mountain of evidence about how slimy and untrustworthy Italians are :lol

[Ashy Larry]

the country has grown over the last 50 years .... just hope because ths act was shot down, it doesn't all of a sudden go back with stupid ass rules.

"I have a state ID but I don't drive." "Sorry ma'am, you must have a state driver's license in order to vote" type of shit.

[baseline bum]

Fuck this supreme court. Amazing to have a branch of the government worse than the current president and worse than the piece of shit congress.

[boutons_deux]

maybe it's an eye tye thing, but I think it's more an authoritarian papist Catholic influence. Alito, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy are all mackerel snappers, a Catholic majority.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

the country has grown over the last 50 years .... just hope because ths act was shot down, it doesn't all of a sudden go back with stupid ass rules.

"I have a state ID but I don't drive." "Sorry ma'am, you must have a state driver's license in order to vote" type of shit.
They already do that in inner city Miami. It's not some strange coincidence or innocent incompetence that every 4 years Miami has a polling disaster with long lines and 8 hour waits for voters in black areas.

[Ashy Larry]

They already do that in inner city Miami. It's not some strange coincidence or innocent incompetence that every 4 years Miami has a polling disaster with long lines and 8 hour waits for voters in black areas.


yeah, when my old lady was living in Orlando, she said that shit was a constant in Florida. How is it that we're the lone superpower on the planet but can't get simple shit right. Check Box A or B and we find some way to fuck that up.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

High schools in the South also still have segregated proms and Mississippi didn't even have slavery officially outlawed prior to last year :lmao

The only reason the "Days of Jim Crow and fire hoses" are over in places like Mississippi and Alabama is because of federal laws preventing them from bringing those days back. Every year there are still SEC football games with people chanting "the South will rise again!"

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

yeah, when my old lady was living in Orlando, she said that shit was a constant in Florida. How is it that we're the lone superpower on the planet but can't get simple shit right. Check Box A or B and we find some way to fuck that up.

The people in charge of Florida polling got it completely right because it was exactly the way they wanted it. Jeb managed to swing the entire election for his brother in 2000 with a deliberately confusing ballot and denying blacks the right to vote, while they made it a lot closer in 2012 than it would have been if urban Miami areas didn't have 8 hour waits. It wouldn't have impacted the election but Romney did almost win Florida because of it.

[Ashy Larry]

The South. Just backwards as hell. Damn, can you imagine if those fucks did win the Civil War? I'd be fucked.

[Ashy Larry]

The people in charge of Florida polling got it completely right because it was exactly the way they wanted it. Jeb managed to swing the entire election for his brother in 2000 with a deliberately confusing ballot and denying blacks the right to vote, while they made it a lot closer in 2012 than it would have been if urban Miami areas didn't have 8 hour waits. It wouldn't have impacted the election but Romney did almost win Florida because of it.

That's crazy. Think about that shit for a second. How many Voting machines did they have at certain polls? about three to take care of 50,000 people. And one "mysteriously" probably broke down.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

That's crazy. Think about that shit for a second. How many Voting machines did they have at certain polls? about three to take care of 50,000 people. And one "mysteriously" probably broke down.

The same problem mysteriously popped up in black areas of Ohio in 2004 when it had a Republican governor. Urban areas had 7-8 hour waits late in the day so a lot of people eventually left. There was one polling place in inner city Cleveland where only 7% of the registered voters voted.

[ElNono]

Scalia and Alito are both fascist dego wop pieces of shit, they just add to the mountain of evidence about how slimy and untrustworthy Italians are :lol

hey, wait a minute...

[Big Empty]

ok so explain to me like im 5 years old. What are the pros and cons of this

[boutons_deux]

ok so explain to me like im 5 years old. What are the pros and cons of this

We've seen when Repugs take control of a state, they immediately start suppressing voters, so now they will be encouraged, esp in the racist Confederate states under VRA Sec 4, to push harder and faster to disenfranchise as many Dem voters as they can, but the real prize is purple/swing states, since they already fucked over Dem voters in red states.

[Ignignokt]

u mean u got to have proof of ID to loot the treasury!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://i.imgur.com/jFdVc.jpg

[Ignignokt]

cuz they all be voting thrice

[Th'Pusher]

^ I'm just glad to see racism isn't a problem anymore.

[boutons_deux]

Not quite two hours after the decision came down, Greg Abbott, the Republican attorney general for the state of Texas, announced (http://projects.nytimes.com/live-dashboard/2013-06-25-supreme-court#sha=88a62b0c2) the state’s voter identification law—which had been blocked last year by the Justice Department, thanks to protections afforded under the VRA—would go into effect.


“With today’s decision, the state’s voter ID law will take effect immediately,” Abbott said in a statement. “Redistricting maps passed by the legislature may also take effect without approval from the federal government.”
Voter ID laws are also now expected to go into effect in Mississippi and South Carolina.

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/06/25/john-roberts-finally-guts-the-voting-rights-act-and-states-rush-to-enact-voter-id-laws/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rhrealitycheck+%28RH+Reality+ Check%29

red states, Confederate states love the Constitution, love American democracy so much they MUST disenfranchise as many Dems as possible. fuck Regugs, the VRWC to hell.

[elbamba]

^ I'm just glad to see racism isn't a problem anymore.

Just out of curiosity, why the selective outrage over racism? On the first pag of this thread you had some pretty damn racist comments about Thomas. Yet noone that leans left seems to care because he has a different set of beliefs regarding the constitution.

[ElNono]

Demographics are still changing, and while I know this will likely bring a good amount of attempts at race-based gerrymandering and vote suppression, it's just stuff that's not sustainable over time.

[Th'Pusher]

Just out of curiosity, why the selective outrage over racism? On the first pag of this thread you had some pretty damn racist comments about Thomas. Yet noone that leans left seems to care because he has a different set of beliefs regarding the constitution.

What you quoted was my first post in this thread. I challange you to find a single racists comment I've ever made on this forum.

[boutons_deux]

Demographics are still changing, and while I know this will likely bring a good amount of attempts at race-based gerrymandering and vote suppression, it's just stuff that's not sustainable over time.

not sustainable?

Congress will not re-do VRA Section 4. Repugs, who will exploit this bullshit ruling for decades, will block any attempt.

voter obstacles will proliferate and remain in place indefinitely. now completely sustainable.

[elbamba]

What you quoted was my first post in this thread. I challange you to find a single racists comment I've ever made on this forum.

I was not referring to any racist comment you made. I was simply referring to the overt racist statements made by other posters on page one but you only seem to care when its Ignignokt. Its really not that big of a deal but I just thought the selective outrage was par for the course. It seems strange that no one cares when people insult Thomas because he is not the right kind of black.

[boutons_deux]

Thanks To The Supreme Court, Wendy Davis Will Probably Lose Her Senate Seat (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/26/2216721/thanks-to-the-supreme-court-wendy-davis-will-probably-lose-her-senate-seat/)


On the very same day that Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) drew national attention for stopping a bill (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/06/26/2216191/texas-sb-5-defeated/) that would have closed every abortion clinic in the state and outlawed abortion after 20 weeks, the Supreme Court gutted the law that kept her in office in the first place.

In fact, just an hour before Davis launched into her 13-hour filibuster on Tuesday, the Supreme Court struck down a portion of the Voting Rights Act that kept discriminatory voting laws from going into effect in areas of the country with histories of disenfranchisement. That includes states like Texas, where in 2011 the GOP sought to change the demographic composition of Davis’ district, who was elected in 2008 with strong support from minority voters.

As MSNBC’s Zachary Roth reported (http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/06/06/how-section-5-blocked-a-gop-power-grab-in-texas/), lawmakers moved “tens of thousands of black and Hispanic voters into neighboring districts” and as a result, “of the 94 precincts that were over 70 percent minority, Republicans cut out 48,” effectively separating black and Hispanic voters and preventing them from forming a sizable majority.

Davis and the Department of Justice used Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act — which allows the federal government to review election changes in areas of the country with a history of racial discrimination — to challenge the changes in court. In August of 2012, a panel of federal judges found that “substantial surgery” was done to predominantly black districts, cutting off representatives’ offices from their strongest fundraising bases, and blocked the changes,
“The map-drawers consciously replaced (http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/06/06/how-section-5-blocked-a-gop-power-grab-in-texas/) many of the district’s active Hispanic voters with low-turnout Hispanic voters in an effort to strengthen the voting power of [the district’s] Anglo citizens,” the judges wrote and accused Texas officials of trying to decrease the effectiveness of minority voters.

Following the ruling, Davis’s district lines were mostly restored and she was re-elected “by a nearly identical margin to her 2008 victory.”

But that victory could be short lived. Just two hours after the Supreme Court’s ruling on Tuesday, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/25/2212281/two-hours-after-the-supreme-court-gutted-the-voting-rights-act-texas-ag-suppresses-minority-voters/) that the state would advance a voter ID law and the very same redistricting map that was designed to keep Davis out of office.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/26/2216721/thanks-to-the-supreme-court-wendy-davis-will-probably-lose-her-senate-seat/

[Th'Pusher]

I was not referring to any racist comment you made. I was simply referring to the overt racist statements made by other posters on page one but you only seem to care when its Ignignokt. Its really not that big of a deal but I just thought the selective outrage was par for the course. It seems strange that no one cares when people insult Thomas because he is not the right kind of black.
An. That's a fair point. If the amount of racism on this site was representative of the racism in the US, we're fucked.

[TeyshaBlue]

lol thinkprogress

[ElNono]

not sustainable?

Congress will not re-do VRA Section 4. Repugs, who will exploit this bullshit ruling for decades, will block any attempt.

voter obstacles will proliferate and remain in place indefinitely. now completely sustainable.

it doesn't matter... there's only so much corralling you can do when you're heading towards being a minority... eventually, it will burst

[TeyshaBlue]

Congressman Marc Veasey Is Suing the State of Texas to Stop Enforcement of Its Voter ID Law

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/06/congressman_marc_veasey_is_sui.php#more


http://txredistricting.org/post/53952043837/suit-filed-by-congressman-veasey-others-to-bar-texas

[boutons_deux]

Supreme Court's Voting Rights Act Decision Unpopular: Poll

Americans have mixed feelings about the Supreme Court's latest rulings, with a majority disapproving of its opinion on the Voting Rights Act, but in favor of two pro-gay marriage opinions, according to an ABC/Washington Post poll released Wednesday (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/07/many-criticize-voting-rights-ruling-partisan-splits-on-gay-marriage-continue/).

Just a third said they agree with the court's decision to strike down part of the Voting Rights Act, while 51 percent disagreed.

Knowledge about, and disapproval of, the VRA decision was especially high among African Americans, 71 percent of whom expressed disagreement with the ruling. Just 3 percent were undecided, while 16 percent of all adults had no opinion.

Other racial groups, however, also disapproved: Hispanic Americans disagreed by 50 percent while 40 percent agreed, and whites disagreed by 48 to 33 percent.

The Supreme Court decisions to expand gay marriage were far more popular, with a majority approving of both. Fifty-one percent supported the ruling that allowed gay marriage in California, while 45 percent opposed it. Approval for the overturn of the Defense of Marriage Act, allowing same-sex couples to receive federal benefits, was even wider, with 56 percent approving and 41 percent disapproving.

Opinions on the gay marriage rulings, like those on the topic generally, remain sharply divided among party lines. Democrats supported the rulings on DOMA and Proposition 8 by 68 percent and 62 percent, respectively, compared to just 36 percent and 29 percent among Republicans. Younger adults were also more likely to approve: 67 percent of those ages 18 to 39 approved of the decision on DOMA, while just 41 percent of those 65 and over agreed.

These views on the rulings echo other polling on gay marriage, which generally shows a rising tide in public support that's recently become a majority. An ABC/Post survey in June (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/polling/postabc-poll-samesex-marriage-affirmative-action/2013/06/11/eff78c2a-d2a5-11e2-b3a2-3bf5eb37b9d0_page.html) found that 57 percent of Americans say gay and lesbians should be allowed to marry legally, and 63 percent say that the federal government should give equal benefits to married gay couples.

The most recent poll surveyed 1,005 adults by phone between June 26 and June 30.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/03/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-poll_n_3540140.html?utm_hp_ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=070313&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry

Of course, the racist Repug Congresscritters will obstruct, or at least gut/defund, all attempts to "correct" VRA section 4.

[RandomGuy]

cuz they all be voting thrice

uh-huh.

"massive vote fraud, people voting dozens of times... it happens, I heard it on Fox "news". I'm outraged!!"

.... um "okaaay, can you prove this happens a lot?"

"OH MY GOD, LOOK OVER THERE!!!!" (scurries off)

GTFO

[RandomGuy]

5 - 4, natcherly

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2013-06-25-splash625

Voting Rights Act Section 4 Struck Down By Supreme Court

The Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act on Tuesday, the provision of the landmark civil rights law that designates which parts of the country must have changes to their voting laws cleared by the federal government or in federal court.

The 5-4 ruling, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-96_6k47.pdf) joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, found that “things have changed dramatically” in the South nearly 50 years after the Voting Rights Act was signed.

The court’s opinion said it did not strike down the act of Congress “lightly,” and said it “took care to avoid ruling on the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act” back in 2009. “Congress could have updated the coverage formula at that time, but did not do so. Its failure to act leaves us today with no choice but to declare [Section 4] unconstitutional. The formula in that section can no longer be used as a basis for subjecting jurisdictions to preclearance.”

Congress, the court ruled, “may draft another formula based on current conditions.”

“Our country has changed, and 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 majority said.

Nevertheless, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued a wide-ranging dissent on behalf of herself and Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, justifying the continued vitality of the Voting Rights Act's preclearance provision.

"The sad irony of today’s decision lies in its utter failure to grasp why the VRA has proven effective," Ginsburg wrote. "The Court appears to believe that the VRA’s success in eliminating the specific devices extant in 1965 means that preclear*ance is no longer needed."

As for Section 4, Ginsburg wrote that "the record for the 2006 reauthorization makes abundantly clear [that] second-generation barriers to minority voting rights have emerged in the covered jurisdictions as at*tempted substitutes for the
first-generation barriers that originally triggered preclearance in those jurisdictions."


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/25/voting-rights-act-supreme-court_n_3429810.html




This pair of decisions pretty much sealed Scalia's legacy, as a hypocritcal, activist fuck judge.

Next time some conservative complains about "activist" judges, Ima slap 'em.

He pretty much came out in one opinion about a law he agrees with saying "We don't have the authority to strike down laws passed democratically", and then turned right around and did just that to something he didn't like.

What an asshole.

[Winehole23]

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/10/01/pasadena-redistricting-leaves-hispanics-political-/