Supreme Court strikes down a provision of the Voting Rights Act


jsupop33

jsupop33

Loyalty & Respect
The Supreme Court Tuesday struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act, ruling unconstitutional a provision of the landmark civil rights legislation used to promote the political power of minority voters across large swaths of the southern United States for nearly four decades.

In a 5-4 ruling that split the court along ideological lines, the court freed some or all of 15 states from the requirement that all changes to voting laws, procedures and even polling place locations get advance approval from the Justice Department or a panel of federal judges.

The court's conservative majority said when Congress reauthorized the law in 2006 it did not have sufficient basis to re-adopt the formula set decades earlier.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-ruling-93324.html?hp=t1_3
 
Oh well. Folks are happy with it. The first thing they are gonna say is "Well Pookie and Ray Ray don't vote anyway". As long as we came blame the hood it is all good. Ain't that right people?
 



Basically what I'm reading from this case is the Supreme Court is saying Congress "can enact a new statute to determine who should be covered by it" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_County_v._Holder) and until they do that Sections 4 & 5 of the Voting Rights Acts have no effect/power.

I need to get my thoughts together on this but these are the first ones to pop in my head:
1. That's fugged up

2. I just keep going back to the discussions we had on here prior to the election when States were trying to require ID's for people to vote, and Black folks were defending those changes. Not I, of course. :lol: But this is the same thing. Those black folks (on TSPN) essentially should agree to this Supreme Court ruling right? Their argument was that b/c times have changed and everyone can get an ID then there's no reason why folks can't show an ID to vote. Therefore, times have changed and the formula used in Section 4 of the VRA doesn't make sense TODAY and therefore Section 5 should not be enforecable until Congress modifies the formula so that it works with today's times.

:confused:
 
I thought this topic was oh so important...where you at Pops?!

Anyhoo...I heard on TJMS this morning that (supposedly) the AG's for Texas and NC tweeted yesterday that folks will need ID's to vote.
 
Our AG here in Texas spends more time trying to sue Washington than anything. I have no idea what else he does other than trying to get Democrats out of office. The gerrymandering redistricting plan he is pushing (blocked by DOJ last year) will cut the number of mostly minority districts in Texas in half.
 
Interesting read...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-voting-20130626,0,2714705.story

In the summer of 1964, Ku Klux Klan members murdered three men who were working to register African-American voters in Mississippi. A year later, on what came to be known as "Bloody Sunday," police in Selma, Ala., beat and tear gassed hundreds of marchers demanding voting rights for African-Americans.

In 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act to attack the outrageous ways in which white officials in the South stifled black voter registration.

That same year, only 6.7 percent of registered voters in Mississippi were black, according to census data. Last year, black voter registration reached 90 percent, exceeding white registration in Mississippi. Today, Selma has a black mayor and so does Philadelphia, Miss., long haunted by the infamous murders of those three civil rights workers during "Freedom Summer."

The Voting Rights Act was renewed in 2006 with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress and the signature of President George W. Bush. But constitutional experts warned at the time that that effort was on shaky legal ground because Congress made no effort to use current information to justify the continued restrictions on the nine states.

That's exactly what the court majority argued in the Tuesday decision.

The court said Congress could come up with a new formula to single out states "on a basis that makes sense in light of current conditions. It cannot rely simply on the past." No justification based on current facts was established to subject the nine states to a higher standard than the rest of the country.

Penalizing those states for practices that occurred more than half a century ago was "irrational," the court majority said. It placed those states under pre-emptive scrutiny they could not escape no matter how much they changed.

********************

What's sad...is Congress is not about to get off its ass to fix this mess. :smh:
 
Pops sold out a long time ago. Don't let him fool you. Good dude, just well you know sold out. :gone:
 
After experiencing the tactics that many states used to attempt to suppress voting in the 2012 elections, I not only believe the Supreme Court made a terrible decision but also believe the provision should have been expanded to cover more states.
 
southsuburbs said:
Interesting read...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-voting-20130626,0,2714705.story

In the summer of 1964, Ku Klux Klan members murdered three men who were working to register African-American voters in Mississippi. A year later, on what came to be known as "Bloody Sunday," police in Selma, Ala., beat and tear gassed hundreds of marchers demanding voting rights for African-Americans.

In 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act to attack the outrageous ways in which white officials in the South stifled black voter registration.

That same year, only 6.7 percent of registered voters in Mississippi were black, according to census data. Last year, black voter registration reached 90 percent, exceeding white registration in Mississippi. Today, Selma has a black mayor and so does Philadelphia, Miss., long haunted by the infamous murders of those three civil rights workers during "Freedom Summer."

The Voting Rights Act was renewed in 2006 with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress and the signature of President George W. Bush. But constitutional experts warned at the time that that effort was on shaky legal ground because Congress made no effort to use current information to justify the continued restrictions on the nine states.

That's exactly what the court majority argued in the Tuesday decision.

The court said Congress could come up with a new formula to single out states "on a basis that makes sense in light of current conditions. It cannot rely simply on the past." No justification based on current facts was established to subject the nine states to a higher standard than the rest of the country.

Penalizing those states for practices that occurred more than half a century ago was "irrational," the court majority said. It placed those states under pre-emptive scrutiny they could not escape no matter how much they changed.

********************

What's sad...is Congress is not about to get off its ass to fix this mess. :smh:
Click to expand...

A lot of those states are southern states which are republican run.
 
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I am not surprised at the ruling. Its obvious, this political court does not give a rats azz about what they unleash on this country. Its obvious from all of the laws that the reps have passed to discourage voting, that the law needed to stay in place.
 
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