Voting Rights Ruling: No Racism Anymore

Social conditions on race are what the GOP says, not the Democratic-led Congress, and certainly not empirical data.

GOP hack Chief Justice John Roberts believes racism went the way of electronic vacuum tubes and during his tenure will seek to impose this belief on any area of law that he can.

That's the political reality under which the Voting Rights Act (VRA), Section Five was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday.

Passing the Voting Rights Act in 2006, Congress concluded racism exists. Wrong, the GOP says.

The Voting Rights Act (VRA) opinion is being hailed and bashed. But the Court [at least five members] makes clear it disagrees with the VRA's assumption about prevailing racism.

John Nichols sees the opinion pulling the teeth from the Voting Rights Act.

NAACP's John Payton and the ACLU's Steven R. Shapiro applaud the Court for preserving the Act and are grateful the Court rules on narrow grounds, instead of eviscerating the Act as the GOP wants.

But narrow grounds are the best the GOP could get because the GOP-desired opinion won't write—there is no intellectually honest reasoning for the desired opinion that overturns section five of the Voting Rights Act.

Overturning Section Five, the Court would have made Bush v. Gore in comparison a model of rigorous reasoning and apolitical detachment.

So the GOP judges did what they could: Chief Justice Roberts offers his GOP view of racial history and implausibly reinterpretes the Voting Rights statute to mean what the Court says, laying the grounds for a future GOP challenge.

The four rule-of-law judges went along because that's the best that they could get and Roberts threw them some language about the good that the Voting Rights Act has accomplished.

As noted by Tom Goldstein in SCOTUSblog, the "case that went before the Court was a vehicle chosen expressly to pose the constitutional question" by activist lawyers who believe that contrary to what Congress said [in reauthorizing the act by votes of 390 to 33 in the House and 98 to 0 in the Senate in 2006 for 25 years], there is no need for the Act.

The constitutional question at hand is whether Congress overstepped its authority in deciding the Act is still needed.

But it's Congress' conclusion that racism exists that has the GOP upset.

The Court’s opinion says that Section 5 'imposes current burdens and must be justified by current needs.' And that 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." (NYT) This ignores the mountain of data that Congress used to justify reauthorization.

The GOP Court will go along with the GOP as much as it can without completely embarrassing itself.

Civil Rights Group Hail Voting Rights Ruling - Big SC Decisions Coming

Update III: NAACP LDF Director-Counsel John Payton: "The entire thrust of LDF's argument was that Section 5 remains critical to our democracy and, however grudgingly, the Court acknowledges that in its opinion today. In an unusually harmonious opinion, today's decision upholds the constitutionality of an essential core protection in our democracy. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act protects and shields the rights of minority voters from discrimination. Section 5 has long been symbolic of our nation's long and unsteady march toward greater political equality. Without its protections, our nation would unnecessarily face the grave risk of significant backsliding and retrenchment in the fragile gains that have been made."

Steven R. Shapiro, Legal Director of the ACLU: "For more than 40 years, Section 5 has been a critical element of perhaps the most successful civil rights statute this country has ever enacted. As Chief Justice Roberts recognized, the Voting Rights Act has been instrumental in reducing voting discrimination, increasing minority voter registration and multiplying the number of minority officeholders throughout the nation. But, as Congress recognized when it reenacted Section 5 only three years ago, voting discrimination is sadly not a relic of the past and Section 5 therefore continues to play a vital role in ensuring that all citizens have an equal right to participate in the political process."

Update II: Voting Rights Act Upheld, opinion here. Narrow 8-1 ruling preserves Section Five.

Update: SCOTUSblog LiveBlogs SC Opinions and Orders at 9:00 A.M. Central Time.

One week left in the U.S. Supreme Court's term and huge cases remain that will spotlight the problems with rightwing jurisprudence.

See Walter Dellinger, Linda Greenhouse and Dahlia Lithwick in Slate. Perhaps the most anticipated case: Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder.

To get an idea of the GOP incoherence and hostility to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, check out An Outdated Law in National Review Online by Abigail Thernstrom.

Thernstrom says "[p]olitical questions should be resolved in the open through the political process," but fails to mentions that the 2006 congressional reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act is what the GOP wants overturned by the Court.

As for present-day voter obstruction which Thernstrom fails to mention, she notes vaguely, "And sad to say, the whole issue of registration and ballot fraud has become one that splits Americans along party lines."

Now, why would that be? Because the GOP Can't Win Without Suppressing Votes, and the Party has no compunction over obstructing and suppressing nonGOP-voting Americans.

The decision is unpredictable. A five-four decision either way looks possible, though the case could be decided on a question of Congressional authority with liberal-rightwing votes scattered.

One thing is certain, the civil rights community is worried.

Jeffrey Toobin on CJ John Roberts: No More Mr. Nice Guy

Update: See today's 5-4 decision (Ashcroft and Mueller v. Iqbal, 07-1015) for yet another example of the utter disdain the GOP-Roberts wing has for liberty. See SC Turns Back Ex-Detainee’s Suit Over Prison Abuses (NYT).

As speculation continues on Obama's Supreme Court nominee, a must read by Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker on Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.

In September 2005 Roberts was confirmed 78-22, and the liberty-loving crowd (mainstream journalists call us the "left") figured that we were not going to be hurt as Roberts' predecessor was William Rehnquist. Can't really get worse than Rehnquist.

Not so sure now.