MORE DETAILS HERE:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/feb/27/supreme-court-strike-down-voting-rights-act
EXCERPT:
Justice Elena Kagan argued that while the initial aim of ensuring African Americans could vote had been met, there is a “second generation” of discrimination under way with the insidious use of other devices, such as the drawing of electoral boundaries, voter identification laws and the placing of polling stations, which are intended to undermine the power of minority votes.
“Think about this state that you’re representing. It’s about a quarter black but Alabama has no black statewide elected officials,” she said.
Kagan said that while Rein objected to the formula used by Congress to decide which states should have their elections still fall under federal oversight, “by any formula Congress could devise, Alabama would be captured”.
One of the questions the justices are considering is whether it is unjust to impose controls on Shelby County and Alabama if other jurisdictions which may be similarly guilty are not also subject to the same constraints.
Sotomayor told Rein that he was trying to obscure continuing discrimination in Alabama.
“You’re asking us to do something, which is to ignore your record and look at everybody else’s,” she said.
Rein responded that the number of black members of the Alabama legislature is proportionate to African Americans living in the state.
The argument was at times framed in terms of dealing with a disease and whether the remedy should still be applied, or whether there is a new disease requiring a different remedy.
“It’s an old disease,” said Justice Stephen Breyer. “It’s gotten a lot better. A lot better. But it’s still there.”
Part of the disagreement between the justices centred on how Congress reached the decision to renew the Voting Rights Act. Sotomayor noted that Congress compiled a long record of recent measures by the affected states that discriminated against minority voters at elections.
“Think about this state that you’re representing. It’s about a quarter black but Alabama has no black statewide elected officials,” she said.”
Yes, let’s just choose officials on the basis of their color. Surely that’s constitutional (sarc/off)
I wouldn’t care if all the officials of my state (not Alabama) were all Asian or South Pacific Islanders, so long as they were honest and the most competent. I want good government—not government
where people vote for others on the basis of their skin color.
Vote on the basis of the merit of the individual.
Do it the other way, and you get what Birmingham is today...corrupt, but unable to do anything about it.
Kagan is right, but the discrimination is occuring in Democrat controlled urban areas.
We need to reject the entire premise that race exists and that only someone of your same race can effectively represent you.
Does Obama’s race disenfranchise Asians and Latinos?
Hey Kagan...were minorities disenfanchised in their communities when the turnout was 104% and every vote was for President Urkle?