Here's the NPR headline:
Supreme Court To Weigh Constitutionality Of Voting Rights Act
Go read it.
Now, what's the fuss about:
A) Removing the voting rights of African-Americans
B) Literacy testing to vote
C) If voting laws, polices and procedures in a few states should still be under strict Federal oversight, unable to make the smallest change without Uncle Sam's okay.
If you said C, hooray!
If you said A, then I guess you get those mass e-mailed "ZOMG! Voting rights under threat!" messages, too, hey?
(This is yet another of those issues with a complicated history. The places under Federal oversight did have a well-documented history of egregious denials of ballot access; but the deniers are pretty much all dead and the once widely-held notions they supported are now widely scorned. Shall sons and grandsons be held accountable for the sins of their fathers?)
So why are we being held to the Sins of the couple of hundred Great-Grandfathers who used Machine Guns and Sawed-Off Shotguns during the Gangster era to commit crimes?
ReplyDeleteBut after seeing how Roberts Flip-Flopped faster than Romney on ObamaCare, I don't think that the Supreme Court will do much to throw out the VRA.
I mean, what would they do? Say Voter ID is still Legal, like they ruled in Indiana years ago, you just can't use it in 1/3rd the U.S. like the Obama Justice Dept. keeps saying?
Sounds like a "Dred Scott" situation to me.
If we could have asked the authors of the Voting Rights Act if they would be willing to let it expire four years after the election of the nation's first African-American President, I'm sure they would have snswered in the affirmative.
ReplyDeleteUnto the 7th Generation.
ReplyDeleteThere will be no lifting of the VRA.
The Federal government does not relinquish power.
In the unlikely event the SCOTUS over rules the VRA DoJ will announce massive (MASSIVE!) voter intimidation and dis-enfranchisement thorough out the South and other red state area.
The VRA of 2013 will make the '68 VRA look positively benign.
Hey, on Facebook they're debating getting rid of the Electoral College! Guess no one had American Civics and understands how the Constitution works...
ReplyDeleteexcept me, and most of you guys! :-)
The VRA is a politicized football.
ReplyDeleteStates covered by it can pass Voter ID laws if there's a Republican Administration, and will have them shot down if the Dems control the Just-Us Department...
It needs to go away.
How about repartitioning electoral votes so that non-ID states only have 2/3 of the votes that a state with effective control over voter rolls & voter ID are allotted. They can cling to their differentially living voters, voting felons, mentally disabled voters, voting multiple times for fictitious addresses, undocumented immigrant voters, finding lost ballots when their candidate is losing; in short, they can cling to their corrupt elections but with a penalty.
ReplyDeleteHow about the "Boss Tweed Memorial Ah, F-it Voting Act of 2012".
ReplyDeleteIn this case, anything goes. Illegal voters, straight fraud, intimidation. We're heading there now, let's make it legal.
Like the lovely Tam, I am a native of one of the states still under strict scrutiny. It needs to go.
ReplyDeleteOf course, this is a state which still teaches that the War of Yankee Aggression was a draw.
There are no state's rights any longer, since the politically correct Congressional Clown Squad has removed those rights. They'll never be returned without drastic changes.
ReplyDeletePersonally, since I live in an energy producing state, I vote for closing the pipelines. It's only fair, and there's a few I'd like to see suffer. I'd like them to beg for coal with their frostbitten fingers.