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Supreme Court to hear Voters Right Bill case

If you want to be pissed at someone, be pissed at congress not the Supreme Court. The court did its job, it interrupted the law and ruled accordingly. It is up to congress to change the rules for them to fit modern day, not the court.
 
Well under the formula of the VRA neither Florida nor Ohio were covered states, so Section 4 and 5 of the VRA doesn't apply to them. Neither was Pennsylvania, another state you've consistently brought up as putting hurdles in the way.

If you updated the formula maybe these states would be covered due to the actions of their legislators. It seems to me you're arguing for an updated formula RJ.
 
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RJKarl said:
It is WORSE today than it was in 2006. State after state tried to take people's votes away.

State after covered state made it oppressive for those wanted to vote by cutting back hours, cutting the number of days and places to vote.

If ANYTHING the Supreme court should have admonished states like Florida, Texas, Alabama, Ohio and others for putting extra hurdles to keep from voting.

They should have said there might have been a reason to revisit the VRA but the actions of many states in 2012 proved it needed to remain in tact.
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RJ you seem to lack any perspective on this issue. You seem to think that any changes other than extending polling hours and locations is an attempt to supress votes. I do not see the need for voter ID laws but neither do I oppose them. It seems reasonable to want to make sure that the person casting the vote is who they claim to be but I do not think we have a rampant voter impersonation problem. I do think that voting irregularities occur each election as a poll watcher in the 1980s I saw some pretty questionable things occuring in polling places were one party had almost complete control but it did not swing an election.
 
RJKarl said:
The Supreme Court just legalized voter suppression by white GOP leaders. If we think 2012 was outrageous, wait until you see what happens next.
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That actually couldn't be more false or inflammatory. They didn't "legalize" voter suppression; that's still very illegal.

All that's changed is the "before-the-fact" measure of making jurisdictions get approval from the DoJ for every change to their laws. Jurisdictions can still be sued for enacting laws that "suppress the vote" under the VRA.
 
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Based on Facebook it is amazing how many people I know that went to law school that have such a tenuous grasp on Constitutional Law.
 
ThinkingWithMyDeac said:
If you want to be pissed at someone, be pissed at congress not the Supreme Court. The court did its job, it interrupted the law and ruled accordingly. It is up to congress to change the rules for them to fit modern day, not the court.
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Excellent statement.
 
From an article from Richard Pildes:

"Voting-rights advocates should reflect seriously about whether the Section 4/5 model from 1965 is effectively adapted to today’s circumstances or whether a different model of voting-rights protection – one that does not try to predict in advance the areas of the country in which inappropriate voting-rights barriers might arise, and which does not require proof of racial discrimination but protects the right to vote robustly regardless of where those barriers might emerge and which voters are wrongly denied access – would be more powerful in eliminating the remaining barriers to full political participation."
 
ThinkingWithMyDeac said:
If you want to be pissed at someone, be pissed at congress not the Supreme Court. The court did its job, it interrupted the law and ruled accordingly. It is up to congress to change the rules for them to fit modern day, not the court.
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Pos rep. While I don't love the effects of the decision, I think it was the right decision and now Congress needs to do its damn job.
 
TexasDeac10 said:
That actually couldn't be more false or inflammatory. They didn't "legalize" voter suppression; that's still very illegal.

All that's changed is the "before-the-fact" measure of making jurisdictions get approval from the DoJ for every change to their laws. Jurisdictions can still be sued for enacting laws that "suppress the vote" under the VRA.
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Without that laws would have been put in at the last minute to suppress the vote in 2012.

Many states tried but were stopped.
 
RJKarl said:
Without that laws would have been put in at the last minute to suppress the vote in 2012.

Many states tried but were stopped.
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Do you have articles for this? There are only like 9 states covered by Section 4 and 5 of the VRA, there couldn't have been that many states that were pre-empted.
 
From the ruling:

Census Bureau data indicate that African-American voter turnout has come to exceed white voter turnout in five of the six States originally covered by Section 5. At the same time, voting discrimination still exists; no one doubts that. The question is whether the Act’s extraordinary measures, including its disparate treatment of the States, continue to satisfy constitutional requirements. As we put it a short time ago, “the Act imposes current burdens and must be justified by current needs.”
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The message to Congress is clear - if you feel that is still necessary to impose federal power on states in order to correct the "insidious and pervasive evil" of racism, don't rely on obsolete, 40-year-old data to justify your actions.
 
bobknightfan said:
...the Republican Party controls the House with its gerrymandered districting
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Think that's a Republican thing? :) Let me introduce you to the glory of our state Democrats, the NC 12th Congressional district -- 160 miles long and in some places no wider than 200 feet. Easily found when you search for "most gerrymandered districts".

ke7vfQ5.gif
 
Cigar-puffing white guys, sitting in power in many Alabama courthouses, came all over themselves after this ruling. Where I live, racism is still the norm whether it be overt or de facto.
 
Pilgrim said:
Think that's a Republican thing? :) Let me introduce you to the glory of our state Democrats, the NC 12th Congressional district -- 160 miles long and in some places no wider than 200 feet. Easily found when you search for "most gerrymandered districts".

ke7vfQ5.gif
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This bothers me any time that it is brought up. While some districts look funny, the Democratic drawn districts favored Democrats by an average of 0.3 seats in the 2002-2010 elections.

In the 2012 election, Republican drawn districts favored Republicans by 3 seats. Even though Republicans won less than half of the vote, they control 9 out of 13 seats, or 69.2%.

Don't complain about Democratic gerrymandering in North Carolina.
 
If only there was a time after the 2009 decision warning that a new formula was needed when democrats controlled the house, senate and presidency!
 
meandmyuncleDeac said:
Cigar-puffing white guys, sitting in power in many Alabama courthouses, came all over themselves after this ruling. Where I live, racism is still the norm whether it be overt or de facto.
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I think it's fair to acknowledge that and then also realize that there are more successful Section 2 claims per capita in, say, Wyoming than in Georgia.

The thrust of the decision isn't that voting rights protection is unnecessary. It's that the protections prescribed are extreme measures in the context of our federal government and should be calibrated accordingly.
 
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