Section 4 of the VRA found unconsitutional

[g5000]

The majority basically said there is no evidence of higher voter discrimination in the states or districts covered by the VRA when compared to the rest of the country. Therefore, to continue to single them out for double secret probation is unconstitutional.

The court did not deny voter discrimination exists. They just said it does not exist in greater amounts in the VRA zones.

And the numbers back them up.

Since that time, Census Bureau data indicate that African-American voter turnout has come to exceed white voter turnout in five of the six States originally covered by §5,with a gap in the sixth State of less than one half of one percent.

 

[KissMy]

What the ruling means is quite simply voter suppression will continue and accelerate. The Four Republican Justices and the Republican Chief Justice set back voting 'rights' to the 1950's. Next we can expect Alabama or another Southern State to challenge Brown v. the Board of Ed.

Too stupid. Last election black voted in higher percentages than whites. Blacks also hold the most powerful offices in the country & the world. Blacks are not being suppressed more than regular citizens & therefore should no longer have greater protection under the law than regular citizens. That is what is called equality!

 

[TakeAStepBack]

LOLberals hate equality. Even though they pretend that they fight for it.

 

[g5000]

The only reason Democrats are upset about this decision is because states can no longer be compelled to draw racially gerrymandered districts that are guaranteed to elect a Democrat.

That is disengenuous as hell. The Republican majority in Texas gerrymandered districts to prevent minorities from being able to elect one of their own. To try and flip that reality around is downright dishonest.

 

[Crackerjaxon]

Free at last. Free at last.

It was unconstitutional then. It's unconstitutional now.

I'm surprised the democrats don't want to re-enact Reconstruction.

I dont think it was unconstiutional (or if so just barely) at the time, as what was going on was clearly unconsitutional voter suppression of black voters.

However a remedy for stringent times is in no way supposed to be permanent. They should have either renovated Section 4, or got rid of pre clearance entirely.

One can make the same argument over affirmative action, which was needed decades ago, and should be soon put to rest.

I don't see how imposing election laws on certain geographical segments of the US and not others is even remotely constitutional.

At any rate, I'm glad to see the Supreme Court making an occasional sane judgment. It gives me a glimmer of hope.

Affirmative action was and is unconstitutional, too. I believe we will soon see an end to it.

I would very much like to see the federal government pony up recompense to Southern states for its illegal invasion of the South and also to the descendants of slaves it freed to steal or starve in a ruined economy.

The feds promised ex-slaves forty acres and a mule, but gave them nothing but a hellish time. We are still feeling the effects of it.

I don't even want to start on the wholesale rape of the South from which it is only now recovering.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

What the ruling means is quite simply voter suppression will continue and accelerate. The Four Republican Justices and the Republican Chief Justice set back voting 'rights' to the 1950's. Next we can expect Alabama or another Southern State to challenge Brown v. the Board of Ed.

Please explain how you draw that conclusion for someone simple like me.

 

[martybegan]

The only reason Democrats are upset about this decision is because states can no longer be compelled to draw racially gerrymandered districts that are guaranteed to elect a Democrat.

That is disengenuous as hell. The Republican majority in Texas gerrymandered districts to prevent minorities from being able to elect one of their own. To try and flip that reality around is downright dishonest.

The difference is pro-minority gerrymandering gets a DOJ stamp of approval under the previous system. Now its open season until people enact real districting reform.

 

[KissMy]

LOL. Oh yeah, there's no voter suppression going on, it's all about making our elections honest, fair and aboveboard. Let's face it, anti democratic forces have won. American has become a Plutocratic Republic wherein the People's House is owned outright by the 1%.

Now you are talking about Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, not section 4 of the VRA.

 

[JakeStarkey]

This is the correct decision. Voting Rights Act ruling: Here?s what you need to know

So what actually happens, now that Section 5 is defunct? Rick Pildes, an election law expert at New York University thinks some of the reactions to those questions on the voting law are hyperbolic. After the oral arguments in March, he noted that the home page of the Huffington Post Web site featured the headline “Back to 1964?” Nonsense, he argued. “No one in their right mind can think that there’s a risk that we’re on the verge of going back to the world that existed before 1965.”

So, what is the risk, if there is one? Pildes notes that the Justice Department has come to use section 5 more as a tool to that ensure minority populations are represented in legislative bodies than a way to tackle “ballot box” issues, like voter ID, wait times at the voting booth, and so forth. “For several decades now, it’s been far more significant in terms of redistricting issues than it has in ‘access to the ballotbox’ issues,” he says. “We like to talk about first generation versus second generation claims. First generation claims are about access to the ballot box. Second generation claims are about the representativeness of districts and how they are constructed.”

And Pildes isn’t convinced that doing away with section 5 would have much of an effect on second generation claims. For one thing, the Justice Department rejects only a tiny fraction of changes to voting and districting laws. An internal study found that the agency raised objection to less than 0.1 percent of all law changes between 1995 and 2004.

 

[g5000]

As we saw in Pennsylvania last year, attempts to suppress minority voters is not restricted to the Deep South. Therefore, to single out the Deep South for special handling is wrong.

The result of this decision will mean the Deep South will no longer be able to take a shortcut to justice. They won't be able to go to the Department of Justice and have a bogus election law stopped by the Executive. They will have to go through the courts like everyone else. A process that is far more tedious and expensive.

 

[martybegan]

Free at last. Free at last.

It was unconstitutional then. It's unconstitutional now.

I'm surprised the democrats don't want to re-enact Reconstruction.

I dont think it was unconstiutional (or if so just barely) at the time, as what was going on was clearly unconsitutional voter suppression of black voters.

However a remedy for stringent times is in no way supposed to be permanent. They should have either renovated Section 4, or got rid of pre clearance entirely.

One can make the same argument over affirmative action, which was needed decades ago, and should be soon put to rest.

I don't see how imposing election laws on certain geographical segments of the US and not others is even remotely constitutional.

At any rate, I'm glad to see the Supreme Court making an occasional sane judgment. It gives me a glimmer of hope.

Affirmative action was and is unconstitutional, too. I believe we will soon see an end to it.

I would very much like to see the federal government pony up recompense to Southern states for its illegal invasion of the South and also to the descendants of slaves it freed to steal or starve in a ruined economy.

The feds promised ex-slaves forty acres and a mule, but gave them nothing but a hellish time. We are still feeling the effects of it.

I don't even want to start on the wholesale rape of the South from which it is only now recovering.

You lost me on the bolded parts. This is off topic, but I will say this. The consitution was a contract between the states, and could only be nullified by an agreed nullification by a majority of the states. If states were allowed to threaten seccession willy nilly the system would never have worked. Democracy can only work when the minority acceedes to the majority, unless it becomes so egrigious that it warrants revolt.

 

[Oddball]

All of this freak-outery about the VRA begs the question....Which ethnicity is it that controls the voting processes in predominantly black voting districts?...Wouldn't that answer logically be black people?

Why would black people keep other blacks from voting?

 

[Wry Catcher]

They could have challenged that WITHOUT this case ever coming to the court.

All the case does is remove DOJ oversight over places that may have zero evidence of discrimination for the past 30 years, but still needed preclearance because of old data.

People wrongly denied the vote can STILL sue in federal court, and Section 2 still applies.

Of course, and that suit will take place after an election. What remedy exists then? None! This can and will be spun by the anti democratic forces as simply an update - in reality it fucks over minorities, students and the aged.

So pre-clearance has to be perpetual and ever ongoing? Even if the conditions that created the need for pre-clearance are no longer valid?

Who says the conditions are no longer valid?

Congress could have fixed this the last time they re-upped the VRA, but they got lazy, kept a formula from 40 years ago intact, and got burned.

Congress is dysfunctional, the Gang of Five knows this, which is why the ruling is a shame.

The section was written when ACTUAL voter suppression using guns and dogs and hangings was going on. That is no longer the case, and the law SHOULD have been updated to reflect that.

Oh, so "ACTUAL" voter suppression requires guns, dogs and hangings. I see, long lines, hard or impossible or expensive to get ID cards or too few ballots may make us more civilized but voter suppression is still in effect.

 

[martybegan]

Of course, and that suit will take place after an election. What remedy exists then? None! This can and will be spun by the anti democratic forces as simply an update - in reality it fucks over minorities, students and the aged.

So pre-clearance has to be perpetual and ever ongoing? Even if the conditions that created the need for pre-clearance are no longer valid?

Who says the conditions are no longer valid?

Congress could have fixed this the last time they re-upped the VRA, but they got lazy, kept a formula from 40 years ago intact, and got burned.

The section was written when ACTUAL voter suppression using guns and dogs and hangings was going on. That is no longer the case, and the law SHOULD have been updated to reflect that.

Oh, so "ACTUAL" voter suppression requires guns, dogs and hangings. I see, long lines, hard or impossible or expensive ID cards, too few ballots make us more civilized but voter suppression is still in effect.

Section 4 as written was designed to counter THAT form of suppression. If progressives wanted it to cover what you see currently as suppression, then it should have been updated and re-written.

The formula used did not match current conditions, and thus should have been redone. Lazyness on the part of the legislature led to the court overturning the archaic formula.

And people affected can still sue. ANY form of pre-clearance when it comes to local governments must be for dire reasons, not for any reason.

 

[g5000]

All of this freak-outery about the VRA begs the question....Which ethnicity is it that controls the voting processes in predominantly black voting districts?...Wouldn't that answer logically be black people?

Why would black people keep other blacks from voting?

You clearly do not know what is going on.

If 50 percent of the population was black, and yet only 30 percent of the voting districts were majority black districts, then that suggests districts may have been rigged that way. District lines can be, and have been, drawn to prevent representation which is on par with the demographics.

Texas is a textbook case. The Republican legislature has gerrymandered the living shit out of the map to accomplish this very thing.


And then there are the Voter ID laws enacted by Republican majority legislatures to prevent as many minorites from being able to vote as possible.


But the Deep South is not the only place this is happening. Unfortunately, Republicans are hard at work to suppress the minority vote all over the country.


And you thought black voted for Obama because he gave them presents, I bet. It couldn't possibly be because of shit like this.

 

[bodecea]

No no according to liberals ALL voting rights have been repealed!

I'm a liberal and I never said or believed anything like that.

 

[KissMy]

Oh, so "ACTUAL" voter suppression requires guns, dogs and hangings. I see, long lines, hard or impossible or expensive to get ID cards or too few ballots may make us more civilized but voter suppression is still in effect.

I guess you have not heard of the provisional ballot then?

 

[Wry Catcher]

All of this freak-outery about the VRA begs the question....Which ethnicity is it that controls the voting processes in predominantly black voting districts?...Wouldn't that answer logically be black people?

Why would black people keep other blacks from voting?

You're a liar or a fool. Each State's Secretary of State sets the rules.

 

[jwoodie]

The only reason Democrats are upset about this decision is because states can no longer be compelled to draw racially gerrymandered districts that are guaranteed to elect a Democrat.

That is disengenuous as hell. The Republican majority in Texas gerrymandered districts to prevent minorities from being able to elect one of their own. To try and flip that reality around is downright dishonest.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
RACE CARD RACE CARD RACE CARD RACE CARD RACE CARD

If you knew what you were talking about, you might be able to spell "disingenuous." Unless you define Democrats as a "minority," such gerrymandering actually increases the likelihood of racial minorities being elected.

By the way, are you equally enraged by redistricting in California that produced Democrat supermajorities in both state legislative houses?

 

[Wry Catcher]

Oh, so "ACTUAL" voter suppression requires guns, dogs and hangings. I see, long lines, hard or impossible or expensive to get ID cards or too few ballots may make us more civilized but voter suppression is still in effect.

I guess you have not heard of the provisional ballot then?

Yep, sure have. You have a point?