Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg penned the fierce dissent against the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision Tuesday to invalidate a key section of the Voting Rights Act, accusing the conservative justices of displaying “hubris” and a lack of sound reasoning.
“[T]he Court’s opinion can hardly be described as an exemplar of restrained and moderate decision making,” wrote the leader of the court’s liberal wing. “Quite the opposite. Hubris is a fit word for today’s demolition of the VRA.”
And, here comes the hack voter fraud salesperson, spinning like a top:
A columnist for National Review Online wrote Tuesday that the Supreme Court’s decision to gut the historic Voting Rights Act is not, as most believe, a defeat for the civil rights movement.
John Fund, the conservative writer who’s penned two books since 2004 on the purported threat of voter fraud, backed up the conservative justices who helped comprise the majority opinion.
“The Supreme Court’s decision today to overturn a small part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is actually a victory for civil rights,” Fund wrote. “As the court noted, what made sense both in moral and practical terms almost a half century ago has to be approached anew.”
Fund invented voter impersonation fraud, along with his friends in media, so he knows all about “small.” If he’s spinning, they think it’s damaging.
Villago Delenda Est
Fund’s head would be much more attractive on a pike than on his shoulders.
Just sayin’.
Because, as we all know, voting for anyone but the Rethuglican candidate is fraudulent.
Just Some Fuckhead
/rolls eyes
srv
The long, national nightmare of white people’s civil rights being suppressed is over. I hear Roberts is going to take a few laps in the General Lee.
Kay
@Villago Delenda Est:
Voter impersonation fraud was always dumb. It never made any sense, and there was no proof, so why did the dopes all adopt it?
One good reason for keeping the VRA is huge groups of supposedly logical people were taken in by “voter impersonation fraud”. For years.
mainmati
I haven’t had a chance to read the decision and so don’t know if this represents the last nail in the coffin of democracy and a green light for ALEC to demolish what remains of representative democracy or if it is a narrower decision. Judging from Justice Ginsberg’s reaction, though, it sounds pretty bad. Elections have consequences and the 2000 election may well have been the decisive turning point for the country in a really bad way.
Jay in Oregon
“As the court noted, what made sense both in moral and practical terms almost a half century ago has to be approached anew.”
And that’s why they rely on twisted interpretations of a 2,000-year old collection of narratives for moral guidance!
burnspbesq
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
This fight is just getting started, and it’s winnable, but it requires some things that our side is not known for: engagement, persistence, and the ability to ignore distractions.
For no obvious reason, I’m optimistic.
Tom Levenson
Not really O/T: I just put out a query to a civic media/hackathon list I lurk on asking what tech responses to the challenge of getting our people registered and out to vote we might want to advance as we simultaenously pursue legal and political avenues to salting the fields of the GOP and all its satrapys.
Building on the model (and maybe the actual infrastructure) of Obama 2012’s code and data was a first thought — though there are all kinds of issues, I understand, about ownership and the ability to transfer that knowledge out of that campaign.
And really, this is something that would need to be done in close contact with the actual grassroots voting rights workers — Kay and all her tribe, may they ever increase. The needs have to come from those who know what its like on the ground, and then technologists can intervene in useful ways. But this is a sophisticated community — so let’s put it out there: any ideas?
burnspbesq
@mainmati:
Only if we allow it to be. One of the many nice things about elections is that there’s always a next one.
Botsplainer, fka Todd
@Jay in Oregon:
Living, breathing Constitution, bitchez!
Hawes
@mainmati: Look at the map of communities that required pre-clearance. Democrats weren’t winning there anyway. It’s the Deep South, Arizonastan, Pine Ridge Reservation and some counties in Florida. Virginia might be effected.
Otherwise the real issue remains voter suppression all over the country, not just in the South. And the VRA still bans that, if I am correct about that. I think HAVA does, too. There are still tools to fight voter suppression, it’s just going to take longer to fight it in states we have no chance of winning anyway.
Meanwhile, how’s that GOP rebranding going?
pokeyblow
Fuck the South. We need a new Sherman.
max
“The Supreme Court’s decision today to overturn a small part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is actually a victory for civil rights,” Fund wrote.
Up is down, black is white, and the fucking honkies at NRO would exalt that the rednecks can now get back to ratfucking those people, but they can’t because that’s undignified. So some hoary old psuedo-George Will maundering about racism, throw in some old Reagan speeches and pretend it didn’t happen.
Maybe throw in some bitching about Moosleems or something.
max
[‘Ain’t they dead yet?’]
Mike E
@mainmati:
Fix’t, just like yesteryear.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Villago Delenda Est: And I’ll wave.
Like this.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I know what you meant in TL’s thread when you mentioned that
I saw some palpable anger too, as some people just finally figured out that it was likely a right that was being/would be taken away. Some people just “got” it, for the first time, and they are pissed. We have to use that concept to our advantage – I think we can.
Emerald
Their voter suppression efforts backfired on ’em.
This decision ought to ramp up that response by a fairly large factor.
Linda Featheringill
Well, shit.
@burnspbesq:
I hope you’re right to be optimistic.
But in spite of my doom and gloom, all of us knew this was possible. So yes, it’s time to buckle down to the fight.
@Tom Levenson:
You’re absolutely right to look for technical answers early, things that we who aren’t lawyers can do. Keep us informed.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jay in Oregon:
Why?
Because shut up, that’s why!
Drunken hausfrau
Silver lining: if congress needs to come up with new parameters for determining racial bias, the it has to be discussed and debated… Chance for progressives to shine a very big light on the still existent problems and on voter suppression. If Dems are smart, they should use the opportunity for some serious sunshine disinfectant by flipping over the rocks and looking at the creepiest stuff beneath.
Kay
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
They did, IMO.
We’ll know it’s bad politically if Scalia goes on a “rebuild shattered credibility” tour like he did after Bush v Gore.
He was GREAT at that! “Get over it”
DIS-aster. I went to see him just to watch the show. He lashed out at this poor law student, was QUITE the spectacle.
schrodinger's cat
From the last thread:
Question for constitutional scholars and history buffs,
Also, constitutional scholars, why don’t we have uniform voting rules and standards across the board, why is such an important matter left to the states?
ETA: Why wasn’t this changed after the Civil War?
scav
Given the daily ramped-up blows to minorities and minority voters in this here nation on all sides, but originating from one side (and notice being taken based on recent election percentages), Scotus-right might not have the impeccable political delivery they are counting on. Deliberate blows delivered on pre-existing bruises tend to get noticed and I doubt this one will be chalked up in the nice, benign, legalezed no-man’s-land so no political blowback column. The R’s clearly couldn’t keep the wackos in their celectial choir from singing and now some severely officially suited (even if technically robed) voices have decided to chime in. Outreach indeed.
Linda Featheringill
@pokeyblow:
I understand the feeling.
HOWEVER:
What we really need to do is to support those angelic southerners who are trying to get voters into the system.
Another Bot Splainer
@Drunken hausfrau: You are right, but it is the Democratic party we are talking about.
Another Halocene Human
@Kay: The true believers openly say shit like anyone who doesn’t own real estate shouldn’t vote. In their mind they conflated “I think they’re illegitimate” with the votes being fraudulent in the real world. Or some knew the difference but cynically acted to suppress votes, like those Massholes who were running Hispanic voters off a few election cycles ago.
terraformer
I see the right’s “let’s call this exactly the opposite of what it is” schtick is still operating quite well.
Villago Delenda Est
@scav:
I think you meant “celestial”. Other than that, I think you’ve got a good point there.
People will be pissed at this.
taylormattd
@Another Bot Splainer: huh?
Turgidson
And just wait until tomorrow, when at least some members of the court suddenly decides it really should still be the 60s after all with respect to who can marry whom. Hopefully this time they’ll be spouting their ignorance and bigotry in the minority. But without shame, no doubt.
scav
@Villago Delenda Est: Very true. Can we pretend I’ve stumbled onto a technical term for betailed and beclovened choirs?
Another Bot Splainer
@taylormattd: A lame attepmt at a joke. The Dems are kind of lame when it comes to kicking ass that is all.
p.a.
This is a very public, national thumb in minorities’ eye by the conservative movement. If we do our job, we can turn it into another example of hubris and overreach by them.
Also too, maybe it’s time for some minority patriot groups to acknowledge that they have SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS ™ to protect their votes.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Kay: I remember that. It was when I actually knew he had some pathology going on, which I’d suspected for a while. Gives “judicial temperament” a new meaninglessness. As does Alito, of course, but he doesn’t do rehab tours.
Another Halocene Human
@Tom Levenson: Some issues:
Young people and poor people move a lot. OfA was trying to circumvent this by getting people to find their relatives and see that they got registered. I think this was quite effective in the close-knit AA community. However, volunteers spent hours and hours chasing down old phone #s and addresses. Not sure what the answer is here.
OfA’s activist network was kind of built up by expecting activists to advance like a player in an MMO. You signed up for stuff, if you showed up, they asked you to sign up for more. If you turned up in an open-ended way, you got no credit because it wasn’t agreed to in advance. If you volunteered help, often they couldn’t use you. So they don’t know how to deal with the sort of waning and waxing of enthusiasm that occurs naturally, they often failed to outreach effectively to some very determined activists who maybe didn’t work 9-5 all the time and couldn’t plan their time to the minute. The system promoted young, engaged, but very privileged people who sometimes just barely pulled it out on local efforts because of their inexperience and inability to think out of the box or listen to people outside their bubble.
The lines of communication through varying constituencies within the Democratic coalition were very much blocked and often unusable. It was kind of sad.
What OfA did really well was keeping track of how and how many times voters were contacted and focusing on what they knew would work. This bit was crucial. MoveOn and AFL tried to go after old leads and persuadables and I just don’t see much evidence that this approach worked despite the enormous effort they put into it.
If we take away one thing from OfA it’s that you need to do private polling to determine where to focus that effort, not just wave hands and pray or follow some sort of old school conventional wisdom. If 2014 is like 2012 we may do better to get core supporters registered, even if it means spending money to help them do the papers, please dance, than trying to sway independents. We may be better if our favorite embarrassed Republicans just stay home. But I’m not saying that’s how it will go down. The scientific approach is what made 2012’s GOTV shine and that means approaching 2014 with an open mind.
MomSense
The problem is that we keep having to fight the same fights and we are exhausted. I am a stubborn person so I will have my rant and then I will jump back into the fray but it is beyond frustrating that we can never decisively just win and move on to the next battle. We are constantly fighting a multi-front war. I feel like a sea duck. On the surface it appears as if they are just floating still but under the water they are paddling like crazy against the current.
PeakVT
@Hawes: Dems aren’t winning many federal elections in those places, but you seem to have forgotten that the other levels of government matter a hell of a lot to people on a daily basis. Anything that flips, say, a county board seat D to R is not trivial.
Also, there’s the principle of the thing.
gelfling545
@Turgidson: Please. It’s the 50’s they’re aiming for. The 60’s had all that free love and birth control & stuff.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@MomSense: It’s a war. It’s not quick, and sometimes you do have to do the same thing over and over. But it’s people like you who keep registering people that make our chances of fixing things like this better.
Xenos
@p.a.:
Absolutely. The best remedy for voter intimidation would be voters intimidating. I don’t know if a non-violence campaign would do anything for these problems. These next generation of poll watchers ought to know that people are watching them, know who they are and will take a challenge quite personally.
I think these big, impersonal bureaucratic systems for stealing the vote assume that the people affected are just going to lie down on the floor and hope the media takes notice. At some point the fight has to be brought to the people organizing this behind the scenes and putting it into action at a local level. No violence, of course, but the serious implication of unpleasant consequences.
ChrisNYC
Hey! John Fund’s a journalist! Dave Weigel told me so in his searing expose of voter fraud.
Botsplainer, fka Todd
@taylormattd:
For the past 30 years, the “original intent” douchebags (like Scalia) have bitched and moaned about the notion of an evolving body of organic law.
Now they’re adopting it to nefarious ends.
Napoleon
@gelfling545:
Yes, the 1850s.
patroclus
I’m not optimistic at all. This is a death blow to the pre-clearance provisions and thus will open a floodgate of voting law changes that will be designed to limit voting by African-Americans and others. They can be challenged based on Section 2, but the hurdle for a preliminary injunction is high and won’t be accomplished in many, if not most cases. And this means that the voter suppression efforts will take effect and work their way through the system; making it doubly difficult to ever re-change the system. The VRA was enacted only after a long process which saw such efforts rejected and over-ridden time and again. This is a terrible terrible decision and an awful day. Congress is dysfunctional and will never enact a new version of Section 4.
muddy
@gelfling545: All the repression, none of the taxes.
scav
@Napoleon: Isn’t that the period with the “authentic” Shirley Temple Technicolor Tap-Dancing Southern Heritage Plantation? ‘zactly!
MomSense
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
My first thought when I read the news on the decision was I better pull that box of clipboards out of the garage. I think we are going to have to get creative. Right now the voting situation in Maine is pretty good and there haven’t been additional threats since we won the referendum to restore same day voter registration. We have an early vote campaign coming up but that should go pretty well.
I think we need to find a way to direct resources to volunteers willing to travel to get them to places that will need registration, education and protection help. In 2007-08 Obama volunteers started a program to connect people with frequent flyer miles with volunteers willing to travel. I know I went to a number of states that way. I would call in the request and within 20 minutes I had a ticket, a place to stay and a car to use. It was awesome!
Maybe a few of our techies could get something like that started. We need a way to put out the request for volunteer help and a way to connect volunteers with people who could fund their travel. Just a thought. If I were in Shelby County I would love to have some reinforcements!
Another Halocene Human
@Xenos: Huh? Are you unfamiliar with the protests in the Deep South against the unfair voter tests that barred the vast majority of Southern Blacks from voting? Are you unfamiliar with the DFP and the delegate seating scandal?
Kay
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Just to be clear, I didn’t see the “get over it” lashing out. I saw some random lashing out at an impertinent law student who asked a good question. BEFORE the famous lash-out.
Cacti
@Xenos:
The right to vote is something that people in this country and round the world have been willing to die for. And after all that people of color had to suffer to get the franchise, I don’t think they’re ready to smile politely and shuffle off to the back of the bus because Mars John Roberts has spoken.
MomSense
@Xenos:
The NAACP with GUNS!! I have a friend who has been seriously suggesting starting this. He thinks we would have gun control legislation right away.
Cacti
@MomSense:
There is a historical precedent.
California conservatives of the Reagan era changed their minds about open-carry fast, quick, and in a hurry when the Black Panthers started practicing it on the Capitol steps in Sacramento.
Another Halocene Human
@MomSense: Is there a way to donate Amtrak Guest Rewards points?
Between the train and the Ambus they cover a lot of places. And if you get sleeper berth meals are included on your trip. Sure beats Greyhound.
I’m sure there are some Northeast corridor liberal scum with AGR Select status who could give up a few Acela 1st class upgrades for the cause.
Another Halocene Human
@Cacti: And I think there’s a reason that in five years no prominent African-American activist or pol has suggested this, ever.
Cassidy
I have this hollow feeling that says this is going to get violent before it gets better.
Anya
Excuse my ignorance, but since the court did not strike down Section 5, which allows the federal government to require pre-approval, why can’t the federal government ask any state to get an approval if they make a change that makes it harder for people to vote?
Roberts Court is making oppression constitutional. History will judge this court harshly.
raven
So there in ONE person here that thought this was going to come out differently?
MomSense
@Another Halocene Human:
I think it would be great but I would be willing to take Greyhound if that is what it takes. Heck we could rent vans and drive too. I’m thinking about what is going on in NC now with trying to roll back the One Stop Early Vote. We registered so many people with that program. I spent two weeks in 2008 just registering people to vote and it was so convenient. And it really takes a house to house effort because there was a lot of misinformation about voting eligibility.
Lee
I posted this in the other thread but since you seem to have a bit more voting law expertise I’ll post here too.
Since section 5 is still valid why not apply it to the entire country? Or is it written with a clause “the areas covered in section 4…”?
MomSense
@Cacti:
That is the example my friend gave!
A.J.
“As the court noted, what made sense both in moral and practical terms almost a half century ago has to be approached anew.”
That may be, you wad of ass, but that should not be decided by a court, ‘ya know, that “activist judges thing.
After all, “Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules, they apply them.” – said someone somewhere.
jo6pac
demodogs senators also enable this by not stopping the old white guys from being put on the bench for life.
Another Halocene Human
@patroclus: White supremacy’s last stand.
Hey, I take heart in the fact that they’re fecking idiots. In the past they held onto power by redefining “white” repeatedly. Irish, Italians, you’re all invited to the xenophobia party!
Bush was trying to do that with Hispanics but the GOP managed to blow that shit up big time. Arab-Americans are a smaller block but they’ve managed to alienate them, too. Asians just about shit the bed at the last round of “Papers, please”, accelerating the losses among that group despite years of wishing and hoping that they’d stay GOP. (I guess overreach like Japanese internment camps and bombing the living fuck out of Southeast Asia doesn’t get forgiven as quickly as street rowdies beating German immigrants to death in the 1910s.)
Looks like the KKKlowns done fucked up this time. Oh, and they lost the North (the silent sympathizers) during the Civil Rights era by turning fire hoses and dogs on children. Nice work, motherfuckers. Their downfall is baked in the cake.
Cacti
@Cassidy:
Roger Taney thought that with his decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford, he had put the question of slavery and its expansion out of the hands of the federal government forever.
In reality, he set the country on an unavoidable path to civil war. Never underestimate the myopia of judicial pomposity.
Ed Drone
With Section IV gone, but Section V remaining, doesn’t that mean that ALL states’ voting laws are subject to review? And I don’t mean only when challenged; I mean, “Send that sucker in if you make one change at all, dammit!”
The Justice Dept. should review EVERY voting law change, not just those in specific states. Yeah, it’ll be a big job, but it shouldn’t be too hard to see which changes have the most deleterious effects, whether it’s a Dakota or Alabama.
Who needs Section IV? Do ’em all!
Ed
StringOnAStick
@Lee: People with legal expertise noted on the prior blog post that for Section V to apply to the whole country, Congress would have to authorize it by passing a law in that regard. The real issue is if anything, including this, can get through congress currently.
reflectionephemeral
@Botsplainer, fka Todd: For conservatives, it’s a living Constitution just so long as it evolves to restrict the rights of out groups.
Scalia went all Zeno during oral argument, incredulous at the idea that the Constitution might protect the rights of same-sex couples to get married: “when did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage? 1791? 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted?”
beltane
@Cacti:
This. The Roberts court, by transforming a right some people were starting to take for granted into a full-blown, apocalyptic battle between good and evil, , may have inadvertently handed their movement the rope with which they will finally extinguish themselves with. With the rapidly changing demographics of this country they were going to lose eventually, but this decision requires that their loss be ugly, humiliating and brutal.
Yatsuno
@Cassidy: Moi aussi. Time to step up my marrying a Canuckistani plans. Though that means Harper. :: spit ::
Lee
@StringOnAStick: thanks!
Elizabelle
@beltane:
I am thinking this may be a Pyrrhic victory, and preserving voting rights will help turn out folks to vote in the 2014 midterms.
Replace the do nothings in Congress.
patroclus
@Lee: That’s the way Section 5 applies – only to those areas defined in Section 4. And Roberts’ reasoning virtually ensures that no new formula will pass constitutional muster – virtually be definition, you can’t use percentages of voters because of voter mobility. That is, people always move and therefore his catchphrase “the country has changed” will always be true because whatever you base the formula on will be out-of-date almost from the moment the formula is chosen. Congress will never agree to apply pre-clearance to all states. Therefore, pre-clearance is gone, probably forever. This is a terrible terrible decision – MLK’s dream had been eviscerated right at the time that the Republicans have made voter supporession one of their central issues.
Alex S.
The last significant progress of the New Deal-coalition happened five years after it fell apart in 1968 – it was Roe vs Wade in 1973. Today’s decision might well be the last significant progress of movement conservatism – five years after it fell apart in 2008.
The next president must become a democrat, simply to shift the balance of the Supreme Court. Nothing else matters.
I think there’s going to be some kind of backlash, too – that will make it easier. But yes, it requires hard work. In the end, the hispanics will decide the matter, but until then, 15-20 years, it’s going to be a tough ride.
@burnspbesq:
I’m positively surprised about your view. You seem genuinely empathetic. It seems your belief in the impartiality of the law got shattered.
Higgs Boson's Mate
This is it all right. I can feel it in my bones. This is when the national Democratic party commits to the ongoing coordination and support of volunteer voter registration and GOTV campaigns in all fifty states. This is when the people with the money realize that every office down to local school boards is important and worth fighting for. This is at last the moment when…
Aw, fuck it. They’ll hire a few more consultants and wait for the demographic unicorn to fart rainbows all over them.
schrodinger's cat
If the immigration reform passes the Congress, does it mean because of this decision that the newly legalized immigrants will not be exercise their right to vote if and when they become citizens? Pre-emptive strike by Roberts Court against their demographic destiny?
Amir Khalid
@Another Halocene Human:
FTFY.
patroclus
@Ed Drone: In theory, your argument sounds good, but what you’re doing is walking into the Republicans’ trap – they know that Congress will never authorize pre-clearance everywhere, so that is why they argue that common standards should apply everywhere.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
If we were ever concerned about turnout next year, this could be a rallying point.
Assuming the Dems get the message out, frame it correctly and then hammer it to death between now and election day 2014.
pokeyblow
Said John Fund, taking a momentary break from beating the shit out of some woman.
? Martin
The tea party will employ their usual “The beatings will continue until morale improves” attitude, disenfranchise all of the groups they need to win over the long term, hold on to a bunch of state houses and governors office, and lose the national stage for a generation or two.
The only way this doesn’t completely blow up is if Boehner can find his balls and let the Dems carry a new formula if only to save the tea party from blowing up the GOP forever. I’m not exactly hopeful. The right has determined that they don’t need to fight on the federal level. They’ll control the states, nullify everything they think they can get away with and clog up the federal court system until it ceases to function. They’ll see this as vindication for their strategy and double down on it. Their shadow confederacy just won another battle.
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
If so it was very preemptive. The immigration law that is proposed isn’t exactly speedy-quick. It’s a long and winding path. They’re not going to be voting for a long time.
Cacti
This decision was a travesty, but in the interest of silver linings…
Voting rights should be the issue that every Dem should be shouting from the fucking housetops for 2014.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Maybe we should have begun being concerned about 2014 turnout in 2010.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: Oh I know, 11 D chess, not just for Obama. Meanwhile, I hope that the law of unintended consequences comes to bite them in the ass.
EconWatcher
Look, we have a lot of work to do, and we may have a bumpy ride in the short term. But to call the voter-suppression efforts “shortsighted,” “desperate,” and “self-defeating” does not begin to do them justice.
This is just suicidal for the Republican Party. You can’t base your political strategy today on trying to discourage eligible people from voting. All you will accomplish over the medium and long term is to make your brand completely toxic. This won’t work. Not in this country.
schrodinger's cat
@? Martin:
I am so stealing that.
Chat Noir
@schrodinger’s cat: PeakVT responded in the last thread:
schrodinger's cat
@Chat Noir: I saw that, thanks!
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Hey, I’ve bitched for years about how moribund the Dem party is at anything other than Federal elections…assuming you don’t live in oh MA or IL.
Here in Misery is a case study of how a party can become so fractured with an “every candidate for his/herself” mentality at the statewide races with no emphasis on party building in any meaningful way.
The Repups here are batshit insane as evidenced by one Todd Aikin. But they’re *organized*. And they play the long game. And it’s worked to a great degree in turning a once purple state into a solid red one, our moderate Republican governor, Jay Nixon-D and moderate Republican Senator, Claire McCaskill-D, notwithstanding.
Roger Moore
@burnspbesq:
Now if we can only ensure that people actually have a chance to vote in those elections, they might make a difference.
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
Obama issued a statement, where he’s “deeply disappointed”.
I think that is what conservatives will try to gloss over, the meaning of the thing to tens of millions of people. You can’t just point to the dry language in the federal code and ignore that whole history.
People did that. It’s a source of pride.
They fought and they got that law passed. To try to skip over that and start lecturing on whether Sec. Two is sufficient is to miss the point.
Roger Moore
@PeakVT:
Also, the VRA applies to things like redistricting. You’re a lot more likely to see extreme gerrymandering now that Section V is out of the way.
Cacti
@Kay:
This.
For John Roberts, this decision was philosophical exercise in which he had no personal stake in the outcome. On the other end are people who remember getting blasted with fire hoses, attacked by dogs, shocked with cattle prods, and threatened by the Klan, all for wanting to exercise the most fundamental of democratic rights, voting.
The SCOTUS 5 have kicked a hornets nest.
mike with a mic
@Roger Moore:
Gerrymadering already happens regardless, combined with Dems working with Republicans to create majority minority districts at the expense of getting more Democrats in congress and that boat has already sailed. The Republicans love those majority minority districts because it translates into less Democrats in total.
The issues there are more complicated than just this, and frankly I don’t think the Democrats would want to fix the issue and take back the house because it would come at the cost of some minority seats.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Cacti: A true highlight of my life was meeting Rep. James Clyburn and have him tell us about getting arrested in N.C. and the newspapers not even mentioning it. Not because it was a happy story, but because I actually met heroism.
I hope you’re right, somehow.
Amir Khalid
@schrodinger’s cat:
Take heart that it has happened so quickly with the Citizens United decision: those fearsome right-wing super PACs thereby unleashed turned out to be so utterly ineffectual in last year’s elections that they are now being abandoned.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@raven: No, but there’s so much shit right now that events like this give us a point to focus on.
Betty Cracker
@Hawes:
That’s not strictly true in Florida — at least one of the formerly protected counties went for Obama. But I take your larger point about voter suppression everywhere being an issue.
raven
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): I saw him in the San Francisco Airport a couple of years ago. I just went up to him and said I appreciate everything he does.
Roger Moore
@mike with a mic:
But gerrymandering can clearly be worse than it has been. For example, Texas tried to gerrymander so that all their new districts would vote Republican and not have any new Latino representatives, even though most of the population growth between 2000 and 2010 in Texas was Latino. They got shot down by Section V and had to go back to the drawing board. They still managed to gerrymander in the Republicans’ favor, but not as much as they wanted. If they were to turn around and redistrict again today, they could get several more Congressional Republicans and several fewer Democrats from Texas, and probably increase the size of Republican majority in both houses of the state legislature. Multiply that by the whole area covered by Section V, and it’s a big difference.
BGinCHI
Anyone want to argue that the GOP is anything other than a pro-business white supremacist party?
What else have they got?
cmorenc
I’m curious how these conservative “originalist”-oriented justices crafted their justification for ignoring the EXPLICIT language and history of the FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT, which rather specifically authorizes congress to craft legislation along the lines of the VRA section 5, aimed specifically at states in the defeated Confederacy. As soon as I can find a moment when I’m calm enough or perhaps stoned enough to not risk having to wipe blood from my eyes from reading it, I’ll peruse Roberts’ 5-4 majority opinion.
These partisan SCOTUS hacks issuing all these radical 5-4 revisions of longstanding constitutional law forget that what they render by such a tenuous margin can just as easily and quickly evaporate if there’s turnover of even one justice within their ranks. There may only be an outside chance of that happening before 2016, but the chances improve to much more probable than not if Hillary runs and wins in 2016 and serves for eight years.
Xenos
The first response to this needs to be political – reduce it to a simple story and repeat, repeat, repeat.
Here, just say it is about Texas. Texas, which is not going to be republican for long, and that the Republicans are bringing back Jim Crow election manipulation to stay in power. Repeat, repeat, repeat: all Republican power going forward is illegitimate and anti-American. There are Americans, and their are republicans, who cheat and steal.
Get uinfied about the message, repeat it 100 times per day, all year long.
Roger Moore
@BGinCHI:
Misogyny.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@p.a.: In a way I would like to see this but let’s be real: any group of minorities who pulls “Black Panthers at the California Statehouse, Part 2”, especially in a Confederate state, is committing suicide by cop or vigilantes. I can’t urge anybody to do that.
cmorenc
You want to see Harry Reid and the Democratic foot-draggers in the Senate about filibuster reform undergo a guaranteed swift attitude adjustment? Consider what will happen if one of the conservative 5 justices unexpectedly drops dead of a heart attack, leaving appointment of his replacement up to Obama.
BGinCHI
@Roger Moore: Also forgot war-mongering.
schrodinger's cat
@Roger Moore: You forgot homophobia and religious bigotry.
Elizabelle
@EconWatcher:
I agree with this.
Josh Green (Bloomberg Businessweek) calls this decision a “poison chalice.”
I just hope it’s a fast-acting poison.
Mnemosyne
@patroclus:
Do you mean this Congress we have right now, in 2013, or any Congress? Because I think that if we can make this an issue NOW for the 2014 election, we’ve got a chance to get a better Congress in there.
Start asking your reps and senators now, “Do you support requiring all voting changes to be pre-cleared by the Justice Department?” Make them say it out loud.
Roger Moore
@cmorenc:
They also ignore that there are rules for getting out of Section V coverage, and that the reason the covered areas are still covered is because they’ve shown an ongoing pattern of trying to restrict minority voting. So not only are their legal arguments wrong, their facts are wrong, too.
Ultimately, I think it’s another example of the Conservative argument that regulations are never necessary. If regulations fail to prevent the thing they’re trying to prevent, they need to be abandoned as ineffective. If they succeed in preventing the thing they’re trying to prevent, they should be abandoned because the problem no longer justifies such stringent regulations. The only consistent point is that regulations are bad.
burnspbesq
@Lee:
Not exactly that language, but that’s the gist of it.
Roger Moore
@BGinCHI: @schrodinger’s cat:
Let’s just summarize and say that all they have is tribalism.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Or 2000.
Better yet 1980.
burnspbesq
@patroclus:
Can I quote you on that when Speaker Pelosi moves a new coverage formula through the newly Democratic House in January 2015?
scav
To pull in a (one can hope, we hope — maybe?) encouraging image, this might be the gutting of zoning laws so they can build dikes, etc around their precious sundown gated communities. Sea is still a’rising though and climate still a’changing. It’s hard to entirely engineer a spring tide, but planets can align to help the bucket brigade and engineers directing where walls will be overtopped all the same.
gelfling545
@scav: There is a term for them. It is “damned”.
Cassidy
@Yatsuno: Oh well. When betting on America, always bet on violence, I guess. Kinda disheartening.
Alex S.
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Yes. It’s three strikes and you’re out. 1980 was the first strike, 2000 was the second. If people go with Christie instead of, say, Cuomo, it’s the third strike.
Xenos
@burnspbesq:
Hell, I would eat his hat if that were to happen. Happily, too, and washed down with a lot of champagne.
Comrade Jake
@cmorenc:
Yeah, I don’t actually understand why people think Senators would ever willfully decide to give up power. If you change the threshold from 60 to 51, a number of Senators (Democrats included) suddenly lose quite a bit of influence. I’m hard-pressed to imagine any situation so dire as to actually cause enough of them to vote in favor of this. They are, first and foremost, political animals. With the filibuster in place, they get to demonize the Republicans and hold on to a crucial minority right should the Senate flip.
catclub
@MomSense: I have seen little discussion here of moral mondays in Raleigh. I bet the folks there will start talking about this decision, though.
scav
@scav: Excuse me, cheerful optimism isn’t a native tongue. Neither is giving up. Grumpy Quixote is more like.
Kay
This is good.
Baud
OT: All 3 cable news networks ignoring Obama’s climate speech.
schrodinger's cat
@Roger Moore: Party of Fear and Hatred.
Redshirt
@burnspbesq: You seem overly optimistic today – are you on some kind of drug?
I, too, would like to hope this will energize the electorate and return the House to Dem control. However, odds are firmly against it.
gene108
On the bright side, the VRA still bans literacy tests…I take it (IANAL)…
gelfling545
@Elizabelle: I hope your right. It is the one chance we have as this Congress will filibuster any changes to hell & gone.
Tone in DC
I hope people are as angry about this as they were with those shenanigans last year. A couple of House seats and retaining the Senate will help, little by little.
And BHO took OvenMitt by a WIDE margin.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: Broken Link.
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
Thanks, I fixed it. It’s long but really thorough.
burnspbesq
@Redshirt:
Nothing that I don’t take every day.
Considering how much worse the last two days of Supreme Court decisions could have been, why wouldn’t I be optimistic?
MomSense
@catclub:
It has been all Snowden all the time. I posted a video a week ago or so of one of my friends getting arrested. It is really cool the energy that is building there-and a lot of it has to do with voting rights and letthemeatcakeonomics.
Chyron HR
@burnspbesq:
7-2 ruling in favor of Obamacare! Unlimited Republican Jurisprudence! VICTORY!!!
gene108
@cmorenc:
Most right-wingers, who agree with “originalism” believe the Constitution – a divinely inspired document, as shown in some quasi-famous painters artwork – was perfected with the addition of the Bill of Rights and the other 17 Amendments aren’t worth a warm pitcher of spit.*
*They tend not to be upset with the 11th and 12th Amendments, but find the 13th-27th Amendments lacking in the same sort of moral fiber the first 10 Amendments were drafted with.
Also, too they still haven’t come to grips with the fact that much of their 10th Amendment arguments has been superseded by the 14th Amendment.
Given the miracles of modern medicine, it’s going to be 2020 or 2024 before we can flip one of the 5 conservative justices.
Seriously, Tony and Kennedy are in their 70’s and could go on living for another 11-12 years (i.e. 2024), Thomas is in his 60’s and will stick around for 20+ years, and Alito and Roberts are in their 50’s.
Will give Republicans credit for picking youngish justices, when they put them on the SCOTUS. Brier and Ginsburg are older or about as old as the Bush, Sr. and Reagan appointees.
Poopyman
Well hell. Looks like I’ll be increasing my donations to ACORN.
I’m so old I remember the derision Hilary got when she evoked the “vast right wing conspiracy”.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Kay: Well worth the time to read. Of course I’ll be sending the link around to the non-legal part of the network.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@MomSense: It’s good to hear the energy is building there. People should be pissed. I wish it got more coverage.
eemom
No, the damage done by today’s decision is not insurmountable.
It does, however, put to rest any argument I’ve ever made against the proposition that the current majority of the supreme court are — all 5 — result driven hypocrites for whom the rule of law is at best a distant second of a priority.
patroclus
@burnspbesq: Of course – and I’ll quote you when: (1) there is no Speaker Pelosi in 2015; and (2) even if there were, Speaker Pelosi would be extremely unlikely to get a new formula that would pass constitutional muster through a narrowly-divided House then. Read the opinion – basing a formula on voting percentages is inherently suspect according to the Roberts 5 because the “country has changed.” This is the death knell for pre-clearance and Pollyannish optimism isn’t going to change it. Except for Section 2, the Voting Rights Act is gone, gone and gone.
burnspbesq
@Chyron HR:
Is that really the best you can do?
Another Halocene Human
@Tone in DC: Being an activist is exciting again. Free Mumia my ass. Now you can get involved in something real, like justice, voting rights, labor, reproductive autonomy, etc.
Bless the GOP for drawing such a bright line around what they actually stand for.
Another Halocene Human
@eemom: hope, like certain other substances, floats
Another Halocene Human
@Baud: shocker… couldn’t be those 24/7 energy company greenwashing ads they run all the time?
nahhhh
p.a.
@Forum Transmitted Disease: it’s noxious I know, and I am only talking about using their rhetoric to assert your rights, but you can’t reason with thugs. These pieces of shit, from the Federalist Society down to the KKK, have worked 2 generations to get to this point. What do these people have to do, ha e fire hoses and police dogs turned on them every fucking generation?
Cacti
@gene108:
Tony’s also overweight and a smoker.
DFH no.6
Thing is, this (very predictable) SCOTUS decision, execrable as it is, will have real negative effects only if it leads to states implementing new election laws that successfully disenfranchise potential Democratic voters.
That’s been happening to certain extent, anyway, with severe gerrymandering (which is why the fascists have a hold on the House) and voter ID laws.
Gerrymandering will come and go (though I expect the fascists to win more than lose with this for some time) but voter ID laws will be not be going away any time soon. All Republicans (essentially), most Independents, and even many Democrats think voter ID is just fine. So making people show their driver’s license at the polls to vote will likely only continue to expand.
Perhaps our best weapon against voter ID is more and more mail-in balloting (we have both here in AZ, and if the Hispanic population ever votes in anything close to the white voter participation percentage, they’ll need to do a large part of that by mail – just like suburban whites do – in order to avoid significant disenfranchisement).
The voter suppression attempts backfired in 2012 – I was in Ohio volunteering for the Obama campaign and IMAO the backlash to the suppression was roughly as important as the excellent OfA ground game in GOTV. It is my sense that this was much the same in other states.
The Democratic coalition is fractious, diffuse, and often just not as committed to electoral politics as our enemy (my example above of the low-percentage Hispanic voting in AZ is a case in point of that last, particularly compared with, say, whitebread Mormons who thus dominate here far above their actual numbers). That’s largely why we lost so badly in 2010.
I believe we have the numbers nationwide to dominate the right politically, but too often are less motivated than rightwingers.
I am thus cautiously optimistic that this hubristic attack on voting rights will – as in 2012 – stir many to actually get off their normally-indifferent asses and vote against fascism (or the neo-Confederates, or whatever pejorative you like).
We’ll see.
Another Halocene Human
@Kay: Kay, it basically (both the immigration law and voting rights) hit families that are blended–citizens, legal immigrants, and illegal immigrants.
And there are a lot of blended families.
Roger Moore
@gene108:
And people get really annoyed if anyone suggests helping them along.
burnspbesq
@patroclus:
I did, and there is nothing in it that supports that characterization. The opinion clearly contemplates that a formula that has a “logical relation to the present day,” slip op. at 21, would pass muster. You can argue about what such a formula might look like, and you might even be able to argue that it’s impossible to imagine such a formula, but the opinion says what it says, and your characterization of it is either inaccurate or dishonest.
patroclus
@burnspbesq: And you can argue that the Roberts 5 would okay a new formula all you want, and you might even argue that it is possible to imagine such a formula, but the opinion says what it says and your characterization of it is either inaccurate or dishonest.
dww44
@Kay: They weren’t taken in. They knew exactly what they were doing. It was as obvious as the skin on my forearms what the GOP here in Georgia were up to.
Kay
@dww44:
I don’t mean Republicans. I mean the way it was presented by media as a perfectly reasonable thing to announce, that lots of people were impersonating other people, to vote.
That should have drawn raised eyebrows. It didn’t. Instead the general approach was “prove you aren’t impersonating someone else when you vote!” WTF?
Fund believes not in “voter fraud” but in “voter impersonation fraud” because that’s the only kind of fraud ID cures. He just made it up.
rikyrah
they think somebody is playing with them.
nobody is playing with them.
4tehlulz
I hope this person dies of cancer:
trnc
“If he’s spinning, they think it’s damaging.”
You’re assuming John Fund would shut up for 5 seconds if there’s nothing to talk about.
dww44
@Kay: Thanks. I see.
This brings to mind something that happened in the 2004 election season. Walked into a board meeting for my arts non-profit and everyone was talking about Ohio voter fraud as uncovered/promulgated by then Secy of State Blackwell. When I countered, I was overwhelmed by all those in attendance that indeed there were documented cases of voter fraud in Ohio. The one most adament about that was at the time an Assistant DA in a neighboring county and in 2010 was elected DA in the county. I was shocked that he appeared to actually believe what he was saying.
Higgs Boson's Mate
It’s been years since I smoked dope. I rarely drink. Today, if I had a bag of buds and a bottle of Jack I’d be all over them.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@? Martin:
For now.
This same ‘shadow confederacy’ is essentially subsidized by the Federal government.
IMO, the only way out is for the Dems (or some not-yet-born political party) to grow a pair next time they control the Federal level, and aggressively de-fund the troublesome Red states. If they refuse to join the rest of us in the 21st century, then starve them out until they come around to our way of thinking.
Let’s just hope that the next generation of Dems have more steel in them than the current one. They’ll need it.
negative 1
Someone should bring up the idea of term limits for Supreme Court justices. You can only serve 16 (4 presidential cycles). Now would be an excellent time to do it. This is the most unpopular that the court has ever been, and two of them (Fat Tony and Alito) are openly indifferent to the country and everyone in it. It’s a good idea to limit their time, lest the next Liberty University graduate bless us with their presence for 60 years. Trust me the hit to their egos and the threat of the end of the eternal gravy train will mean that you will probably get a couple more palatable decisions for at least the next couple of years.
DFH no.6
@Jockey Full of Malbec:
The trouble with that approach is that most of the famous “blue state to red state transfer of federal funds” is money for poor people in those red states.
And we just increased that with Medicaid expansion into (many) of these red states under the ACA (like my home state of AZ).
“De-funding” of the red states, though it might sound like you’d be punching the bully back, would actually have the effect of mostly harming those we support and defend.
So, not going to – nor should it – happen.
PeakVT
@negative 1: 18-year terms would be better (so they get replaced individually). I happen to have such a proposal right here (4th page).
rikyrah
Rep. John Lewis: I Never Thought I’d Live To See Voting Rights Act Undone
http://youtu.be/p3EVbmfMY58
Tone in DC
Life can be VERY exciting. Sometimes, downright crazy.
It’s hot outside, and a long, sweltering summer of voter registration, lawsuits (ACLU, EFF, Planned Parenthood and many others, hopefully) and protests (can someone get OWS to march on the Supreme Court?) is on the way, I think.
I’m glad the prez is cool. He’s gonna have to be, in order to deal with these idiots.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@DFH no.6:
Poor white people who insist on voting Republican deserve what they get.
Sorry.
Like I said, steel.
Elie
@rikyrah:
Remember — that which does not kill you makes you stronger —
We have been through a lot in this country to get black people voting rights. The blood of true martyrs have been shed for this — Many have endured imprisonment, been attacked with dogs and fire hoses. We won those battles.
Though the battle now, is less dramatic, less overtly “dangerous”, it is as difficult in another way because we have to overcome our own disappointment that the sacrifice for the first was still not enough. Still. (I have to cry a bit here, because I remember my grandmother crying with disbelief and joy when the voting rights bill passed back in the 60’s.) I acknowledge the danger is not only for black voter registration now, but all brown people and immigrants — so our battles will also be different and more complex.
We must not despair or give up. We owe those people who sacrificed before, we owe ourselves and we owe our children. We do not have that luxury.
So lets note this and lets be about doing what we need to do. Our agenda as progressives will be clear, though I acknowledge the work may not always be. We can do it. There will be no Afrikaaner white America — no matter how much they want it.
Felonius Monk
John Fund himself is a voter fraud. This
manturd is a cancer on the American journalistic landscape.One day God shit in a shoe and someone called it John Fund!
Michael Bersin
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
A liberal Missouri state senator once quipped at a local Democratic club meeting, “Jay Nixon is the best republican governor we’ve ever had.” She got a lot of laughs and nodding heads.
The irony in Missouri is that Attorney General Chris Koster (D) (he switched from the republican party when he was a state senator) more often than not exhibits a greater willingness to support actual Democratic Party positions without diluting them in the trough of High Broderism. State Treasurer Clint Zweifel (D) blew it when he bought into the “Fix the Debt” bandwagon.
DFH no.6
@Jockey Full of Malbec:
Much better to get more (and better) Democrats elected to office at all levels around the country than to perform some sort of modern-day “Sherman’s March”, no matter how satisfying that latter might seem.
Plus, it’s never going to happen, this “de-funding of the red states” to get them with the program. Good thing, too.
Harsh and punitive measures that fall on the just and unjust alike are illiberal on their face.
We defeat our home-grown fascists/neo-Confederates at the ballot box and in the courts (very much including the court of public opinion, as is happening right now with gay rights, for instance).
It’s a long, hard, and tedious slog, with plenty of setbacks (like this currently fascist-leaning SCOTUS demolishing the VRA) along the way, but that’s how it’s done.
It also takes “steel”. More, even, than “getting medieval on their asses” I’d say.
Berial
I think he’s missing a lot of the points made here about the VRA, but Nate Silver suggests that Geography, Not Voting Rights Act, Accounts for Most Majority-Minority Districts.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@DFH no.6:
I disagree. The blockheads those Red staters are sending to Congress enact punishing measures that affect millions in the rest of America. What’s illiberal is allowing the wrecking crew to fuck over the rest of us because the lofty principles of some prevent us from knocking their teeth out out and then kicking them for mumbling.
Berial
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Mississippi has a population of around 3 million. 700,000 are on Medicaid, and another 300,000 would be added if they would let the ‘obamacare’ expansion do its stuff. That’s basically 1/3 of the population that is affected. Mississippi’s legislature was so dead set AGAINST ‘obamacare’ that they forgot to spin up the legislation for NORMAL Medicaid, and are now having to hold a special session to make sure they keep it working. 1 person in 3 in Mississippi CAN’T get the state to do things that will help them out. I can’t be sure but I’m betting the problem is basically that those 1 in 3 don’t vote NEARLY as often as the 1/3 that HATES the ideas(whatever they are) of the ‘democrat party’.
I can see why you’d write them off because they aren’t helping themselves but they DO need help.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Berial:
Sure they need help. To me, the quickest way for them to get it is to fuck over the place until they start electing either Democrats or reasonably sane Republicans.