https://www.profitableratecpm.com/f4ffsdxe?key=39b1ebce72f3758345b2155c98e6709c
A central grievance motivating today’s conservative legal movement — and the Republican Party more broadly — is that any measure rectifying the country’s habitual discrimination against minorities In fact discriminates within the group.
They probably won’t strike down Section 2 altogether: Justice Brett Kavanaugh was like a doll on a string repeating that Louisiana and its allies are not seeking to “eliminate” Section 2 or find it unconstitutional; Judge Amy Coney Barrett assured that she was only seeking a “clarification” of a 40-year-old precedent, not its overturning. They will likely find a procedural way to neutralize the law, perhaps by quietly eliminating Congressional amendments that removed the need to prove the state was intentionally discriminating with its maps, which is difficult to do.
It is no exaggeration to say that the United States was not truly a democracy before the VRA. And Republican opposition to the plan immediately arose, with President Nixon complaining that his preclearance requirements were punitive to the South. President Ronald Reagan’s advisers — including now-Chief Justice John Roberts — tried to convince him to veto the amendment banning voting practices that result in racial discrimination, even though state intent cannot be proven.
In the United States, minority groups have never been guaranteed the right to vote. Even today, the governor of Illinois warns that President Trump is deploying the military for the express purpose of intimidating voters and preventing them from exercising their sacred right to vote in the midterm elections. The Supreme Court is giving its own version of things by threatening one of the last protections of our multicultural democracy.
Right-wing judges have resisted frankly acknowledging this future and have instead chosen to pseudo-intellectualize the issue at hand, claiming to be outraged by “racial discrimination” when race is taken into account to address the theft of Black voting power.
They probably won’t strike down Section 2 altogether: Justice Brett Kavanaugh was like a doll on a string repeating that Louisiana and its allies are not seeking to “eliminate” Section 2 or find it unconstitutional; Judge Amy Coney Barrett assured that she was only seeking a “clarification” of a 40-year-old precedent, not its overturning. They will likely find a procedural way to neutralize the law, perhaps by quietly eliminating Congressional amendments that removed the need to prove the state was intentionally discriminating with its maps, which is difficult to do.
It is no exaggeration to say that the United States was not truly a democracy before the VRA. And Republican opposition to the plan immediately arose, with President Nixon complaining that his preclearance requirements were punitive to the South. President Ronald Reagan’s advisers — including now-Chief Justice John Roberts — tried to convince him to veto the amendment banning voting practices that result in racial discrimination, even though state intent cannot be proven.
In the United States, minority groups have never been guaranteed the right to vote. Even today, the governor of Illinois warns that President Trump is deploying the military for the express purpose of intimidating voters and preventing them from exercising their sacred right to vote in the midterm elections. The Supreme Court is giving its own version of things by threatening one of the last protections of our multicultural democracy.
We already know what the effects of this final blow against the VRA would be, because we, as a country, have already experienced it. This meant the complete exclusion of black people from the political process. This meant an embarrassing shortage of black legislators. In Louisiana, “no black person served in the Louisiana Legislature between the 1880s and 1967,” according to the appellant’s brief. 1967 was two years after the VRA was passed.
Right-wing judges have resisted frankly acknowledging this future and have instead chosen to pseudo-intellectualize the issue at hand, claiming to be outraged by “racial discrimination” when race is taken into account to address the theft of Black voting power.
They probably won’t strike down Section 2 altogether: Justice Brett Kavanaugh was like a doll on a string repeating that Louisiana and its allies are not seeking to “eliminate” Section 2 or find it unconstitutional; Judge Amy Coney Barrett assured that she was only seeking a “clarification” of a 40-year-old precedent, not its overturning. They will likely find a procedural way to neutralize the law, perhaps by quietly eliminating Congressional amendments that removed the need to prove the state was intentionally discriminating with its maps, which is difficult to do.
It is no exaggeration to say that the United States was not truly a democracy before the VRA. And Republican opposition to the plan immediately arose, with President Nixon complaining that his preclearance requirements were punitive to the South. President Ronald Reagan’s advisers — including now-Chief Justice John Roberts — tried to convince him to veto the amendment banning voting practices that result in racial discrimination, even though state intent cannot be proven.
In the United States, minority groups have never been guaranteed the right to vote. Even today, the governor of Illinois warns that President Trump is deploying the military for the express purpose of intimidating voters and preventing them from exercising their sacred right to vote in the midterm elections. The Supreme Court is giving its own version of things by threatening one of the last protections of our multicultural democracy.
“If we take Louisiana as an example, every black congressman was elected in a VRA opportunity district,” said Janai Nelson, an attorney for the appellants, referring to districts created to strengthen minority voting power. “We only have diversity in the South, for example, because of litigation that forced the creation of opportunity districts under the Voting Rights Act. [Black] The Louisiana judiciary was elected as part of a VRA opportunity district and almost all legislative members were elected from those same districts.
We already know what the effects of this final blow against the VRA would be, because we, as a country, have already experienced it. This meant the complete exclusion of black people from the political process. This meant an embarrassing shortage of black legislators. In Louisiana, “no black person served in the Louisiana Legislature between the 1880s and 1967,” according to the appellant’s brief. 1967 was two years after the VRA was passed.
Right-wing judges have resisted frankly acknowledging this future and have instead chosen to pseudo-intellectualize the issue at hand, claiming to be outraged by “racial discrimination” when race is taken into account to address the theft of Black voting power.
They probably won’t strike down Section 2 altogether: Justice Brett Kavanaugh was like a doll on a string repeating that Louisiana and its allies are not seeking to “eliminate” Section 2 or find it unconstitutional; Judge Amy Coney Barrett assured that she was only seeking a “clarification” of a 40-year-old precedent, not its overturning. They will likely find a procedural way to neutralize the law, perhaps by quietly eliminating Congressional amendments that removed the need to prove the state was intentionally discriminating with its maps, which is difficult to do.
It is no exaggeration to say that the United States was not truly a democracy before the VRA. And Republican opposition to the plan immediately arose, with President Nixon complaining that his preclearance requirements were punitive to the South. President Ronald Reagan’s advisers — including now-Chief Justice John Roberts — tried to convince him to veto the amendment banning voting practices that result in racial discrimination, even though state intent cannot be proven.
In the United States, minority groups have never been guaranteed the right to vote. Even today, the governor of Illinois warns that President Trump is deploying the military for the express purpose of intimidating voters and preventing them from exercising their sacred right to vote in the midterm elections. The Supreme Court is giving its own version of things by threatening one of the last protections of our multicultural democracy.
The result in this case, if the Court’s conservative majority indicated Wednesday, will be the same.
“If we take Louisiana as an example, every black congressman was elected in a VRA opportunity district,” said Janai Nelson, an attorney for the appellants, referring to districts created to strengthen minority voting power. “We only have diversity in the South, for example, because of litigation that forced the creation of opportunity districts under the Voting Rights Act. [Black] The Louisiana judiciary was elected as part of a VRA opportunity district and almost all legislative members were elected from those same districts.
We already know what the effects of this final blow against the VRA would be, because we, as a country, have already experienced it. This meant the complete exclusion of black people from the political process. This meant an embarrassing shortage of black legislators. In Louisiana, “no black person served in the Louisiana Legislature between the 1880s and 1967,” according to the appellant’s brief. 1967 was two years after the VRA was passed.
Right-wing judges have resisted frankly acknowledging this future and have instead chosen to pseudo-intellectualize the issue at hand, claiming to be outraged by “racial discrimination” when race is taken into account to address the theft of Black voting power.
They probably won’t strike down Section 2 altogether: Justice Brett Kavanaugh was like a doll on a string repeating that Louisiana and its allies are not seeking to “eliminate” Section 2 or find it unconstitutional; Judge Amy Coney Barrett assured that she was only seeking a “clarification” of a 40-year-old precedent, not its overturning. They will likely find a procedural way to neutralize the law, perhaps by quietly eliminating Congressional amendments that removed the need to prove the state was intentionally discriminating with its maps, which is difficult to do.
It is no exaggeration to say that the United States was not truly a democracy before the VRA. And Republican opposition to the plan immediately arose, with President Nixon complaining that his preclearance requirements were punitive to the South. President Ronald Reagan’s advisers — including now-Chief Justice John Roberts — tried to convince him to veto the amendment banning voting practices that result in racial discrimination, even though state intent cannot be proven.
In the United States, minority groups have never been guaranteed the right to vote. Even today, the governor of Illinois warns that President Trump is deploying the military for the express purpose of intimidating voters and preventing them from exercising their sacred right to vote in the midterm elections. The Supreme Court is giving its own version of things by threatening one of the last protections of our multicultural democracy.
When the Roberts Court ruled Shelby v. Holdera 2013 ruling that decimated the part of the VRA that ordered areas with a history of racially discriminatory voting practices to be “pre-cleared” before passing new voting laws, the result was predictable. Red states, many of which were from the old Confederacy, adopted a ton of new voting restrictions.
The result in this case, if the Court’s conservative majority indicated Wednesday, will be the same.
“If we take Louisiana as an example, every black congressman was elected in a VRA opportunity district,” said Janai Nelson, an attorney for the appellants, referring to districts created to strengthen minority voting power. “We only have diversity in the South, for example, because of litigation that forced the creation of opportunity districts under the Voting Rights Act. [Black] The Louisiana judiciary was elected as part of a VRA opportunity district and almost all legislative members were elected from those same districts.
We already know what the effects of this final blow against the VRA would be, because we, as a country, have already experienced it. This meant the complete exclusion of black people from the political process. This meant an embarrassing shortage of black legislators. In Louisiana, “no black person served in the Louisiana Legislature between the 1880s and 1967,” according to the appellant’s brief. 1967 was two years after the VRA was passed.
Right-wing judges have resisted frankly acknowledging this future and have instead chosen to pseudo-intellectualize the issue at hand, claiming to be outraged by “racial discrimination” when race is taken into account to address the theft of Black voting power.
They probably won’t strike down Section 2 altogether: Justice Brett Kavanaugh was like a doll on a string repeating that Louisiana and its allies are not seeking to “eliminate” Section 2 or find it unconstitutional; Judge Amy Coney Barrett assured that she was only seeking a “clarification” of a 40-year-old precedent, not its overturning. They will likely find a procedural way to neutralize the law, perhaps by quietly eliminating Congressional amendments that removed the need to prove the state was intentionally discriminating with its maps, which is difficult to do.
It is no exaggeration to say that the United States was not truly a democracy before the VRA. And Republican opposition to the plan immediately arose, with President Nixon complaining that his preclearance requirements were punitive to the South. President Ronald Reagan’s advisers — including now-Chief Justice John Roberts — tried to convince him to veto the amendment banning voting practices that result in racial discrimination, even though state intent cannot be proven.
In the United States, minority groups have never been guaranteed the right to vote. Even today, the governor of Illinois warns that President Trump is deploying the military for the express purpose of intimidating voters and preventing them from exercising their sacred right to vote in the midterm elections. The Supreme Court is giving its own version of things by threatening one of the last protections of our multicultural democracy.
His questions during oral argument Wednesday showed no concern about the racially discriminatory map Lousiaiana drew — he was, however, very concerned about the corrective map she was forced to accept to give more power to black voters. Thatby his standards, was real discrimination. (All lives matter.)
When the Roberts Court ruled Shelby v. Holdera 2013 ruling that decimated the part of the VRA that ordered areas with a history of racially discriminatory voting practices to be “pre-cleared” before passing new voting laws, the result was predictable. Red states, many of which were from the old Confederacy, adopted a ton of new voting restrictions.
The result in this case, if the Court’s conservative majority indicated Wednesday, will be the same.
“If we take Louisiana as an example, every black congressman was elected in a VRA opportunity district,” said Janai Nelson, an attorney for the appellants, referring to districts created to strengthen minority voting power. “We only have diversity in the South, for example, because of litigation that forced the creation of opportunity districts under the Voting Rights Act. [Black] The Louisiana judiciary was elected as part of a VRA opportunity district and almost all legislative members were elected from those same districts.
We already know what the effects of this final blow against the VRA would be, because we, as a country, have already experienced it. This meant the complete exclusion of black people from the political process. This meant an embarrassing shortage of black legislators. In Louisiana, “no black person served in the Louisiana Legislature between the 1880s and 1967,” according to the appellant’s brief. 1967 was two years after the VRA was passed.
Right-wing judges have resisted frankly acknowledging this future and have instead chosen to pseudo-intellectualize the issue at hand, claiming to be outraged by “racial discrimination” when race is taken into account to address the theft of Black voting power.
They probably won’t strike down Section 2 altogether: Justice Brett Kavanaugh was like a doll on a string repeating that Louisiana and its allies are not seeking to “eliminate” Section 2 or find it unconstitutional; Judge Amy Coney Barrett assured that she was only seeking a “clarification” of a 40-year-old precedent, not its overturning. They will likely find a procedural way to neutralize the law, perhaps by quietly eliminating Congressional amendments that removed the need to prove the state was intentionally discriminating with its maps, which is difficult to do.
It is no exaggeration to say that the United States was not truly a democracy before the VRA. And Republican opposition to the plan immediately arose, with President Nixon complaining that his preclearance requirements were punitive to the South. President Ronald Reagan’s advisers — including now-Chief Justice John Roberts — tried to convince him to veto the amendment banning voting practices that result in racial discrimination, even though state intent cannot be proven.
In the United States, minority groups have never been guaranteed the right to vote. Even today, the governor of Illinois warns that President Trump is deploying the military for the express purpose of intimidating voters and preventing them from exercising their sacred right to vote in the midterm elections. The Supreme Court is giving its own version of things by threatening one of the last protections of our multicultural democracy.
“Is it acceptable for a federal court to use, for remedial purposes, a map that intentionally discriminates on the basis of race? » asked Justice Neil Gorsuch.
His questions during oral argument Wednesday showed no concern about the racially discriminatory map Lousiaiana drew — he was, however, very concerned about the corrective map she was forced to accept to give more power to black voters. Thatby his standards, was real discrimination. (All lives matter.)
When the Roberts Court ruled Shelby v. Holdera 2013 ruling that decimated the part of the VRA that ordered areas with a history of racially discriminatory voting practices to be “pre-cleared” before passing new voting laws, the result was predictable. Red states, many of which were from the old Confederacy, adopted a ton of new voting restrictions.
The result in this case, if the Court’s conservative majority indicated Wednesday, will be the same.
“If we take Louisiana as an example, every black congressman was elected in a VRA opportunity district,” said Janai Nelson, an attorney for the appellants, referring to districts created to strengthen minority voting power. “We only have diversity in the South, for example, because of litigation that forced the creation of opportunity districts under the Voting Rights Act. [Black] The Louisiana judiciary was elected as part of a VRA opportunity district and almost all legislative members were elected from those same districts.
We already know what the effects of this final blow against the VRA would be, because we, as a country, have already experienced it. This meant the complete exclusion of black people from the political process. This meant an embarrassing shortage of black legislators. In Louisiana, “no black person served in the Louisiana Legislature between the 1880s and 1967,” according to the appellant’s brief. 1967 was two years after the VRA was passed.
Right-wing judges have resisted frankly acknowledging this future and have instead chosen to pseudo-intellectualize the issue at hand, claiming to be outraged by “racial discrimination” when race is taken into account to address the theft of Black voting power.
They probably won’t strike down Section 2 altogether: Justice Brett Kavanaugh was like a doll on a string repeating that Louisiana and its allies are not seeking to “eliminate” Section 2 or find it unconstitutional; Judge Amy Coney Barrett assured that she was only seeking a “clarification” of a 40-year-old precedent, not its overturning. They will likely find a procedural way to neutralize the law, perhaps by quietly eliminating Congressional amendments that removed the need to prove the state was intentionally discriminating with its maps, which is difficult to do.
It is no exaggeration to say that the United States was not truly a democracy before the VRA. And Republican opposition to the plan immediately arose, with President Nixon complaining that his preclearance requirements were punitive to the South. President Ronald Reagan’s advisers — including now-Chief Justice John Roberts — tried to convince him to veto the amendment banning voting practices that result in racial discrimination, even though state intent cannot be proven.
In the United States, minority groups have never been guaranteed the right to vote. Even today, the governor of Illinois warns that President Trump is deploying the military for the express purpose of intimidating voters and preventing them from exercising their sacred right to vote in the midterm elections. The Supreme Court is giving its own version of things by threatening one of the last protections of our multicultural democracy.
Republicans, including those on the Court, dislike Section 2, in part because black voters overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. Suppressing the black vote is in their direct partisan interest. So, to kill the VRA, right-wing judges grotesquely resort to Reconstruction Amendments to turn the promise of equal protection into a fatal flaw. In the story they tell, it does not constitute racial discrimination for Louisiana to round up and crush black voters to ensure that about 30 percent of its population can only elect one in six representatives to Congress. But requiring the state to draw a new map where that third is more represented — perhaps by drawing a second district in which black voters would make up a large portion of the voting population — East racial discrimination against white voters.
“Is it acceptable for a federal court to use, for remedial purposes, a map that intentionally discriminates on the basis of race? » asked Justice Neil Gorsuch.
His questions during oral argument Wednesday showed no concern about the racially discriminatory map Lousiaiana drew — he was, however, very concerned about the corrective map she was forced to accept to give more power to black voters. Thatby his standards, was real discrimination. (All lives matter.)
When the Roberts Court ruled Shelby v. Holdera 2013 ruling that decimated the part of the VRA that ordered areas with a history of racially discriminatory voting practices to be “pre-cleared” before passing new voting laws, the result was predictable. Red states, many of which were from the old Confederacy, adopted a ton of new voting restrictions.
The result in this case, if the Court’s conservative majority indicated Wednesday, will be the same.
“If we take Louisiana as an example, every black congressman was elected in a VRA opportunity district,” said Janai Nelson, an attorney for the appellants, referring to districts created to strengthen minority voting power. “We only have diversity in the South, for example, because of litigation that forced the creation of opportunity districts under the Voting Rights Act. [Black] The Louisiana judiciary was elected as part of a VRA opportunity district and almost all legislative members were elected from those same districts.
We already know what the effects of this final blow against the VRA would be, because we, as a country, have already experienced it. This meant the complete exclusion of black people from the political process. This meant an embarrassing shortage of black legislators. In Louisiana, “no black person served in the Louisiana Legislature between the 1880s and 1967,” according to the appellant’s brief. 1967 was two years after the VRA was passed.
Right-wing judges have resisted frankly acknowledging this future and have instead chosen to pseudo-intellectualize the issue at hand, claiming to be outraged by “racial discrimination” when race is taken into account to address the theft of Black voting power.
They probably won’t strike down Section 2 altogether: Justice Brett Kavanaugh was like a doll on a string repeating that Louisiana and its allies are not seeking to “eliminate” Section 2 or find it unconstitutional; Judge Amy Coney Barrett assured that she was only seeking a “clarification” of a 40-year-old precedent, not its overturning. They will likely find a procedural way to neutralize the law, perhaps by quietly eliminating Congressional amendments that removed the need to prove the state was intentionally discriminating with its maps, which is difficult to do.
It is no exaggeration to say that the United States was not truly a democracy before the VRA. And Republican opposition to the plan immediately arose, with President Nixon complaining that his preclearance requirements were punitive to the South. President Ronald Reagan’s advisers — including now-Chief Justice John Roberts — tried to convince him to veto the amendment banning voting practices that result in racial discrimination, even though state intent cannot be proven.
In the United States, minority groups have never been guaranteed the right to vote. Even today, the governor of Illinois warns that President Trump is deploying the military for the express purpose of intimidating voters and preventing them from exercising their sacred right to vote in the midterm elections. The Supreme Court is giving its own version of things by threatening one of the last protections of our multicultural democracy.
That same grievance animated right-wing justices Wednesday, as they heard a case that could decimate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which voting rights groups typically use to prove that states dilute minority voters in a given district to diminish their voting power. Section 2 is the last weapon of historic civil rights legislation that the Roberts Court has yet to destroy, and was a bulwark against, in large part, red state legislatures, often in the states that comprised the Confederacy, using clever redaction to ensure that white voters still had disproportionate power over blacks to elect representatives of their choosing.
Republicans, including those on the Court, dislike Section 2, in part because black voters overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. Suppressing the black vote is in their direct partisan interest. So, to kill the VRA, right-wing judges grotesquely resort to Reconstruction Amendments to turn the promise of equal protection into a fatal flaw. In the story they tell, it does not constitute racial discrimination for Louisiana to round up and crush black voters to ensure that about 30 percent of its population can only elect one in six representatives to Congress. But requiring the state to draw a new map where that third is more represented — perhaps by drawing a second district in which black voters would make up a large portion of the voting population — East racial discrimination against white voters.
“Is it acceptable for a federal court to use, for remedial purposes, a map that intentionally discriminates on the basis of race? » asked Justice Neil Gorsuch.
His questions during oral argument Wednesday showed no concern about the racially discriminatory map Lousiaiana drew — he was, however, very concerned about the corrective map she was forced to accept to give more power to black voters. Thatby his standards, was real discrimination. (All lives matter.)
When the Roberts Court ruled Shelby v. Holdera 2013 ruling that decimated the part of the VRA that ordered areas with a history of racially discriminatory voting practices to be “pre-cleared” before passing new voting laws, the result was predictable. Red states, many of which were from the old Confederacy, adopted a ton of new voting restrictions.
The result in this case, if the Court’s conservative majority indicated Wednesday, will be the same.
“If we take Louisiana as an example, every black congressman was elected in a VRA opportunity district,” said Janai Nelson, an attorney for the appellants, referring to districts created to strengthen minority voting power. “We only have diversity in the South, for example, because of litigation that forced the creation of opportunity districts under the Voting Rights Act. [Black] The Louisiana judiciary was elected as part of a VRA opportunity district and almost all legislative members were elected from those same districts.
We already know what the effects of this final blow against the VRA would be, because we, as a country, have already experienced it. This meant the complete exclusion of black people from the political process. This meant an embarrassing shortage of black legislators. In Louisiana, “no black person served in the Louisiana Legislature between the 1880s and 1967,” according to the appellant’s brief. 1967 was two years after the VRA was passed.
Right-wing judges have resisted frankly acknowledging this future and have instead chosen to pseudo-intellectualize the issue at hand, claiming to be outraged by “racial discrimination” when race is taken into account to address the theft of Black voting power.
They probably won’t strike down Section 2 altogether: Justice Brett Kavanaugh was like a doll on a string repeating that Louisiana and its allies are not seeking to “eliminate” Section 2 or find it unconstitutional; Judge Amy Coney Barrett assured that she was only seeking a “clarification” of a 40-year-old precedent, not its overturning. They will likely find a procedural way to neutralize the law, perhaps by quietly eliminating Congressional amendments that removed the need to prove the state was intentionally discriminating with its maps, which is difficult to do.
It is no exaggeration to say that the United States was not truly a democracy before the VRA. And Republican opposition to the plan immediately arose, with President Nixon complaining that his preclearance requirements were punitive to the South. President Ronald Reagan’s advisers — including now-Chief Justice John Roberts — tried to convince him to veto the amendment banning voting practices that result in racial discrimination, even though state intent cannot be proven.
In the United States, minority groups have never been guaranteed the right to vote. Even today, the governor of Illinois warns that President Trump is deploying the military for the express purpose of intimidating voters and preventing them from exercising their sacred right to vote in the midterm elections. The Supreme Court is giving its own version of things by threatening one of the last protections of our multicultural democracy.
This is why “black lives matter,” a call to recognize the disproportionate violence and death that black people experience at the hands of the state, is answered with “all lives matter.” This is why DEI has become the battle cry to roll back the perpetuation and commemoration of civil rights gains. This explains why Republicans’ fixation on protecting free speech evaporates whenever they encounter speech they don’t like (for example, a rally to protest the Trump administration’s authoritarian behavior). Civil liberties are a zero-sum game, according to this thinking, so any protection of minority groups must implicitly harm the majority group.
That same grievance animated right-wing justices Wednesday, as they heard a case that could decimate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which voting rights groups typically use to prove that states dilute minority voters in a given district to diminish their voting power. Section 2 is the last weapon of historic civil rights legislation that the Roberts Court has yet to destroy, and was a bulwark against, in large part, red state legislatures, often in the states that comprised the Confederacy, using clever redaction to ensure that white voters still had disproportionate power over blacks to elect representatives of their choosing.
Republicans, including those on the Court, dislike Section 2, in part because black voters overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. Suppressing the black vote is in their direct partisan interest. So, to kill the VRA, right-wing judges grotesquely resort to Reconstruction Amendments to turn the promise of equal protection into a fatal flaw. In the story they tell, it does not constitute racial discrimination for Louisiana to round up and crush black voters to ensure that about 30 percent of its population can only elect one in six representatives to Congress. But requiring the state to draw a new map where that third is more represented — perhaps by drawing a second district in which black voters would make up a large portion of the voting population — East racial discrimination against white voters.
“Is it acceptable for a federal court to use, for remedial purposes, a map that intentionally discriminates on the basis of race? » asked Justice Neil Gorsuch.
His questions during oral argument Wednesday showed no concern about the racially discriminatory map Lousiaiana drew — he was, however, very concerned about the corrective map she was forced to accept to give more power to black voters. Thatby his standards, was real discrimination. (All lives matter.)
When the Roberts Court ruled Shelby v. Holdera 2013 ruling that decimated the part of the VRA that ordered areas with a history of racially discriminatory voting practices to be “pre-cleared” before passing new voting laws, the result was predictable. Red states, many of which were from the old Confederacy, adopted a ton of new voting restrictions.
The result in this case, if the Court’s conservative majority indicated Wednesday, will be the same.
“If we take Louisiana as an example, every black congressman was elected in a VRA opportunity district,” said Janai Nelson, an attorney for the appellants, referring to districts created to strengthen minority voting power. “We only have diversity in the South, for example, because of litigation that forced the creation of opportunity districts under the Voting Rights Act. [Black] The Louisiana judiciary was elected as part of a VRA opportunity district and almost all legislative members were elected from those same districts.
We already know what the effects of this final blow against the VRA would be, because we, as a country, have already experienced it. This meant the complete exclusion of black people from the political process. This meant an embarrassing shortage of black legislators. In Louisiana, “no black person served in the Louisiana Legislature between the 1880s and 1967,” according to the appellant’s brief. 1967 was two years after the VRA was passed.
Right-wing judges have resisted frankly acknowledging this future and have instead chosen to pseudo-intellectualize the issue at hand, claiming to be outraged by “racial discrimination” when race is taken into account to address the theft of Black voting power.
They probably won’t strike down Section 2 altogether: Justice Brett Kavanaugh was like a doll on a string repeating that Louisiana and its allies are not seeking to “eliminate” Section 2 or find it unconstitutional; Judge Amy Coney Barrett assured that she was only seeking a “clarification” of a 40-year-old precedent, not its overturning. They will likely find a procedural way to neutralize the law, perhaps by quietly eliminating Congressional amendments that removed the need to prove the state was intentionally discriminating with its maps, which is difficult to do.
It is no exaggeration to say that the United States was not truly a democracy before the VRA. And Republican opposition to the plan immediately arose, with President Nixon complaining that his preclearance requirements were punitive to the South. President Ronald Reagan’s advisers — including now-Chief Justice John Roberts — tried to convince him to veto the amendment banning voting practices that result in racial discrimination, even though state intent cannot be proven.
In the United States, minority groups have never been guaranteed the right to vote. Even today, the governor of Illinois warns that President Trump is deploying the military for the express purpose of intimidating voters and preventing them from exercising their sacred right to vote in the midterm elections. The Supreme Court is giving its own version of things by threatening one of the last protections of our multicultural democracy.
This is why “black lives matter,” a call to recognize the disproportionate violence and death that black people experience at the hands of the state, is answered with “all lives matter.” This is why DEI has become the battle cry to roll back the perpetuation and commemoration of civil rights gains. This explains why Republicans’ fixation on protecting free speech evaporates whenever they encounter speech they don’t like (for example, a rally to protest the Trump administration’s authoritarian behavior). Civil liberties are a zero-sum game, according to this thinking, so any protection of minority groups must implicitly harm the majority group.
That same grievance animated right-wing justices Wednesday, as they heard a case that could decimate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which voting rights groups typically use to prove that states dilute minority voters in a given district to diminish their voting power. Section 2 is the last weapon of historic civil rights legislation that the Roberts Court has yet to destroy, and was a bulwark against, in large part, red state legislatures, often in the states that comprised the Confederacy, using clever redaction to ensure that white voters still had disproportionate power over blacks to elect representatives of their choosing.
Republicans, including those on the Court, dislike Section 2, in part because black voters overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. Suppressing the black vote is in their direct partisan interest. So, to kill the VRA, right-wing judges grotesquely resort to Reconstruction Amendments to turn the promise of equal protection into a fatal flaw. In the story they tell, it does not constitute racial discrimination for Louisiana to round up and crush black voters to ensure that about 30 percent of its population can only elect one in six representatives to Congress. But requiring the state to draw a new map where that third is more represented — perhaps by drawing a second district in which black voters would make up a large portion of the voting population — East racial discrimination against white voters.
“Is it acceptable for a federal court to use, for remedial purposes, a map that intentionally discriminates on the basis of race? » asked Justice Neil Gorsuch.
His questions during oral argument Wednesday showed no concern about the racially discriminatory map Lousiaiana drew — he was, however, very concerned about the corrective map she was forced to accept to give more power to black voters. Thatby his standards, was real discrimination. (All lives matter.)
When the Roberts Court ruled Shelby v. Holdera 2013 ruling that decimated the part of the VRA that ordered areas with a history of racially discriminatory voting practices to be “pre-cleared” before passing new voting laws, the result was predictable. Red states, many of which were from the old Confederacy, adopted a ton of new voting restrictions.
The result in this case, if the Court’s conservative majority indicated Wednesday, will be the same.
“If we take Louisiana as an example, every black congressman was elected in a VRA opportunity district,” said Janai Nelson, an attorney for the appellants, referring to districts created to strengthen minority voting power. “We only have diversity in the South, for example, because of litigation that forced the creation of opportunity districts under the Voting Rights Act. [Black] The Louisiana judiciary was elected as part of a VRA opportunity district and almost all legislative members were elected from those same districts.
We already know what the effects of this final blow against the VRA would be, because we, as a country, have already experienced it. This meant the complete exclusion of black people from the political process. This meant an embarrassing shortage of black legislators. In Louisiana, “no black person served in the Louisiana Legislature between the 1880s and 1967,” according to the appellant’s brief. 1967 was two years after the VRA was passed.
Right-wing judges have resisted frankly acknowledging this future and have instead chosen to pseudo-intellectualize the issue at hand, claiming to be outraged by “racial discrimination” when race is taken into account to address the theft of Black voting power.
They probably won’t strike down Section 2 altogether: Justice Brett Kavanaugh was like a doll on a string repeating that Louisiana and its allies are not seeking to “eliminate” Section 2 or find it unconstitutional; Judge Amy Coney Barrett assured that she was only seeking a “clarification” of a 40-year-old precedent, not its overturning. They will likely find a procedural way to neutralize the law, perhaps by quietly eliminating Congressional amendments that removed the need to prove the state was intentionally discriminating with its maps, which is difficult to do.
It is no exaggeration to say that the United States was not truly a democracy before the VRA. And Republican opposition to the plan immediately arose, with President Nixon complaining that his preclearance requirements were punitive to the South. President Ronald Reagan’s advisers — including now-Chief Justice John Roberts — tried to convince him to veto the amendment banning voting practices that result in racial discrimination, even though state intent cannot be proven.
In the United States, minority groups have never been guaranteed the right to vote. Even today, the governor of Illinois warns that President Trump is deploying the military for the express purpose of intimidating voters and preventing them from exercising their sacred right to vote in the midterm elections. The Supreme Court is giving its own version of things by threatening one of the last protections of our multicultural democracy.
Back to top button
