Antiquated racial entitlement about to get hacked by the SCOTUS

I tend to agree, while it's stupid to use a 1965 map based on 1965 conditions, Congress has a right to do plenty of stupid things.

Would have to see the reasoning why using a 1965 map is unconstitutional.

 

Certainly - I just used that as an example. You'd have to consider a number of different factors.

 

Like Shelby, Alabama.

 

The court didn't address Section 3 so yes its a possibility. In fact it raises a big question. Arkansas and New Mexico have been temporarily required to seek preclearance under a Section 3 order. However, courts are free to only require some maps or some voting laws to be covered and court orders are usually not indefinite. And usually, they only apply to that round of redistricting. I suppose some courts that deal with Section 2 challenges could turn around and require preclearance but there's a better chance that Congress will create a new formula than courts going around mandating preclearance.

No court is going to touch that and I'm willing to bet if it did, the Supreme Court would strike that down too.

 

Feel free to correct me:

The original VRA designated certain areas of the county as having a history of voter discrimination, and gave the DoJ the power to approve/disapprove voting laws in these designated areas. The act kept getting renewed by Congress using the exact same map as in 1965.

SCOTUS said if Congress wants to designate an area as racist/discriminatory, it has to be based on current conditions rather than the way things were in 1965.

 

First of all this was only implemented in places where there was already a history of discrimination. If those places showed that for 10 years they were able to not need any help in keeping discrimination out of their elections they could apply to have the conditions for the act removed for them. Many have done so. Some haven't.

So, you have elections like the board of trustees in Houston where there were 84 voting sites. They decided to change it to 12 sites.

So under the new polling places the whitest polling site would serve 6,500 voters. Which would be easy, short, and little to no lines for voting. The place with the largest amount of minority voters would have to serve 67,000 voters. That would be a huge pain, long lines, and a greater inconvenience.

The Justice department said no that wasn't fair. This statute was used time and time again because some people kept trying to alienate minority voters.

Now they can make those types of changes without having to get approval from the Justice department.

That's basically what it means.

 

One last thing, I do think one true possibility is if Congress reformed the bailout provisions of the VRA. The VRA has rules that allow counties to demonstrate that they have reformed their management of elections to get out of preclearance. This however only works on the local level. This however is not possible at the state level.

I suppose Congress could liberalize the bailout provision to give states a chance to prove that they do not deserve to be under federal supervision. I think that could be a fair compromise that could theoretically pass. Part of the Supreme Court's reasoning was that preclearance is a huge burden so Congress needs to justify exactly why certain areas are covered by the Justice Department. With a fair bailout clause for states, I think there could be a fair workaround for states that feel they are unfairly burdened.

 

Agreed - from a theoretical standpoint, I don't have a particular problem with the USSC saying that things have changed since 1965 and the map no longer makes sense. Things *have* changed, and I imagine Congress keeps passing the same map because changing it would be a political firestorm. From a practical standpoint, it will be tough to replace, so that's disappointing.

 

When I read the decision I almost sense disappointment from Roberts. I think he didn't want to strike this down but felt Congress left no choice because of their political cowardice.

 

I don't think it's within the charge of the Supreme Court to address "political cowardice" on behalf of the Congress. That would seem to me to be an affront to the checks and balances enshrined by the Constitution.

And before any of you say, What about Brown v. Board of education? Wasn't the court covering for political cowardice there? ...let me explain that Brown addressed fundamental citizen rights. This decision does nothing of the sort. In fact, the only people being harmed by the VRA are the lawyers charged with defending discriminatory practices and the taxpayers forced to pay for such defenses.

 

It is within the charge of the Supreme Court to determine how the laws can be applied, as evenly as possible, to everyone.

If you're discriminating irrationally against irrational discrimination, one should hasten to point that this is discrimination.

Something has to measure actual discrimination for the Supreme Court to conclude it is worth the special attention of having different laws for different counties.

 

50 year old relics? How about thousand year old relics?

 

As an aside, why does it have to measured? Not everything is quantifiable. For instance, p*rn has different standards across the country because the SC could not "measure" it and left it up to local communities to define.

Regardless, how is this for a measurement:

 

"Just because it is challenging to measure discrimination does not mean that sound, adequate research in this area is not possible."

p*rn can be classified quite easily into criminal and non-criminal quadrants, so I find that a relatively bad example to use in terms of a concept that can be judicially ambigious.

I mean, it has one of the clearest distinctions I can think of---if someone under 18 is in there, you're going to teh jail.

Regardless of our sidebar on p*rn, there are better ways to go about judging discrimination than referring to patterns in 1965, or a 1860 map of slavery patterns. All the Supreme Court is saying is that if Congress wants to continue mandating the burden of seperate laws for certain counties, there better be more of an effort made to better judge discrimination.

of course, that's speaking in ideals. You could also say that practically, the Supreme Court is punting it to a Congress that it knows won't act. Which, yes, is unfortunate.

 

And... here we go...

 

“Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”

“The Court’s opinion can hardly be described as an exemplar of restrained and moderate decision making. Quite the opposite. Hubris is a fit word for today’s demolition of the VRA.”

“Congress approached the 2006 reauthorization of the VRA with great care and seriousness. The same cannot be said of the Court’s opinion today. The Court makes no genuine attempt to engage with the massive legislative record that Congress assembled. Instead, it relies on increases in voter registration and turnout as if that were the whole story.”

“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. … With that belief, and the argument derived from it, history repeats itself.”

--Justice Ginsburg in the Dissent

 

I feel for you guys in Texas. Voter ID will go through a lawsuit but instead of having preclearance to stop it, you now have to hope that a judge issues an injunction (which requires a far tougher set of standards). And who knows how long that will take.

Also, the Texas maps will be in court. There are standing Section 2 claims on both the old and interim maps that need to be addressed. Whatever Rick Perry does won't matter. If he goes with the old maps, he'll just open the government up to even more scrutiny in the courts. The DC circuit already called out the old maps as intentionally discriminating against minorities.

 

North Carolina just joined the fun as well.

Talk about an activist court. The Roberts court is the most activist I have seen in my lifetime.