Posted on 06/25/2013 10:49:52 AM PDT by jazusamo
The Supreme Court has decided Shelby v. Holder. It is one of the most important decisions in decades.
Now, federal preclearance of state election procedures seems to be forever dead and buried. While some Congressional Republicans had vowed to enact new legislation to “fix” any coverage formula deemed unconstitutional, the Court opinion today offers almost no room to do so. They would have to decide what’s more important: the Republican Party, or the Constitution?
Section 5 required states to obtain preclearance approval for any change involving elections — any change, even moving a polling place 20 feet. Only 15 states were covered by Section 5, including hotbeds of Jim Crow like Michigan, New York, and Alaska.
Over the years, the Justice Department unit enforcing Section 5 has had hundreds of thousands of dollars in court sanctions imposed against it for abusing the Section 5 process. They even demanded that Alabama submit felon DNA testing to the Justice Department for approval, a law which had nothing to do with elections.
Now, Voter ID laws in Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi are in effect after a delay of years. Section 5 is dead and gone, and Congressional Republicans, no matter how much racialist false witness is lobbed at them, simply have no ability to resurrect the law. Will the GOP defend itself against the already-commenced false racial attacks following the decision, or will they cave?
This Court decision restores the original post-15th Amendment balance to the Constitution. The opinion quoted the Tenth Amendment, and the Court asserted the core function of our federal system — to preserve liberty:
But the federal balance “is not just an end in itself: Rather, federalism secures to citizens the liberties that derive from the diffusion of sovereign power.”
In 2006, Congressional Republicans hastily approved — and President Bush signed — a reauthorization of Section 5 that made the law even more burdensome. Those new burdens were not lost on the Court today:
Those extraordinary and unprecedented features were reauthorized — as if nothing had changed. In fact, the Act’s unusual remedies have grown even stronger. When Congress reauthorized the Act in 2006, it did so for another 25 years on top of the previous 40 — a far cry from the initial five-year period.
The 2006 reauthorization was a shady deal between Republicans and the racialist left: Republicans thought it would buy them peace and safely racially gerrymandered seats. Today, the Court repeatedly cited the 2006 deal as a reason to strike down the law. Some Congressional Republicans have vowed to “fix” the coverage formula after any Supreme Court decision. Among them are Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WS):
When asked if Republicans have the political will to act if the VRA is struck down, Sensenbrenner told Salon: “I’m gonna make them fix it.”
There’s only one problem with his promise: the Supreme Court left almost no room to “fix” anything. Only in “exceptional circumstances” may the federal government have power to preclear state election law changes. “Exceptional circumstances” is a term pulled from the jurisprudence to describe conditions blacks faced in 1964.
Anyone with any sense knows those days are gone.
Congressional Republicans should ignore the inevitable slurs from the racialist Left and find better things to do besides “fix” a law that the Court has found to be mostly unfixable and which has upset the Constitutional order for the last couple of decades.
Sensenbrenner told Salon: “I’m gonna make them fix it.”
Maybe some of you folks in Wisconsin should tell ole Jim to blow it out his a$$!
Odd. I thought this was a blow to the democrats.
It is but I read this as Republicans backed extending Section 5 in 2006.
Well that didn’t take long.
Minn. state Rep. Ryan Winkler calls Clarence Thomas an Uncle Tom, claims he didn’t know it was offensive
The best comment I’ve heard so far on this, is:
“So, after all these years, the Republicans finally won all the racist Democrat states, so they’ve ended Reconstruction.”
W and the rest of the ruling class loves Big Government.
Yes, they did. It was a cop out that maintained and perpetuated the status quo for another 25 years. Easier/safer to just extend the thing than to to change (let alone eliminate) it.
[sincerity, average] Aw, poor Eric “the Red” Holder! I’ll bet he’s so disappointed! [/sincerity]
What an idiot. LOL!
I don’t think that people understand just why the Republicans are so upset with this ruling. It has to do with apportionment of congressional districts in those states. The D’s and R’s in Washington carved out nice little safe seats for all their members. Now the Supreme’s have upset their plans and we might actually see competitive races for congress in those states. That means money has to be spent that could have been spent on something else (like races on “free” States). Politicians don’t like to give up control, doesn’t matter if they are D’s or R’s which is why I hate them both as they are simply two sides of the same coin.
That sounds like a reasonable explanation to me, both parties want that control for their lifetime of feeding at the trough.
The Voting Rights Act was another example of the law of unintended consquences.
It did point out the viciousness of the left. Someone recently said, "Scratch a liberal and find a fascist".
I haven't seen any numbers but my bet is that the districts and states with low minority participation are indigo-blue states today. Just change the law to base the formula to select areas needing supervision forward to the 2012 election -- and I betcha you'll hear sounds from the libs that you haven't heard since Grandpa went into the barn to try out his new elastricator.
They were terrified that if they didn't pass it they were going to be pilloried as racists by the 'rats and their minions in the MSA, and that then Nancy Pelosi would become Speaker, and ...
Yep, they didn’t want to be branded as racists and it didn’t work out well at all.
They did.
And president Bush signed it.
FReepmail me to subscribe to or unsubscribe from the SCOTUS ping list.
You didn’t ping me to a J. Christian Adams analysis of a SCOTUS decision? Why ya wanna do me like dat?
;p
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